HP’s MediaSmart Server LX195 Starts at Just $400 Thanks to Intel Atom CPUs
On Wednesday, details emerged of HP’s MediaSmart Server LX195, a home server packing a 1.6GHz Atom 230 processor that’s priced at $400 with 1GB of memory and a 640GB hard disk drive. To date, HP has been using Intel Celeron and Advanced Micro Devices’ Sempron processors.
Earlier this month, Acer rolled out the Acer AspireRevo, a small, slick box that augments the Atom with an Nvidia Ion chipset to boost graphics performance. This is expected to be priced well under $300 for some models. Asus was one of the first to bring out a head-swiveling Atom-based desktop–the Eee Box, which has been updated recently with ATI graphics. By design, Atom is a more power-frugal and, as a result, a slower processor than Intel’s mainstream Core 2 chip architecture. HP, for example, markets its MediaSmart server as a storage hub, which typically doesn’t require much processing punch. And Atom is cheap–the Atom 230 is $29, whereas comparative Celeron chips are about $34 but draw much more power. And mainstream Core 2 Duo desktop processors start at about $110.
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