Itanium 2 vs. AMD/Intel

Dave

I am looking for a powerful workstation to run Fluent on. I'd like to stay with Windows for a number of practical reasons, so a Linux cluster is out of the question (although that would be my first choice). So now I need to choose between Xeon, Opteron or Itanium. 32 Bit systems are not feasible since I need at least 6 Gb of RAM.

So now I need the maximum calculation power with the least amount of CPU's. If I check the Specf2000 benchmark on http://www.spec.org, the Itanium 2 blows everything else out of the water. A 1.6 GHz Itanium delivers 1.75 the power of a 3.6 GHz Xeon, so isn't that the best alternative?

I know HP is dropping the development of the chip and all, but it will be a while before AMD and Intel should reach these kinds of speeds.

What is the experience of this forum with any of these CPU's? Anybody around that has been able to compare them? Also, who builds these machines in Europe? I cannot find a supplier of Itanium 2 workstations anywhere...