Deneb's comparative performance against the Core i7-965 and Core i7-920, however, is rather troubling. Even at 4.2GHz and with an IMC running at 2.53GHz (1120MHz memory clock), Deneb doesn't always outperform Intel's lower-end, 2.67GHz solution, much less the top-end i7-965. It's true that the i7-965 is a $1,000 part today, but a Deneb clocked at the rates we tested (if such a thing existed for the commercial market) would run at least $1K as well. Our data indicates that AMD has a long-term problem it's not going to be able to solve with clockspeed. The company's next 45nm refresh will have to include architectural improvements that result in significantly higher performance clock-for-clock—bolting more L3 cache on the core isn't going to be the magic answer. Socket AM3 arrives soon with support for DDR3-1300, but that's no silver bullet, either—desktop applications tend to be latency-sensitive, not bandwidth-limited. Meanwhile, both CPU manufacturers have reportedly reduced the rate at which they intend to push customers towards DDR3 platforms thanks to the current economic environment.

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