Performance and all else to one side. Being able to use the cpu in another socket as an option is pretty awesome imo.
Not only does it give AMD a market in new builds, but also as drop-in replacements for existing setups.
(I`ve no doubt there`ll be a patch or something required, but hey)
An unconfirmed rumor has it, that the AMD cpu is catching up on the Intel. A pretty small figure was thrown out, but it`s a start.