Intel's IDF: Opteron the ideal to strive for

SINCE I wasn't on the IDF "VIP list" this time round, I decided to retire in Europe for a long two weeks of Ice Age enjoyment, sorely missed in hot, ever bikini-clad Singapore.

However, "distance learning" of IDF press material, while the outside faces me with a mile of impassable snow, does have its plus points - for instance, more focused presentation examination...

... which in this case led to a discovery of a very interesting slide No. 34 in Intel CTO Justin Rattner's presentation on the benefits on reduced power consumption yet higher performance in the new Intel Core architecture. The abovementioned slide named "What Will It Take" lists the important other components required for the ideal system, including of course, OS, display, storage, communication and standards.

Talking about ideal system, the background image in the slide seems to be a nice quad-socket AMD Opteron (!!) mainboard - correct me if I'm wrong, but the Socket 940 and the dedicated memory buses for each CPU, all this connected via umpteen HyperTransports, are clearly identifiable. Is this the "ideal system" or "standard" talked about in the slide? Or maybe some disgruntled pro-HT faction within Intel somehow slipped in the slide huh...

Now, if this is a "hidden subliminal image" of what Intel may have in store for us on the server front, I'd be very happy... anyone want a HyperTransport-based quad-socket quad-core 45 nm IntelCore server, combining the superb new IntelCore execution with liberated system bandwidth potential? I sure wouldn't mind one. µ