AMD today unveiled five new quad-core Opteron server processors with performance-per-watt as their key feature. The chips on average consume about 55 watts and are available in both the 2300 and 8300 series for two, four and eight-way rack-mounted servers and blades.

Compared to the “standard-wattage,” 75-watt Barcelona parts these chips are 30 percent more efficient. The model numbers are the Opteron 8347 HE, 8346 HE – for servers with four or eight processors – and the Opteron 2347 HE, 2346 HE, and 2344 HE for servers with two processors.

They run at clock speeds ranging from 1.7GHz to 1.9GHz and are priced from $209 to $873 in 1,000-unit quantities. This is AMD’s latest announcement concerning low-power chips and is seen as a good move for the struggling chip company as the issue around power efficiency and power consumption continues to gain momentum in the server and data center space.