Re: The NGMA chips have about as large a relative lead in performance over all predecessors and competitors as I can remember in the x86 PC space. And that is at day one with existing software. When ISVs fully understand the ins and outs of the NGMA microarchitecture then it will really fly.
Can you expand on that, please? Where do you see the biggest opportunities in software optimization? That is, what programming models today are inadequate to extract ILP from Core 2 micro-architecture? This seems like an interesting notion to me.
The pressure won't let up either going forward with Nehalem reportedly have 4-way SMT, IMC and p2p links so Opteron's current structural MP advantages will be seriously reined in if not totally neutralised.