The key improvements in the new Opterons include higher frequencies without using more power, a 4X increase in L3 cache to 6MB and support for 800MHz DDR2 memory. AMD says this will result in performance improvements of as much as 40% over the current Opterons (aka Barcelona) on certain applications such as virtualization, databases, and Java. The new chips also include several new power management features, and AMD has posted some performance test results which it claims show that clock-for-clock the new Opterons deliver better performance per watt than Intel Xeons. Today's announcement was expected. AMD executives have repeatedly said Shanghai was running ahead and schedule and the company is holding its annual analysts day today. In addition to its server and desktop roadmaps, AMD is expected to discuss the pending spin-off of its manufacturing operations, the Fusion processor with on-die graphics, and its strategy to address the growing netbook market. [Read the AMD 45nm press release .]