At the Intel Atom S1200 series Centerton launch event keeping a log in the forums of the Atom S1200 event. Will keep updating the forum post with raw notes and then do a writeup for the main site later. Here are some key points:
Example Intel Atom S1200 design wins:
- Dedicated web hosting
- L2 network switching
- Low-end storage
Timeline
Xeon 2009 Concept -> 2010 2 Commercial systems -> 2011 5 Commercial Systems -> 2012 6 Commercial systems
Atom launched in the 2010-2011 timeline, first dedicated product (Atom S1200 line) today.
Intel Atom S1200 Details
- 6w TDP
- 2 Core + Hyper Threading
- ECC Memory
- Intel Virtualization Technology
- High-density 1000+ nodes per rack
Estimated Intel CPU Revenue per rack
Intel Xeon E3 low power: $32.9K USD 2x Web transactions / rack
Intel Atom S1200 $35.8K USD – 5x more nodes/ rack
Most suitable for light Scale-Out applications
- Simple content delivery
- Large distributed memory caching
- Big-data simple search systems
- MapReduce applications
Performance per watt:
- Compute intensive performance per watt favors an Intel Xeon E3-1265L by about 2x
- Light Scale-Out Applications favor the Intel Atom S1200 2.0ghz
The big focus here seems to be that the Intel Atom S1200 series is targeted where ARM servers are making inroads. Low-end dedicated hosting, memcached and etc seem to be the key applications.
What Intel is clearly doing is diversifying away from the two chip model (Xeon E3 and Xeon E5 or UP/ MP platforms) to x86 everywhere with custom built solutions. The Intel Xeon Phi brought to the PCIe accelerator market that was previously serviced by NVIDIA’s Tesla product (and AMD to some extent.) We know ARM is moving toward ECC and low power SoC. Intel now has the Intel Atom S1200 SoC to combat ARM’s advances in the microserver market.
Follow notes live on the forums!
So –
ARM has a huge number of smartphones
x86 has a huge datacenter presence
Wonder how this will slow ARM adoption in the DC. No real need to change unless ARM is best.
Patrick,
Are you aware of any SMB / SOHO 4 – 8 bay NAS units based on Centerton?
Intel did mention that one of the design wins was from one of the NAS vendors. Sorry I didn’t see you at the event this morning Ganesh!
I like the forum notes. Facebook stats are staggering.