We've been warned, and now the chips have fallen. I am disappointed by such results, and I still hope to read about better benchmarks in the near future, but the fact is, I've already got a Core 2 Quad 6600.
AMD did a splendid job with the XP family, but all this just goes to show that a midget can only rock a gorilla's cage for so long before getting smacked back.
AMD got its chance, played a while in the limelight, and is now back to its rightful place : second. It can actually thank Intel for having coasted on the wings of success for too long.
This is exactly why AMD must survive - to provide a kick in the pants to Intel every now and then.
Obviously, we'll all have to wait for the next kick for some more time.

Not so long ago I have decided NOT to buy an AMD system due to performance, uhm... INCOSISTENCIES...but what system am I running now? (the new shiny one) and AMD X2 6400 Black Edition. 
And considering the fact that Intel can kick this CPUs butt all the way to Nebraska you have to ask me, a serious computer enthusiast, why did I choose it.

Simply put, price vs performance. AMD CPUs are now so cheap that I could get several top AMD CPUs for the price of Intel single top CPU.

So your forgot to mention that in your review, AMD is back to best performance per $. And you know what, thats very very competitive.

After reading this comparison review I can't see a single reason for someone to make a switch to the Phenom platform. 

As a matter of fact, I predict a lot of people who bought into the Phenom hype and were waiting for that processor will be severely disappointed and probably switch to Intel's platform.

It is incredible that AMD could release a processor that is so far behind that they can't even compete with Intel's year old quad-core parts.

AMD is going to have trouble keeping out of bankruptcy.

I am truly sad for AMD. How did it come to this? I have used AMD now for the last 5 years, and sadly I will be building an Intel setup for my next machine. :(

You should try to use the overdrive tool.
There is probably only one core that is holding you back at 2.88Ghz while you can put the others at 3Ghz.

Why does it appear as if the author tried to overclock all the cores at once, instead of using AMD's overclocking tool that allowed for seperate clocks on each core?

I'd like to have seen an overclocking run with 1.4 or 1.45 volts.

It'll be one hell of an upgrade from an Athlon X2, though.

Xbit Labs got additional clock-speed out of their chip by adjusting a voltage that hadn't been separately tuned in previous CPUs.

l'Inq here:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd-phenom_9.html#sect0

Happy new year