Keep in mind PowerPC has been 64bit since day 1. Intel and AMD are still out of their league. All I hear about Itanium and Hammer are delays, lackluster performance, delays, and more delays.
The Mac rumor sites have reported that 2.5Ghz PPC 970 was working using the 130nm process, but the chip consumed as much power as a 3Ghz P4. Of course the PPC 970 does more per cycle...yum! Question is can one supply power to these chips in dual or quad configuration :-o