SB is probably not the best choice for benchmarking because the stats are measured in "corrected ExpMod's" (cEM) which depend (mostly) on the particular values for "n" in each block. This measurement is intended to compensate for the fact that the expected length of time taken by a block really does vary. On the other hand, I know that Louie is working on replacing the cEM by some other stat (as yet undetermined) because cEM doesn't do the right thing when "n" varies greatly.
My guess is that the next generation of performance stat will be much more useful for benchmarking than the current one, so you might want to wait for that one.
As to whether the linux client runs on the Itanium 2, my (admittedly speculative) answer would be "not in any way you'd like"...to "go native" the client would *at least* need to be recompiled and the amount of assembly code present would make this task more like a rewrite. I don't know if Louie and kugano have thought about this, but my guess is that there are LOTS of tasks higher on their priority list, given the relatively low numbers of Itanium2 boxen around...
Rumors and rumblings of Itanic x86 emulations are always floating around (mainly because of Hammer) but I really doubt that this would produce the sorts of benchmarks you'd be interested in, anyway.