yourbankruptcy, I would love it if Opteron were consistantly faster than Itanium. It would make a great marketing opportunity - running 64-bits faster than Itanium at the price of a Xeon! Full compatibility, too.
Actually, when the dust settles out, I would not be surprised to see 4-way Opterons outperforming 4-way Itaniums. I think aHT is that good!
Now, how fast will Madison be? We hear 50% faster than ItaniumII. Meanwhile, Opteron is not a static target - even on 130nm it should scale up through the year.
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.
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