AMD might have lost the race with Intel in terms of processor performance and core count, but it still rules on the energy-efficient CPU market. The company has just unveiled a new highly-efficient quad-core Opteron line-up, primarily targeted at data center and corporate servers.

According to the company, the new CPU offerings are the industry's first energy-efficient x86 server processor running on four cores. The chip sports an integrated memory controller and a thermal design power of only 55 watts.

"Our new Quad-Core AMD Opteron HE processors were designed to help datacenter managers who see power consumption and virtualization as the keys to solving their overall performance equation", said Randy Allen, corporate vice president and general manager, Server and Workstation Division, AMD.

The new series of chips is comprised of five low-power Quad-Core AMD Opteron HE (Highly Efficient) processors, designed to power blade and rack systems. The chips are already available on retail, although the company did not disclose pricing for any of the units.

"These new processors which feature AMD's advanced power management and virtualization innovations offer a compelling platform for power-conscious datacenter managers who are changing the way they think about performance", continued Allen.

The new quad-core AMD Opteron HE offerings are available in both the 2300 and 8300 series, and can be successfully used in two-, four- and eight-way rack servers and blades. According to the company, the chips have set a new performance record and ranked first in the official SPECfp_rate2006 benchmarks.

While the 2300 CPUs are used mostly in dual-processor server setups, the 8300 counterparts are tailored to power server systems that scale up from between four to eight processors. The new HE lineup is AMD's response to Intel's energy-efficient quad-core Xeon processors introduced back in March. While an average quad-core server processor takes up between 75 and 105 watts of power, AMD's chips take up only 55 watts.