GamePC reviews the latest Intel Xeon. The 5080 and the 5060 actually perform quite well when compared to AMD's Opterons although to see a Dual Core 5080 running at 3.73GHz getting beaten by a 1.8GHz Opteron is quite something. Here's an excerpt:

Our quick and to-the-point analysis leads us to still recommend AMD's Opteron processors for high-end servers where raw performance is the major concern. However, if memory capacity is a key element, Intel's new 5000-series chipsets and FB-DIMM memory modules should no doubt be enticing. Seeing EATX motherboards on the market today with support for 64 GB of physical memory is an exciting sight, as comparative AMD platforms require huge, expensive, non-standard motherboards for those kinds of capacities. However, maxing out a new Xeon platform will be difficult at this time, as large-capacity FB-DIMM modules are in short supplies at this time. However, FB-DIMM support has ramped up surprisingly quick, and we would expect to see 2 GB/4 GB FB-DIMM modules readily available in the next few months.

The new Xeon 5000's are more efficient and run cooler compared to previous versions, but there aren't any drastic improvements on this front. Our Xeon 5000 platform was still louder than expected, and also consumed quite a lot of power. The noise issue can be solved with third party coolers, but most buyers won't go through the hassle. They'll just tolerate Intel's stock coolers. Again, these elements make the Xeon better suited for a workstation environment (with more available airflow) compared to a cramped server environment.