Intel releasing a chip ahead of time is usually a sign of stiff competition, something that they haven't had a lot of for several months now at the high-end. What's known to be coming down the pipe from AMD is their quad-core Barcelona, which may or may not give Intel's finest some competition. Being that Intel and AMD both have a pretty good idea of what's going down in the other's camp, this might be a very positive sign that AMD's Barcelona is the real deal.