You can't compare it this way.

1. Intel is expecting LARGE volumes of chips for this pricing, at least more than 10 purchases per Xeon order, and most of them from LARGE companies like Dell, HP and the like. What you see in retail is different (and probably marked up to a certain extent)

2. Happy paying the motherboard costs and switching to inferno FM-DIMMs. Both will cost you more than a ton, and Intel has a terribly large cut out of server motherboards, compared to even their lucrative margins on their consumer ones.

3. Quadcore Xeons were cheaper than quadcore Core 2s. And they came first. See point 2 to see why everyone balked.

This post has been edited by X.E.D: Aug 15 2007, 06:39 PM

2008- Funny, that's when AMD goes MCM-ing 2 45nm Barcelonas!
X360 chip MCM spec is right, but HD2900 has discrete memory.

"K10.5" is both monolithic Shanghai, and also Montreal, MCM-ing 2 Shanghais. At 45nm and AMD's relatively better stance on each process they migrate to, it should be good.