Exellent post. And it highlights the problem that AMD had last year with respect to Opteron market penetration: lack of suitable platforms. From the tier 1 OEMs, the only box available was a 1u 2-way Opteron system. If you wanted any other configuration, you had to get a Xeon system. It's a bit better now, so it will be interesting to see how Opteron does in 2005.