Intel's Atom S processor has made a first appearance in processor specification tables.
Better known as Intel's microserver with the "Centerton" brand, Atom S processors appear to be available initially in three dual-core versions. The CPUs will integrate a dual-die structure with two 32 nm Saltwell cores with HyperThreading capability and clock speeds of 1.6 and 2.0 GHz.
The 1.6 GHz version will be offered as S1220 and S1240 versions, whereas the S1240 consumes 6.1 watts and the S1200 is rated at 8.1 watts. The 2 GHz model checks in at 8.5 watts. For Atom processors, these are rather generous power budgets, which are likely due to greater feature integration such as an integrated memory controller. CPU World note that, while the Centerton Atoms will need external discrete controllers, "they will not require Platform and I/O controller hub chips".
Centerton will be Intel's first move into the micro server market, which appear to have special appeal in cloud scenarios and run applications that do not need the massive performance of a Xeon processor and virtualization makes little sense. Centerton servers with up to two processors per server unit could be used especially in data analytics, storage and networking applications.
Sorry, I meant the whole many low-power core server idea. TSX makes that significantly more efficient by reducing locking overhead.
It can be extremely useful. Just remember a server is a glorified PC that is meant to do a certain task very well. It can even do multiple tasks well, but it really depends on what you're using that server for to determine whether or not it'll offer significant boosts with HT or not.
Of course you can do it, but its less optimal than it can be. Die sizes will be too big, lowering margins(or increasing price), for one thing, and you need to lower the clock drastically to achieve such power use. That's besides the real world issues that Razor512 nicely explained.
Optimizing for a specific segment(when everything else is equal) always results in a better product. That is true for everything in life. You can't expect someone to do everything best for example.