Nehalem Article @ RWT + 3.2GHz samples(?)

Given the higher per-clock performance of the architecture, as described by David Kanter, 3.2GHz+ would truly result in some truly terrifying performance numbers. This would make AMD's Shanghai unable to compete outside the low-end of the server market (and the mid-range for desktops).

We remain skeptical for now, of course; however, in the RWT discussion thread on David's article, people are pointing out that the 4 cycles access latency for the L1 Data Cache might indicate that Intel really is planning on delivering higher (rather than merely identical or lower) clocks for Nehalem compared to Penryn and its derivatives. This is despite a substantially higher core die size, so it will be interesting to see what power consumption looks like and what Intel has done to minimize the problem.

One quick note: in addition to David's article, it may be worth reading one of our previous news pieces on Nehalem's variants and sockets as we tried there to give more precise information than others have done so far.

UPDATE: Charlie @ The Inquirer claims DailyTech/Hexus were mistaken and that the 3.2GHz CPUs were Harpertowns (although we aren't sure why it'd be reported as 8 threads then? were they 2P?) and the real Nehalems were reported as 2.56GHz chips clocked at 2.13GHz.