Assuming AMD's Phenom II roll-out goes well into 2009 with AM3 sockets and higher speed bins towards mid-year, the firm should at least be able to engage in a decent price/performance battle with the remaining Core 2 and mainstream Core i7 CPUs from Intel. Unless AMD can go beyond 3.5GHz quickly, it won't have that equalisation chance in the high-end enthusiast PC segment - Intel wins there. On the other hand, the abovementioned 'crisis' is expected to hit that high-priced market the hardest in 2009. We'd like to see a much more affordable 3.6++ GHz Westmere Core i7 before December next year.