Maybe I have missed something, but isn't the valid comparison what I can buy TODAY versus the alternatives I can buy TODAY.
I can't buy vaporware, or engineering samples, of future roadmaps. I get to buy actual retail product released for mass consumption.
Today it's Athlon x2 versus Core2Duo and/or Clovertown versus Opteron.
The fact Opteron is 4 years old versus Clovertown being 1 year old is, frankly, utterly irrelevant to me. CPUs, unlike Scotch Whisky, don't improve with age.
6 months from now, if Barcelona is faster than Clovertown, the fact it's newer is equally beside the point.
Regarding Intel saying it should be Penryn versus Barcelona, if they are both for sale at the same point in time, I agree, if they don't co-exist in time/space, then I don't agree.
A football game is played between the two teams as the exist TODAY, and the rules don't change if you have all rookies or all vetaerns in the line up.
Could you imagine a coach in the post game media interviews saying "Well we lost by 14 points, but next year we have 3 really high draft picks, so this result doesn't count" ??? - He would, correctly, be laughed out of the joint.
<<shakes head>>
I compare what I can buy today versus the other stuff I can buy today.
The rest is fluff that really matters very little.
I hope Barcelona kicks butt, and I hope Penryn kicks back even harder. It makes the stuff I can actually buy all the more affordable.