Posted 10/30/09 at 08:29:27 AM by Paul Lilly

Low power consumption is the name of the game in the server market, and Intel thinks it has a winning hand with its upcoming two-core 'Clarksdale' processor. The low-power slice of silicon comes rated at just 30W and is being aimed at "microservers," a new form factor Intel began pushing at IDF.

"We're looking to define a new form factor that allows companies to come up with a uni-processor [machine] that's reasonably capable and cost-effective and easy to deploy," said Jason Waxman, General Manager in Intel's Server Platforms Group. "We want this to become a new building block for the types of applications where you have lots of Web servers or a hosting type of environment or something where you need many images of a server."

Initially, Clarksdale will come clocked at 2.26GHz and take advantage of Intel's Nehalem microarchitecture. This will replace the chip maker's current reference system consisting of hardback-sized PCBs running a 1.86GHz, 45W quad-core Lynnfield chip.

Looking longer-term, Intel will attempt to reduce the power consumption footprint down to just 25W when idle, and no more than 75W  under a heavy load.

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Posted 06/18/09 at 03:55:11 PM by Paul Lilly

Development for 32nm is going well for Intel, so well that the chip maker has decided to axe its 45nm Havendale chips before they reached volume production and will make the move to the 32nm Clarkdale instead, according to DigiTimes. Havendale was originally scheduled to launch by the end of the year, but Intel will instead go forward with 32nm Clarkdale in the first quarter of 2010.

Citing sources at motherboard makers, DigiTimes says Intel also plans to mark several processors as EOL (end of life) in the second half of 2009 and through the first quarter of 2010. Among them will be the Core 2 Extreme QX9775, Core i7 940, and a bunch of Core 2 Quad, Pentium, and Celeron CPUs. The chip maker will also begin discontinuing both the Atom 330 and Atom 220 in April 2010.

Meanwhile, the sources say Intel plans to launch the Core 2 Quad Q9505S, a quad-core CPU designed specifically for all-in-on PCs.

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