AMD announces low-power quad-core chips

Advanced Micro Devices announced the availability of low-power quad-core Opteron processors this morning for servers.

The new HE (high-efficiency) processors have a thermal envelope of 55 watts, compared to higher thermal envelopes of 105 watts or 75 watts for other AMD quad-core server processors.

The low-power Opterons are available in both the 2300 and 8300 series. Prices are as follows: $873 for the 1.9GHz 8347 HE and $377 for the 1.9 GHz 2347 HE. (Keeping in mind that 2300 series processors are designed for servers that use two processors, while 8300 series processors are for systems that use four or eight processors.)

"Our new Quad-Core AMD Opteron HE processors were designed to help data center managers who see power consumption and virtualization as the keys to solving their overall performance equation," Randy Allen, general manager at AMD's Server and Workstation Division, said in a statement in the press release.

If AMD doesn't suit you, don't forget that Intel announced energy-efficient quad-core Xeon processors with a thermal envelope of 50 watts at core frequencies as high as 2.50GHz in March. (Thanks to Brooke at the Crave blog)