Intel Dual Core has been obsolete in BF3 multiplayer for a while. No one benchmarks it but if you hunt around on some forums, i3 owners will constantly complain about performance in large maps. If they think their chip is good for BF3 multiplayer, they will upload videos to youtube showing frame rates on small maps.
Intel Dual without HT is barely good for single player, useless for multiplayer.
Intel Dual with HT is kind of playable in multiplayer and works fine in single.
I personally do not trust pcper that much. They are the ones who conveniently started raising a ruckus over frame times using Nvidia provided tools at a time when AMD was about to release 7990, which would have easily taken the performance crown from Nvidia for a single card.
The fallacious logic in pcper's article is that they are assuming that because we are seeing enthusiast motherboards for FM2+ that that means we WONT be seeing a refresh on the enthusiast platform.
It is the equivalent of seeing a new platform of Intel CPUs, like LGA1155, not seeing LGA2011 motherboards updated, and then going "OMG LGA2011 IS DEAD!!!"
If you want my opinion, AMD will continue to release higher end CPU only parts, but they will focus on APUs. AMD needs to coerce people into the APU market so people will develop HSA applications as there will be a base of users to run the software. It is like how Intel is trying to coerce people into LGA2011 platform by offering 4820k for cheaper than 4770k, and even going as far as to deceitfully try and brand Ivy Bridge quad with HT as superior to Haswell quad with HT by implying that a higher model number makes a better chip.
Not a lot of people are going for it though, because they keep screaming "MUH PCIe 3.0!!!"
The whole article is poorly written. One of the main points is that "Intel is focusing on 1155/1156/etc instead of 1366/2011/etc and AMD is doing the same with their line up". Their conclusion, from that line of logic, is somehow that means that AMD is going to abandon the market served by AM3+/LGA2011/1366/etc. The problem is that Intel still serves that market. In fact, they just announced new CPUs for it a while ago.
Josh wrote that article with the logic of a middle school child. It's appalling to me to even read it.
Not to mention I implied earlier that AMD would be going APU only and I got reamed on this forum for it. There's a big difference between shifting focus to something and completely ignoring everything else for the sake of focusing on something.
AMD is making a big APU push, but that doesn't mean they're going to completely forget about >=6 core CPUs. They are a lower priority right now and rightfully so. Not to mention AMD having enthusiast FM boards is a good thing to help them shake their "value only" stigma they have, which I feel is even stronger with their APUs, as APUs right now seem to be a "well you can't afford an AM3+ or Intel quad so just get an APU instead" High end FM2 boards would at least get people to consider it as something more than a HTPC build or "too poor to go full rig with dGPU" build.