Yeah I enjoy having my 4x2 cores and all with running 2-3 high CPU usage apps at once, but there is a limit toh ow much I can personally fill all cores.
I've been a bit dissapointed in the "it's all about cores" mentality of both AMD and Intel in the last few years with ZERO increase in clock speed. A 100 core processor at 3.4 gig is the same exact speed as a 1 core with 99% of all apps. :/
Well.. Since the NetBurst days, the focus has shifted to IPC
(Instructions Per Clock) rather than raw clock speed because there are physical limits to how fast/hot you can reliably make a piece of silicon. Especially since, as you shrink the process, issues centered around current leakage become more and more severe and directly conflict with the ability to increase voltage as a (partial) means to force more clock speed. Basically: It's difficult enough when you have 130nm traces... Now we're down to 32nm having to do the same job.
And so we get to this notion that 'Wider Is Better', and we have pipelines optimised to do more work in the same time period.
And quite honestly, merely looking at the clock speed number is very much over simplistic. Let's compare a Q6700 to an i7 920: At 2.6GHz, they're both the same clock speed. But
(using the weighted average published at Tom's Hardware) the I7 920 is a whopping 76% better. And it's because the i7 architecture is that much more efficient than the old Q. It does more work at the same "speed".
Tom's Hardware - Benchmark 3DMark Vantage 1.0.2 CPU
Charts, benchmarks 2009 Desktop CPU Charts (Update 1), Performance Index
AMD have made similar advances from their old Phenom to the new PHII and Thuban offerings - Though admittedly not quite to the same extent.
Now - I do get what you mean about single threaded operations. But it's still not as simple as 3.2 GHz being 'better' than 2.2. CPUs are not architected like that any more.
(..if they ever were at all - IMHO, the GHZ race was just as much driven by marketing as it was a real technological need. Marketing being the tail that wagged the Netburst Dog...)
Bringing this back to AMD: Bulldozer is hugely important to AMD. But as the article states, it's aimed at the Server space rather than the Desktop. This segment is hugely profitable, and AMD lost what used to be their primary technological advantage: An Integrated Memory Controller. Basically - from a system design perspective, Intel stepped up and leveled the field. Except Intel have more (sales) muscle. So AMD's sales efforts in the Enterprise space have suffered
(anecdotally, anyhow - nobody publishes the exact figures).
Bulldozer is aimed at regaining AMD's position in the server space. And if you're looking for the next
"Can It Play Crysis" CPU, then I'm of the opinion you're very likely to be disappointed.
but I need to save money first 
