Core count, IPC, and clockspeed...all are figures of performance merit which on their own are meaningless when discussed in the absence of specifying the other two.
Add in factors of cost and power-consumption and the discussion loses even more relevance unless those two figures of merit are specified as well.
The issue with bulldozer is not core-count, or power consumption, or IPC...it is all of the above when combined into a singular product.
But that is where the great equalizer enters into the equation - price.
I include TCO when computing price though, for family and friends when it comes to recommending gear, and infortunately AMD does not. So while AMD does price their processors to be competitive with Intel on the shelf at Fry's, they don't price them to be competitive once you've factored in your TCO for electricity bills over the course of say 3-4 yrs that an individual will probably have the system.
But that is just me, and thankfully for AMD's sake they can count on most consumers not being like me, so pricing themselves to be competitive with Intel on the shelf is a wise move on their part, same as marketing their chips as "real" 8-cores and so on.
Can you blame them for trying? What kind of lame-ass company doesn't leverage their marketing division to highlight their strong points and minimize their weak points?