Do you remember the processor market situations before release of Core 2 Duo. AMD was rocking Pentium 4 and Pentium D. Intel had to do something. And then, in July 2006, Intel unleashed Core 2 Duo. Conroes swept AMD's market and became top processors. Even still ahead of AMD, Intel is happy.
But I am worried about Core 2 Quad, their four core offering. This step seems like a repeated mistake to me. Remember Pentium D? It was made by integrating two Pentium 4 processors. It did not perform well and AMD Athalon went ahead.
Look at present scenario, Core 2 Quad is a Core 2 Duo + Core 2 Duo solution. And at time, Intel was focused on Gigahertz race. This time, their 80 core plan gives a hint of core race. That time, AMD's true dual cores did the job and this time, it can be Barcelona ( AMD's true 4 core structure ) doing the same job.
The situations seem worrying for Intel. Can they unleash something like 8 core before Barcelona beats them? Only time can tell.
