Unless its something new I haven't heard about the Xeon processor is really a class of processor that has a much larger on-chip cache and usually scales beyond the traditional intel dual processor config. Its been around since the Pentium II. I haven't had a chance to play with a newer 8 processor config with hyperthreading but with the performance of newer chips and different architectures they aren't all that impressive. They still can kick some butt but I'll stick it out with my Alpha, SGI and UltraSparcs.