HP releases new Celeron server

Intel is trying to steer server companies toward its Xeon line, but the company's Pentium and even Celeron processors still make an appearance in lower-end systems that often cost less than a single Xeon chip. On Monday, Hewlett-Packard, the top-ranked seller of Intel servers, released the new tc2120, a system with Pentium or Celeron processors that in its least expensive incarnation costs $549.

That super-inexpensive model has a 1.8GHz Celeron processor and a scant 128MB of memory and doesn't include an operating system, which HP business partners are expected to install for the ultimate customer. It does include some server-specific features, however, such as error-correcting memory. Systems with a faster 2.5GHz Pentium processor, 256MB of memory, and Windows 2000 cost $1,749.