I personally have nver liked AMD, although they are on the right track and are threatening Intel in every which way. Both companies have played a risk by choosing to go in seperate paths with their ram of choice (i.e. a parallel to a VHS / Beta war, AC vs. DC war), and it really ends up being the consumer who determines the fate of the successor.
Intel on the one hand has a very large Die-size on the P4 which makes it very costly to produce and gives a larger amount of failed chips at the manufacturing labs. This is why they cost so much. Intel has made the largest marketing campaing in processor history to make their P4 a success and will do whatever it takes to make sure they don't lose the control in the mainstream processor market, and due to the fact that the average consumer looks at Intel as a reliable company that they know of and trust, plus take a look at the good old Hzs and choose Intel.
AMD on the other hand is able to produce their chips at a good cost due to a smaller die size, but they are really fragile and a lot of people end up with key-chains when mounting the heatsink. They produce a lot of heat, due to the heavy power consumption, but are able to pull off better performance than the P4 in most applications. Price for performace AMD is the way to go, but there is a risk involved that it will be instable, cause you grief with IRQ conflicts. Really, AMD has come a long way from the company that I knew that made the alternative that no one heard of to Intel's 486's, the heavily incompatible and instable k6's, then the Athlon which brought them out of the stone age in the mass public, but with a slew of it's own problems. Now, they are threatening Intel to take the lead in the Processor market, in not just low-end to mid-range home/office market, but the high-end worksatation and server market too.
I would have to say that the fate of what happens between these two companies depends on the success of the Northwood/Tualatin or the Athlon 4 when they are released. I don't like to make assumptions about these products based on specs like most people do, I personally will build up systems with both in the computer store where I work and decide which one I prefer.
My idea about a good system is stability before performance, I like to leave my computer on from the moment I put it together to the moment I upgrade and never have to worry about it. That is why I have not yet upgraded from the P3B-F (440BX chipset).
Now, about the article of the 1.4 Ghz being fried. It is not at all AMD's fault, that guy was a pure fool not to mount the heatsink correctly, you should ALWAYS check that the heatsink is firmly against all parts of the die. I for one have had many problems with AMD, but never fried a processor. When a processor gets fried it is USER ERROR, not a companies fault.
Typical problems for the new T-birds versions B and C are the chipsets and conflicts/stability problems. This is why I still stick with the P3 and an Intel 440BX chipset. In my opinion the only company that makes a good chipset is Intel and the 440BX was the last really good chipset they made. The 815EP is also a great chipset, but not even close to the stability of the 440BX.
Anyway, I tried to be as unbiased as possible and not piss off any Intel or AMD lovers out there. I am just making an informed opinion based on factual information and practical experience from building comps from the days of XT's (that was uncommon back then to build your own computer, everyone wanted a genuine IBM, to have a clone was frowned upon, and to build your own was unheard of). I hope I was of help.
I personally think it will be exciting to see the release of these new processors.
My System: <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=9417" target="_new">http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=9417</A>
<font color=green>I wonder...what is the speed of gravity!<font color=green> 
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