AMD Tuesday launched its new Opteron 4300 and 3300 series processors targeted at servers hosting cloud applications.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based chip maker announced nine new processors in the series, ranging from quad-core to eight-core models. The lowest-end chip in the series is the quad-core Opteron 3350 HE, which starts at $125, while the highest end is the 4376 HE, which has eight cores and starts at $501. All nine chips are based on AMD's next-generation Piledriver architecture, with frequencies ranging from 1.6 GHz to 3.5 GHz.

According to AMD, the new 4300 series, in particular, is significantly faster and more efficient than prior-generation Opteron models, touting up to a 24 percent power-per-watt improvement and 15 percent better performance. These performance and efficiency gains, coupled with the chips' competitive price points, make them an ideal fit for both cloud providers and SMB customers, AMD said.

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"The Piledriver core architecture shared by the AMD Opteron 4300 and 3300 Series processors provides optimized performance, power and price for today’s customer," said Suresh Gopalakrishnan, general manager of AMD's server business unit, in a statement. "These new processors are ideal for cloud providers, web hosters and small and medium business who want to get the most out of their space and power constraints."

Like AMD's recently launched Opteron 6300 Series processors, the new Opteron 4300 and 3300 Series are socket-compatible with previous generation Opteron processors, providing what AMD touts as an "effortless" upgrade path for customers.

AMD said server vendors including SeaMicro and Dell have already signed on to use the new Opteron 4300 and 3300 processors for future server offerings. Dell, specifically, said the new chips will be used in its AMD-based Dell PowerEdge servers, which are used primarily by Web service providers and SMBs.

AMD said in October it would start pursuing the server market more aggressively as a means to offset the financial hit it has taken from today's weakening PC market. The company also unveiled in October a new partnership with U.K.-based chip licensor and long-time rival ARM, through which the two will collaborate to produce ARM-based 64-bit Opteron chips for launch in 2014.

PUBLISHED DEC. 4, 2012