It looks like AMD will finally officially hit the 3.0GHz mark with the upcoming Opteron 256. Pricing on the 256 will probably be the same as the 254 is now, with all of the other lesser CPU's getting the usual downward price bump with its arrival.
Expectations are that Q2 2006 should see this beast unleased. When the Opteron 856 variant is released this should produce some impressive benchmarks in 4 and 8-way configurations.
Although AMD has always downplayed using pure clock speed as a marketing tool, if you can get a CPU that is as clock for clock efficient as the Opteron/Athlon 64 up to 3.0GHz then this is really a case of having your cake and eating it too!