AMD Releases Barcelona Prices

Officially known as the Opteron 2300 and 8300 series, the CPUs are AMD's first entry in the quad-core space. Market leader Intel launched quad-core chips for servers and workstations, as well as for desktops, on Dec. 13, 2006.

Pricing for 1,000-unit tray quantities of the nine processors ranges from $209 to $1,019. The 2300 series of 2-way quad-core Opteron processors comprises the AMD Opteron 2344 HE (1.7GHz, 55W) at $209, 2346 HE (1.8GHz, 55W) at $255, 2347 HE (1.9GHz, 55W) at $377, 2347 (1.9GHz, 75W) at $316 and 2350 (2.0GHz, 75W) at $389.

Slide Show: AMD's Barcelona Launch Event

The 8300 series of 8-way processors comprises the 8346 HE (1.8GHz, 55W) at $698, 8347 HE (1.9GHz, 55W) at $873, 8347 (1.9GHz, 75W) at $786 and 8350 (2.0GHz, 75W) at $1,019.

By comparison, Intel's Quad-Core Xeon X5365, with a clock speed of 3.0GHz and 120W power consumption is priced at $1,285 in volume.

AMD claims its own benchmarks show that lower clock speed quad-cores outperform the chipmaker's own equivalent dual-cores with higher speeds, thanks to enhancements made to core architecture. AMD says its 2.0GHz Opteron 2350 chips outperform its 3.0GHz dual-cores by 55 percent, and that its 2.0GHz 8350 chips beat their 3.0GHz dual-core cousins by 48 percent.