Intersting Comparison

[NDC]

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_8796_8799,00.html

[a Bill]

I think it's inaccurate. There are 16 CPU Intel boxes out there right now.

edit: My bad, 32 way systems (http://www.unisys.com/products/es7000__servers/hardware/orion__540.htm) exist. Of course they didn't compare themselves to the midrange server market (http://www.sun.com/servers/midrange/sunfirev1280/) but there's no point in comparing apples to apples :)

[64026402]

The 16 and 32 proc Intel systems I am aware of use low end procs like the P3 series.
It was comparing the Optetron to its closest competitors. obviuosly Optetron has the advantage for the moment.
It scales better because of the integrated memory controller and the SOI should give quite a high limit on the speed as time goes by.

[Xaotic]

The P4 Xeons for rackmount systems have the ability to be strapped together in 4 processor modules. In addition, the comparison doesn't address blades at all. And, up to 32 processor servers are possible, see page 8,

http://www.intel.com/eBusiness/pdf/prod/server/xeon_mp/ds021102.pdf

As for the ability to scale individual processors, I seen that the voltage on the initial release units were at the top of the projected range of voltages for the family of units. This seems troubling to me, as I would have expected it to be lower owing to SOI and may adversely affect it's ability to scale. If the specs are accurate, Opteron may have the advantage for the moment, but I tend to be very suspicious of marketing information until the products have been evaluated outside of benchmarking and lab usage. At this point, I'd have to agree with a Bill.