I think Denb is going to be be much better than most people realise. AMD have said themselves that it will bring 20% ipc improvements over Barcelona and we have all seen the 4+ghz overclocks on C1 silicon.
What makes me so positive is the way intel are going about things with this massive paper launch of nehalem, they are throwing everything at it to the detriment of the current penryns which are a great cpu in their own right.
I just get the feeling intel are running scared atm. I have never seen them react this way in my 20+yrs of being around pc's.

Here's hoping.