Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[Elmer Phud]

sgolds -

This is all a sideshow, however, because Xeon is the target. Any marketing of Opteron that included Itanium comparisons would only be to build and reinforce the perception that Xeon is a has-been.

While it's true that Xeon doesn't beat or match Opteron on many benchmarks, it still does on quite a few and we haven't seen a new Xeon speed bin released in quite some time. I expect newer versions to make a much better showing. Perhaps not closing all the gaps but a substantial improvement is reasonable to expect.