Basically, yes. The Neutron node system is the basis for all new features going forwards. In its current state though it isn't something most people will want to use directly; it is super powerful but like any node system, not the kind of interface everyone would enjoy using. The next step to be taken is to create a new object manager which acts as a much more friendly, day to day interface for the nodes which should look much more familiar.
When everything is in place, you will be able to choose to continue your c4d life with a new object manager, benefiting from the huge speed increase and all the new user-created assets that will hopefully come from this. Or, as and when you desire, you will be able to open objects up and dive into the node system when you need more power.
The speed increase will vary from scene to scene, but the biggest gains will be in projects with large numbers of things, ie. objects, tags, keyframes, clones etc. These projects have always been held back by c4d's object manager implementation. If a project is held back by physics sims, then don't expect any speed improvements at all, that would need a new physics engine to help there. However some test projects are showing 10x speed increases in viewport performance, others are showing 1000x improvements. In fact depending on viewport settings and how well the new viewport turns out, some projects are showing north of 10,000x speed bumps in terms of handling large numbers of objects.
How well this all translates into real world performance will need to be seen, but what this all represents is the upcoming removal of c4d's biggest bottleneck. You'll be able to have a go yourself in the next release, but expect another release or two after that before it is well enough supported by render engines, plugins and internal c4d features before you'd want to start using it in live commercial jobs.