Intel sure has made a phenomenal come back since the Pentium 4 (the infamous space heater of a processor). AMD still has a sizable market share, with
Steam user surveys showing still a strong turnout of AMDs. Also AMD has a 12 core proc in the works (
read here) and they should be cranking out on
45 nm soon (late this year). They are trying their best to even the gap.
it dismays me that they're repackaging defective Quad Core Procs as three core parts - 7beauties
This is done because manufacturing at even the 65nm level most of your costs come from the initial construction of the fab and then defective chips. Allowing one of the 4 chips to be defective, but telling people, will cut AMDs costs (and thus yours) significantly, it's not a bad move. It basically allows one mistake on a chip where even a few atoms out of place will ruin it. Helps out.