Channel Insider content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.

Perhaps the lack of anything new or exciting from AMD over the last few months was the calm before the storm.  Maybe engineering challenges held back new products. Or could it be AMD was just waiting for the timing to be right?

Regardless the reason, AMD has made the second quarter a time to remember with a spate of new processors. First out of the gate was the X3 and X4 Phenom CPUs, which arrived on the scene at the end of March, followed a month or so later by AMD’s Opteron 2347 HE series, consisting of energy efficient quad core processors that run at 55 watts. Both the Phenoms and Opterons are stirring up some controversy, with the Phenoms on the price and performance front and the Opterons on the power-savings front. Here at Channel Insider, we decided to take a real world look at these new processors and see what all the fuss is about.