AMD and Intel are mainly fighting over market share right now. Profit of course, but comes second. Intel wasn't losing money when Opteron was hitting hard. They were losing market share. Right before the 'Upcoming Conroe Sneak Preview', Intel's retail share dropped to 50%, and AMD was gaining towards 30% of server market. With the unprecedented paper launch in Intel history, they had to put out the Opteron fire so they won't lose any more market share.
Likewise, AMD must be losing money on many chips they're selling right now. A dual-core for $70? I can't think of any cheaper PC part than CPU today. (maybe a HSF.. hell even that's close with most high-end HSF costing $50) But AMD has no choice. People don't like to change platform. Switching video cards, adding memory, or upgrading CPU aren't too difficult task for IT managers. But stripping the whole thing out and changing motherboard et al. is a lot more daunting and intimidating. The whole '4x4' and "you can upgrade to Barcelona when it arrives' is on the same line. It's all about 'Platformization' and that's the battlefront where AMD is desparately trying to defend. It will be fierce till the end of year because Intel will once again push their platform towards DDR3 and for their 45nm chips. Why is Intel hurrying with 45nm chips when they're comfortably winning position in foreseeable future? Answer: Because they want to tie people up on their platform without giving any chance to Barcelona.
I have to admit that AMD has been much more user-friendly (be it their intention or not) than Intel as far as motherboard support is concerned. People blame AMD for cutting Socket 939 off, but is there anyone who didn't buy a new motherboard (and memory) with her/his Conroe purchase? And how long do you think your board will be supported with Intel's new CPUs? If I had to guess, what we have now would be just about it. Before moving to 45nm, if we're lucky we'll see 3.2~3.3GHz 65nm dual/quad-core parts from Intel. (which we can do on our own right now) After that, there is no upgrade path. You'll need a new motherboard (and possibly new memory, in the case of X38) for 45nm parts. And I didn't even start talking about Nehalem which comes a year later.
Edit: spelling and grammar