AMD just released an 8-core, 4.0 GHz processor that keeps up somewhat better on single-threaded tasks (while matching or beating a Core i7 on multithreading!), for only $200. http://www.anandtech.com/show/6396/the-vishera-review-amd-fx... "Through frequency and core level improvements, AMD was able to deliver a bit more than the 10 - 15% performance increased [it] promised... Thankfully, Vishera does close the gap by a decent amount and if AMD extends those gains it is on an intercept course with Intel. The bad news is, that intercept wouldn't be in 2013... Steamroller [will be] far more focused on increasing IPC, however without a new process node it'll be difficult to demonstrate another gain in frequency like we see today with Vishera. I suspect the real chance for AMD to approach parity in many of these workloads will be with its 20nm architecture, perhaps based on Excavator in 2014."
Sadly, though, the previous page in that same review shows that the power consumption gap remains wide.
With desktop PCs continuing to lose popularity, and small form factors being popular with the desktops that are selling, that's going to be a much bigger problem for AMD going forward than their single-thread performance is.
