Intel has been in the lead for longer than I can remember, I think it was back in 2006 that AMD could compete core-for-core with Intel. In this type of market there is no need for Intel to really push the boundaries and give us the same type of performance increase per-generation as we saw from the Pentium-D to Core 2 Duo. However, it does look like Intel is going to make good with the upcoming 14nm Broadwell processors, which are rumored to have up to 16 processing threads with 8 physical cores for the consumer chips and even more for workstation silicon.

Until the launch in 2015 we will not know the clock speeds and other details regarding the new processor, but since this is a “Tick’ launch from Intel we should expect it to be comprised of the same hierarchy as the current generation “Haswell’ processors, just with more cores and possibly higher clock speeds.

According to TweakTown who just released the news; “we should see an 18-core Broadwell-EP or EX Xeon chip being based on the shrunken tech. We should expect an 8- or 10-core part for the desktop/workstation market, while a 12- or 16-core part will reach the enterprise market.”