The fact is, AMD can't directly compete with Intel right now. Just look at how much profit the two companies make. So they did the smart thing, instead of just following the same path, trying to just make strong powerful cores, they instead went for a completely different architecture. Before, the only difference between the two companies really was price/performance. Intel had the speed crown, AMD had the price. But by creating CPUs which work in a completely different way, they have created a markable difference. Sure, the architecture didn't start off as strong as anyone would have liked, but their module/core theme has really differentiated them from intel, and while Intel still have the fastest CPUs, there's more reasons to pick AMD cpus, especially in the future once they are performing a little better.