AMD has launched a trio of quad-core Phenom X4 processors today, including a new top-of-the-line part, the 2.6GHz 9950.

The other two are lesser parts, but AMD's pitching their "energy efficiency", particularly when lined up against Intel quad-core CPUs.

The 9150e and 9350e are clocked, respectively, at 1.8GHz and 2.0GHz. AMD said they draw no more than 65W - less than the 95W that the Core 2 Quad line members each consume.

That said, the 9950 consumes a whopping 140W, which is more than even the top-of-the-range 2.83GHz Core 2 Quad Q9550.

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AMD is pricing the 9150e at $175 and the 9350e at $195 - when sold in batches of 1000 processors - and was quick to point out that Intel doesn't have a quad-core that costs less than $200.

Joining the two new AMD CPUs si the $235 9950. All three are fabbed at 65nm and contain 2MB of shared L3 cache and 512KB of L2 per core. They can connect directly to DDR 2 memory clocked at up to 1066MHz.

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