Advanced Micro Devices introduced on Wednesday several new AMD Opteron microprocessors for servers and powerful workstations and also reduced pricing on the previously unveiled models in its attempt to keep the enterprise-class processors in high demand and not let arch-rival Intel Corp. to continue fighting back market share.

The breed of new AMD Opteron processors includes models 1218 HE, 2218 HE and 8218 HE, which operate at 2.60GHz, have 2MB of level-two cache in total (1MB per core), support dual-channel DDR2 memory controller and have thermal design power of 68W, allowing AMD to proclaim “highest energy efficiency” for the new chips. The new Opteron processors 1218 HE, 2218 HE and 8218 HE cost $434, $611 and $1340 in 1000-unit quantities, respectively.

In addition, the chipmaker released AMD Opteron processors 1220, 2220 and 8220, which have clock-speeds of 2.80GHz and thermal design power of 103W, down from roughly 120W on the 2220 SE and 8220 SE microprocessors released earlier. It is interesting to note that both “SE” and typical models have the same price: $545, $698 and $1514 for 1220, 2220 and 8220 models respectively.

All the new chips are produced using 90nm process technology.

The previously introduced AMD Opteron processors with one or two processing engines faced a rather significant price drop that varies from 7% to 32% with the vast majority of chips losing 15% to 25% of their earlier price. While price reductions in the server space will undeniably affect AMD’s quarter results, the slashes are meant to stop Intel’s expansion in the server market.