[sswilson]

If they want to call it a core cluster then fine, that works for me, just don't call each individual unit a core unless it has all the resources it needs to act independantly. The main problem (IMO) with BD's release was that what they were calling an 8 core unit could barely hold it's own against their own previous hexacores. I also don't see how intel's naming convention isn't honest about the number of cores... it's clearly stated that hyperthreading is not a full fledged core and listed as 4 cores / 8 threads.

Now, OTOH, if (and I don't see why they shouldn't be able to demonstrate this) AMD processors can perform more simultaneous "low/medium usage" threads without a performance penalty then quite frankly there's probably a strong market for that as most folks aren't like us enthusiasts and they aren't running their gear @ 100%. Maybe we need to rethink how we benchmark, or at the very least attempt to come up with a method of testing general "snappiness" under medium loads rather than only looking at max loads.