"The best example is the i5 750. The 2.66 Mhz [sic] stock clock is artificially low"

You couldn't be more right. I have mine overclocked to 3.0Ghz with the stock Intel fan and didn't need to do any voltage increases and it had no noticeable increase in temp. With the turbo function, it flies when it needs to. But to be honest I almost never see any of the cores max out, even when I'm beating on it. The hard disk is still the obvious bottleneck in modern computing and will continue to be until SSD prices become more reasonable.

Maybe because they don't have to pay so much for cleanup.... India is not being looked at by the world as the worst polluter, China is... hrmm maybe Intel is trying to save some money (and gouge consumers more) by going to a country with more lax environmental rules cough cough India cough....

The top-of-the-midrange i5 680 sells for more than the top-of-the-line Phenom II X4 965 BE.

Instead of playing dirty tricks to limit AMD's market share, or trying to compete on price, Intel seems to have decided to use its dominant market share to maintain premium pricing.

No wonder that Intel is posting record profits while AMD has just moved into the black.

Another Intel strategy seems to hold back on performance. The best example is the i5 750. The 2.66 Mhz stock clock is artificially low, leaving room for Intel to issue a 760 and 770 version, and more (2.8, 2.93, 3,0...) as soon as AMD comes too close.

Imagine if Intel was alone...

Usually for single user one fast core is better than four slower cores, because many programs and computing problems are sequential in nature and don't parallelize well.
Add another core so that OS doesn't choke and you have a winner.

Not everyone is running web server.

Who in their right mind would pay that much for a dual-core processor? You can get a quad-core i5 and overclock it for $199.

You can get an AMD Quad Core for $85 and overclock that.

Intel must be joking.

BIG Money, yet BIG Profit might be in small stuff. Sure people can crack X3 to X4, with Ease. now time is waning for both ddr2 & ddr3 controllers on cpu,Todays ddr3 just outperforms last years models, Mains awaiting O/C. yet in Value package, nearly unbeatable Semperon at mere $30 wth Fan, Can Cook ?ALL others, Goose or No Goose.

WEll almost cook, Tender & well done. AMD only shortfall in X6 is 4 memory slots, when Intel has 6 slots for UD7 models. Asus coming up from behind, & shurely good race, yet thats BIG Money. for under fin, cpu, fan, stick 'o mem & main is hard retail fact. FITS RIGHT in.

drashek

that'll be the Presler extreme Pentium Extreme Edition 965

In MHz after the X5272?

You've got to be shittin' me!