Intel delivers the Avoton Atom-based server CPUs

The Inq reports Intel introduced the Atom C2000, a new line of 22nm Avoton-based server processors that succeed the Atom S1200 Centerton line. The new Avoton chips feature up to eight Silvermont cores, they run at frequencies of up to 2.4GHz and have a TDP of 6W to 20W. Each chip is made in a modular fashion, they useh blocks consisting of two Silvermont cores with 32KB data and 24KB instruction cache per core and 1MB shared L2 cache. Avoton supports up to 64GB of DDR3 or DDR3L with a clockspeed of 1600MHz.

In fact, Intel claims a performance level of 1.9x to 14x over its earlier Centerton parts, depending on the application.

But the new Atom C2000 SoCs are really aimed at countering ARM's plans to infiltrate the data centre, which is why Intel has moved so quickly to introduce Avoton when Centerton only launched at the end of 2012.

The chipmaker is thus keen to point up the advantages of the x86 server ecosystem, which has a vast library of operating systems, applications and middleware to back it up, when compared with the fledgling ARM server industry.

Intel has figures purporting to show an Atom C2750 outperforming the ARM based Calxeda ECX-1000 SoC by about 3.9 times in web performance benchmarks using PHP in a LAMP stack software configuration. Intel's Atom chip has eight cores compared to four for Calxeda and operates at a higher clock speed.