BigA, nice comparison but I've got one nagging comment that seems to be the root of the pro-Clawhammer debate;

What happens when both are OC'ed to the max? your saying 2.53 is the Newcastles top speed but what about the Clawhammer? The game benchmarks are the ones I'm mainly concerned with as for many of us they represent the best 'real world' tests. Now seeing that a 200mhz differential in favor of the Newcastle has them at under a 3% difference in frames, what about when both are OC'ed; theoretically the Newcastle needs to be able to STAY 200mhz in front of the CLawhammer to keep the lead but I've gotten the general gist that when paired with a AGP/PCI locked mobo (not the Asus, the AN51R maybe) the Clawhammer will hit around 2.4ghz. Again, in theory, thats just over a 100mhz difference between the two, and in theory the Clawhammer should be faster than the Newcastle by a few frames.

My point being; You've given us stock results which are almost the same meaning that 512kb L2 = 200mhz more or less. Now what about when overl****ed? In theory the Clawhammer will win if it passes 2.33ghz.

Also with the overclocks are you using a smaller RAM divider and a smaller LTD so the HTT bus and the RAM speeds don't cap your overclock? In theory with the way the Hypertransport bus works the FSB doesn't really mean anything as long as the RAM divider keeps the RAM in its know range (at or under its top speed) and the Hypertransport bus stays at or under its top speed.

It's a nice comparison BA but it definatly seems that you have your mind made up and are not giving the Clawhammer a snowballs chance in hell; also I don't know if it being a pre-production sample has anything to do with it but I'd wonder if it had any adverse effects on its performance/