Intel Xeon E3-1220 v3 vs Intel Xeon E5-2420 v2

Xeon E3-1220 v3 vs Xeon E5-2420 v2 specs and performance

In our benchmarks, the Xeon E5-2420 v2 beats the Xeon E3-1220 v3 in overall performance. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Xeon E3-1220 v3 in all gaming tests too.

In terms of the number of cores of each of these CPUs, the Xeon E5-2420 v2 has significantly more cores than the Xeon E3-1220 v3. Indeed, the Xeon E5-2420 v2 has 6 cores compared to 4 cores found in the Xeon E3-1220 v3. It also has more threads than the Xeon E3-1220 v3. These CPUs have different clock speeds. Indeed, the Xeon E3-1220 v3 has a slightly higher clock speed compared to the Xeon E5-2420 v2. Also, the Xeon E3-1220 v3 has a slightly higher turbo speed. Both these chips have an identical TDP (Thermal Design Power). 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. For instance, the Xeon E3-1220 v3 has the same number of threads as cores. This means the the CPU does not support hyperthreading.