> ALL microprocessors have a 'Front Side Bus'. This is the physical > bus between the processor and the chipset. It has to exist unless > you get a processor built into the chipset itself. According to the diagram I have from AMD, there is a DDR controller built into the Opteron itself. > but ALL systems have a memory bottleneck, in the sense that it's > not unlimited bandwidth. It just may be less of a problem than > other parts of the system. Sure - if you remove one bottleneck, you discover another in the chain. I suspect hard disc access will be the limiting factor on these machines. > The entry level price on these AMD-64 machines is phenominal - HP > has one at only a few dollars over $1K. It's got to be the most accessible 64-bit chip, especially here since the dollar is weak at the moment. A 200 series Opteron (the SMP capable type) is no more expensive than a 32 bit P4, let alone a Xeon or a G5. And of course Linux users have a head start since we can compile native code or use an off the shelf AMD64 distribution. Cheers Daniel
