Intel has been rethinking the rack and rather than converge all the parts of a server in a system it figures they should be disaggregated so all the compute is together, and all the shared storage is together and all the shared power and cooling is together, all the shared memory is together and everything is tied together with a high-speed optical network starting at 100 Gbps, fast enough that the elements don’t have to be cheek by jowl
This mix-and-match rack-scale vision, geared to the workload, includes both Xeons and Atoms with the Xeons in a different tray from the Atoms. This way the widgetry is easier to service and upgrade. Upgrading the processors can be done separate from the other components.
It’s also supposed to eliminate all unnecessary sheet metal as well as bottlenecks and cost in space and power while increasing density.