I really can't believe some of the posts here....
First of all they need a design which they can improve (they don't have the money to make new designs all the time like Intel does) and a design where you can gain performance by increasing frequency and by doing small improvements (which are cheap!).
Second: a CPU to
compete with mid-range CPU's (2500k for an example) because that's where the money is and not high-end $1k chips.
While doing all of that why not break a WR? I don't see a problem with this, are you all jealous of those clocks?
I think it's a nice way to promote the chip and don't see anything wrong with it.
All of those whining about that they only used 2 core...well did you even take a look at the current top 20 list? I guess not, so here you go:
http://hwbot.org/benchmark/cpu_frequency/
Weird isn't it, all those celerons....
When you are after a frequency world record you do not care about the number of core (it is pointless...) all you care is the maximum you can get out of the CPU, that's how freq. WR's are set just deal with it.
Here comes the more important part:
This WR may be pointless to some but then again it shows just how much clock potential the CPU has for future (and this is only the beginning!).
Just like the first Phenom II's that barely made it to 6.4GHz on LN2 but at the end they got all the way up to 7.4GHz (and you could see that frequency increase on stock frequency at the same TDP).
If you think all of this is pointless, well you are on the wrong forum...
I could be wrong on this one but as far as I know JF-AMD said that IPC increases compared to the current Phenom II's, and if you combine that IPC increase with a much higher clock potential, isn't that a win?
