Intel Core i7-3960X vs Intel Xeon E5-2660 v3

Core i7-3960X vs Xeon E5-2660 v3 benchmarks

Our benchmark analysis concludes that the Xeon E5-2660 v3 performs better than the Core i7-3960X. Despite this, the Core i7-3960X has the advantage in our gaming benchmark.

In terms of the number of cores of each of these CPUs, the Xeon E5-2660 v3 has significantly more cores than the Core i7-3960X. Indeed, the Xeon E5-2660 v3 has 10 cores compared to 6 cores found in the Core i7-3960X. It also has more threads than the Core i7-3960X. With our hardware info, we find that the Core i7-3960X has a slightly higher clock speed than the Xeon E5-2660 v3. Also, the Core i7-3960X has a slightly higher turbo speed. The Xeon E5-2660 v3 outputs less heat than Core i7-3960X thanks to a slightly lower TDP. This measures the amount of heat they output and can be used to estimate power consumption.

Most CPUs have more threads than cores. This technology, colloquially called hyperthreading, improves performance by splitting a core into multiple virtual ones. This provides more efficient utilisation of a core. Indeed, the Core i7-3960X has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.