Intel Itanium 2 vs AMD Opteron (Intel vs AMD)

[Sargera]

Thoughts and comments??  Also, I've heard that dual-Intel processors are infurior to dual-AMD processors, especially in a server environment, and that Itanium 2's lvl3 cache causes performance loss.  But it seems to me that based on the specs of the Itanium 2, it'd do better in a workstation/server environment than AMD Operon.  Anyways, can anyone provide articles/sites giving information about comparing these two processors, and provide their own input/experiences?

[Hitmen]

I generally only see Itaniums used in large cluster enviroments, Xeons would probably be more comparable to Opterons.

[Maddox]

The 64 bit Xeons are based on the Opteron architecture.

[quasi-modo]

I have never seen a 64bit xeon, because intel killed jayhawk with tejas a few months ago. Itanium is the only 64bit intel I have seen. 64 bit really is a novelty at this point it seems, I can see where it could be useful in some insances, but is it really neccessary for a web server? Is there a real advantage at this point?