Intel Won't Push the Atom CPU on the Server Market

Even though the Atom chip can be seen as having some advantages for server use, Intel has reportedly decided not to actually put any effort into promoting this architecture in this area, even though some companies do offer Atom-powered servers already.

Intel's position on the server market, in regards to its Atom processor series, seems to be quite different from the one that ARM has adopted.

The latter has been stating and reinforcing its intention to power server systems for quite some time now and is intent on playing the low power consumption card.

Advanced Micro Devices is also going to test out how its Bobcat architecture ends up performing in this market segment.

Intel, however, has reportedly revealed that it won't do anything of the sort with its Atom platform, because it simply does not see is as competitive enough.

This may or may not be surprising, considering that, even though not exactly among the strongest of Intel's series, Atom does have genuine power consumption advantages.

In fact, there are even companies that sell server-class systems based on Atom CPUs, their main asset being the low idle power consumption.

Nevertheless, the Santa Clara, California-based company does not actively encourage Atom for servers, even though it is not against companies that sell them anyway.

"We are not opposed to an Atom based server, but we just don't see broad adoption of the Atom as a server chip," said Kirk Skaugen, Intel's vice president and general manager of its data center group.

Specifically-designed low power chips do have lower idle draw compared to AMD's Opteron ro intel's Xeon.

What remains to be seen is if low-power chips can work fast enough without needing too many single-socket Atom nodes, since doing so would increase power consumption and defeat the whole purpose of using power efficient chips.