San Francisco (CA) - In the first head-to-head match-up for performance supremacy between AMD and Intel processors, staged by Intel, in quite some time, an AMD Opteron 64-based Sun Fire X4200 server running at 2.4 GHz, was placed against an example of a future HP ProLiant server running Intel's Woodcrest platform. We're compiling the final figures for you, and will have the raw numbers available soon, but the final tally graphs shown at IDF do not bode well for AMD, with what appeared to be as much as one-third better performance, by early indications.

In one benchmark result released today, the Sun Fire server consumed 324 watts of power running a spreadsheet-related test, whereas the HP ProLiant Woodcrest server consumed 308 watts. If this and other related numbers hold up, the "Dual-Core Duel" may at last have become a ballgame.