Will Barcelona cure what ails AMD?

Layoffs, missed earnings targets, a delayed product launch, benchmarks that failed to cinch a win against an entrenched rival, and anxieties about the Next Big Thing—everyone knows why AMD's finances are on shaky ground of late. The question on the minds of everyone from Wall Street analysts to PC enthusiasts who value the competitive juice that AMD brings to the x86 processor market is, will the quad-core Barcelona post enough of a performance gain against Intel to bring the good times back to Austin?