Klaus, higher performance CPUs dissipate higher amounts of power. Now that AMD has SOI working, they get a temporary advantage, but it still does not solve anything. They will still need more transistors to go faster, that's a simple fact.
If AMD can demonstrate fundamentally lower cost platforms with Athlon 64, and the server chip that's remarked as a desktop chip and sold at a lower price, Athlon 64-FX, then they will have an advantage. However, I've already argued that SOI will continue to add cost to AMD's CPU manufacturing, while Intel will move ahead to 300mm wafers and a die that's 60% of the size.
On the performance front, Intel has some pretty handy answers to AMD's newest cores. Following AMD's lead for a change, they have a remarked their server chip and called it Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, which will probably give Athlon 64-FX a run for its money. Meanwhile, Intel was smart enough (business wise) to have socket 478 for the desktop and socket 603 for servers, so that the new Pentium 4EE won't arbitrage into the server space and take away sales of Xeon MP. AMD has a much larger problem preventing cost conscious buyers from buying Athlon 64-FX instead of Opteron 1xx.
I agree the next year is shaping up to be pretty interesting. I've seen the roller coaster this year for AMD, from going from impending bankruptcy due to a lack of execution, to being on top of the world with outstanding Opteron performance. Now, the scales seem to have settled, and AMD/Intel are back at performance and cost parity. Both have advantages and disadvantages, but it will be interesting to see if it is enough for AMD to stay out of the doldrums.
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