In an attempt to match typical power consumption of its processors with competitor’s offerings, Advanced Micro Devices has been quietly introducing its energy efficient processors for desktops, rising performance of low-power offerings and making its chips slightly more competitive on the market, as energy efficient processors need smaller coolers and may enable broader choice for form-factors.

When introduced in mid-2006, AMD’s lineup of dual-core energy efficient processors with 65W thermal design power (TDP) consisted of just five models (3800+, 4000+, 4200+, 4400+ and 4600+) and the roadmap of the company at that time indicated that the only update to the family till Q2 2007 will be the introduction of model 4800+ processor, meaning that the development of energy efficient AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor will proceed relatively slowly.

At this point AMD’s lineup of Athlon 64 X2 chips with 65W TDP includes nine processor models (3600+, 3800+, 4000+, 4200+, 4400+, 4600+, 4800+, 5000+ and 5200+) with different specs and made using 90nm or 65nm fabrication process. Intel’s family of Core 2 Duo processors with 65W thermal envelope features only five processors (E6700, E6600, E6400, E6300 and E4300). AMD’s energy-efficient chips are priced from $102 to $232, while Intel’s are available for $163 – $530 depending on the model.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ with 65W TDP introduced several days ago

In addition, AMD ships six processor models for applications that require power consumption as low as 35W, two processors that fit into 45W thermal envelope, two chips for previous-generation socket 754 platform with 51W and 59W TDP as well as tens of chip models with typical thermal power of 62W.

Unfortunately, the company does not indicate thermal design power of its processors within the model number, which means that end-users and system integrators seeking for low-power chips can reveal TDP of central processing unit only by visiting a special web-site by AMD. While visiting a web-site is hardly a task that is hard to accomplish, it should still be kept in mind that not all the performance-mainstream and mainstream processors by AMD have 65W power consumption.