> if I was designing this stuff, I'd already be examining Power8

POWER8 came too late for X5000/Cyrus. It could be an alternative to e6500-based chips for the X5000 successor, though :-) And instead of contracting a board design firm, A-Eon could simply license the Talos from Raptor Engineering.

> because Freescale's PPC are at the end of their life

It should be more than a decade for PPC at NXP before EOL.

http://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7675&start=811