Aimed at providing scalability to the limited Pentium II, Xeon-based servers are currently shipping in configurations containing up to four processors. Systems that scale even higher are in the works. If you, like most people considering a new server, are planning to use the machine to perform file and print services, all the CPUs in the world won't make a difference, as memory and disk bottlenecks will keep the server's speed in check. With the new chips, memory runs at 100MHz instead of 66MHz. As memory is a common bottleneck, particularly on machines which are light on RAM, these advances are probably helpful.
Disks are slow, and RAID controllers are slower.
Traditionally, the grunt work of pushing bits to and from the disk drives rests on the shoulders of the motherboard. In theory, I2O moves this process from the motherboard to the RAID controller. And since CPUs are speeding up so quickly, and most operating systems don't recognize I2O functions anyway, the point may be moot. Unfortunately, despite a long incubation period, actual LVD implementations are arriving at a snail's pace. Early examples of the technology have displayed questionable stability, and, because you need both an LVD disk drive and an LVD controller to achieve the performance boost, tangible gains have so far been elusive.