Intel Core i7-3960X vs Intel Xeon E5-2670 v2

Core i7-3960X vs Xeon E5-2670 v2 benchmarks

Our benchmark analysis concludes that the Xeon E5-2670 v2 performs better than the Core i7-3960X. Despite this, the Core i7-3960X has the advantage in our gaming benchmark.

With info from our database, we find that the Xeon E5-2670 v2 has significantly more cores with 10 cores whereas the Core i7-3960X has 6 cores. It also has more threads than the Core i7-3960X. These CPUs have different clock speeds. Indeed, the Core i7-3960X has a slightly higher clock speed compared to the Xeon E5-2670 v2. Also, the Core i7-3960X has a slightly higher turbo speed. The Xeon E5-2670 v2 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.