At this point it's conjectural if this implementation Ruby will get there. The headline implies that it's already the case. Hence it's a misleading headline.

We know that an implementation of Python can be faster than equivalent code in C, as in the carefully crafted examples of http://morepypy.blogspot.com/2011/08/pypy-is-faster-than-c-a... or http://morepypy.blogspot.com/2011/02/pypy-faster-than-c-on-c... .

It should therefore not be surprising that for carefully crafted benchmarks and with enough time and effort, a Ruby implementation can be as fast as the equivalent Java code. But history is littered with the corpses of implementations that tried and failed to meet its performance goals. (Python's Unladen Swallow being but one example.)

> The performance will be on par _before_ the final release of 9000, the final release should include the big performance boost

I think you misinterpret. It will be on par or better no later than the final (in the not-prerelease sense) release of 9000.

In the 9000 lifecycle (which starts with that final release) there are opportunities to go much further in performance. Essentially, 9000 will be ready for a "full "release when, in addition to feature/stability targets, the performance is at least no worse than the last major stable version. During its stable release lifetime, the performance may get much better (the team sees the opportunity for that, at least.)