After a long wait, AMD is finally making its high-end Bulldozer Opteron CPUs available. The 6200 (Interlagos) brings a world first to the table, with 16 cores and four memory channels, while the 4200 (Valencia) chip offers eight cores with two memory channels. Both come clocked at speeds of up to 3.3GHz, with an additional 1GHz Turbo Boost available on some models.

You could use these chips to bask in Battlefield 3's ultra settings, but the Opterons are the kind of CPU that are more likely to be powering supercomputers at the US Department of Defense. The chips offer fine control over power consumption with single-watt adjustments on the TDP Power Cap, and AMD claim that they outperform similarly priced Intel Xeon CPUs by 89 percent. The eight-core 4200 starts at $316 in bulk and prices go all the way up to $1,019 for the most expensive 6200.