The 64 bit AMD/Intel revolution
64-bit AMD/Intel revolution is going to change everything w.r.t to SSL. This is because these processors do SSL as fast as most custom hardware encryption chips. Take a look at these benchmarks.
Why they are so fast is simply because of their 64x64 multiply giving 128-bit result with a single CPU instruction. This is a relatively minor quirk of their CPU-instruction-set that gives a wopping boost to modular exponentiation operations - even a 4X improvement.