MS gave cash to AMD?
I generally agree with most who state that at best, it will probably fall short of the 2600K on anything requiring 4 cores or less and on anything requiring 5 to 8, it will meet or exceed it. Some guys in the CPU forum are claiming that BD isn't really 8 cores but is 8 threads (more like HT than truly having 8 cores) and its heavily multithreaded performance may come in even below the 2600K's. I don't know if that's true or not (I've not read enough about the architectures to know), but I have to believe that AMD's constant delays don't paint a pretty picture.
I don't know their motivations.
don't care til it is really out and tested in the wild. Vapourware has always existed.