Well, let's see. We have a completely new chip based on an (r)evolutionary archiecture. Typically, these sort of launches are lackluster at best. Look at the P4 or the P2. Both of which, when introduced, offered no real performance increase over prior generations. AMD has also had its share of lemons as well, with the K6 series coming out later than promised and not offering the performace that was promised. The K7 launch was well executed with a great product.
Now the K8 comes out and from the benchmarks I have seen it pretty much even with an overclocked Xeon, which the EE is essentially. Considering the price of a 2.8Ghz 2MB cache Xeon (it's a couple grand atleast) I can't even begin how much it is costing Intel to rain on AMD's parade.
The EE is a mutant chip, it won't be around long. A 2.8Ghz 2MB Xeon is selling for $4,013
here. Intel won't want to be loosing money forever.