CG
Shouldn't you mention what happened to FX32! and Alphas?
I mean this is probably what we could learn most for EL-32.
This kind of merges to the other discussion: As it was for the Alphas, Itanium can hardly keep the pace of scaling expected for COTS.
FX32! at least showed superior X86-Performance (compared to Pentium Pro) at some point, for a little while on Alphas.
Now, EL-32 shows X86-performance level of Xeon 1,6 for the fastest available Itanium-model. (And Xeon 1,6 is not exactly a top 32-bit performer) Actually a Pentium3-based Xeon 1,2 is (way) faster.
So where you go with EL-32 is from PII to PIII level X86-performance; but not anywhere close to current performance levels.
However, at least it makes Itanium useable for practical purposes, so it might help a lil bit. I could imagine the X86 performance-level available now could be sufficient for those who intend to migrate to EPIC-code really fast. I have no clue at all how many of these are out there.
K.