Quote Originally Posted by EvilBlitz View Post
demonkey, yes it is smaller, 283 down to 243 mm2. Though at well over 200mm2 it is still on the large side.The 1meg L2 90nm Opteron was large at 230mm2.
Yes I would classify improved SSE as a minor improvement. He could just mean improved support ie new supported SSE versions and or instructions, but not necessarily performance enhanced per clock.
They weren't originally going to have SSE4 till Bulldozer, maybe they changed their mind and brought it in with Shanghai?

roofsniper, shanghai will probably be better for server than desktop I agree, but I still think 25% avg ipc gain for sever apps seems a little too optimistic.
i think amd said at one point it would be 25% on server and it sounds optimistic to me as well but they are designing the chips for servers and the desktops come as an added bonus.