AMD adds low-power quad-core chips

On Monday, Advanced Micro Devices announced availability of low-power quad-core Opteron processors targeted at servers.

AMD quad-core Opteron

(Credit: AMD)

The HE (high-efficiency) processors have a thermal envelope of 55 watts. Other AMD quad-core server processors have higher thermal envelopes of 105 watts or 75 watts.

The low-power Opterons are available in both the 2300 and 8300 series. The 2300 series processors are designed for servers that use two processors, while the 8300 series processors are for systems that use four or eight processors.

The new parts include the 8347 HE (1.9GHz, $873) and the 2347 HE (1.9GHz, $377).

"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.

Intel announced in March energy-efficient quad-core Xeon processors with a thermal envelope of 50 watts at core frequencies as high as 2.50GHz.

[custompcmax]

This is the exact market that AMD needs to corner, at least until they can get their chips to keep up with the Intels. There is a market for low power chips. And I am curious how these chips will handle in an over-clocked gaming rig.