[Bungleau]

Guys, guys, guys... it's all marketing.

What Athlon claims (and has tested) is that with their chip, even though it's slower, you can get as much work done as the faster speed Intel chip. So even though it's a 2.4Ghz chip, it performs like a 3.0 Ghz chip (or whatever the numbers are). Is that lying? Or is that measuring what you're really interested in, the amount of work it can do (or how effectively it can play a game)?

Would you rather pay $400 for a 3Ghz chip, or $250 for a 2.4Ghz chip that does as much as the 3Ghz chip does? That's the difference -- price versus performance. And performance is not how fast the chip is, but how fast it can do work.

Once you know the rest of the story, it's not quite so crystal clear.