Why am I up this late? Well, it's a long story that I don't care to tell.
Here's what I have gotten out of this thread so far: a lot of arguing over not too much.
Anyways, here's my take on this: there's a lot of complaining over benchmarks and one platform being handicapped versus another, and on an on...
SSXeon5 earlier wanted to know why everyone was saying how this was so good for AMD, seeing as they released a new revision of CPUs which are only now as fast as the current best offering from Intel, or perhaps not quite as good if "not held back," or perhaps slightly better. The point is this: the reason AMD is getting so much props and it *seems* like everyone is jumping on their bandwagon is because what seemed like a dead revision (the Thoroughbred Athlon) is actually quite vital with this new revision, and most importantly AMD is still in the top-of-the-line ballgame. Maybe they aren't the "absolute" fastest, but they're right back up there again. This is great for competition (as we all know), and keeps our CPU prices low.
It's great to stuff like "I have a P4. It is the FASTEST. You have no argument that can beat me, especially with XXXXX on the horizon to really seal the deal", but with AMD keeping pace it's better for all of us in the long run (heck even the short term).
So basically to close this off, this thread began with the petty claim that AMD isn't #1 (no disrespect intended SSXeon), and the point I'm trying to drive home is that it doesn't matter if they're not "truly" #1. AMD may not have the fastest CPU in all of the benchmarks, or even more than 50% of them, but they're right at the top again. From an objective viewpoint, the 2600+ and 2.53 GHz are very close in performance; neck and neck even. Intel has a 2.8 GHz CPU coming out very soon; so what. AMD is still breathing, their future line of CPU's are still coming (as are Intel's) and there's still competition left in the CPU market.