Intel's attempts to expand its presence in microservers included a partnership with dense server maker SeaMicro, which was snapped up by AMD for US$334 million in late February. That acquisition was viewed as a setback for Intel, which hit back by saying it was developing its own I/O and chip technology to boost microserver performance.

Microservers will be more relevant as data centers try to operate within physical and economic constraints, said Dan Olds, principal analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group.

"When you start looking at high-performance computing, you come to the realization that the limitation is power. It's inescapable that that becomes the final constraint," Olds said.

Intel and AMD are chasing the microserver market to address those limitations. Intel has held the high ground on performance, while AMD largely competes on price, Olds said.

AMD recently launched the Opteron 3200 server chips for microservers, which the company pitched as a "low-cost-per-core" product. The AMD 3200 chips are priced between US$99 and $129, while Intel's E3 chips are priced starting at $189. Analysts have said that AMD will also replace Intel chips currently being used in SeaMicro servers with Opteron chips.