Xeon E5-2680 v2 vs Xeon E5-2697 v2 comparison
Our benchmark analysis concludes that the Xeon E5-2680 v2 performs better than the Xeon E5-2697 v2. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Xeon E5-2697 v2 in all gaming tests too.
With info from our database, we find that the Xeon E5-2697 v2 has slightly more cores with 12 cores whereas the Xeon E5-2680 v2 has 10 cores. It also has more threads than the Xeon E5-2680 v2. With our hardware info, we find that the Xeon E5-2680 v2 has a slightly higher clock speed than the Xeon E5-2697 v2. Also, the Xeon E5-2680 v2 has a slightly higher turbo speed. A Xeon E5-2680 v2 CPU outputs less heat than a Xeon E5-2697 v2 CPU because of its 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 Xeon E5-2680 v2 has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.
Having tested both the Intel Xeon e5-2680 v2 (10 cores 20 threads 2.80 GHz, TDP 115 W) and e5-2697 v2 (12 cores 24 threads 2.70 GHz, TDP 130 W), I confirm that it is better to use the e5-2680 v2 for most of the tasks including games. The e5-2680 v2 already heats less and consumes less power. Moreover its speed is superior even if it has less cores and cache memory. I use an HP Z420 v2 workstation with 128 Gb ECC registred RDDR3-1600 RAM (PC3-12800R) and a Geforce GTX 1050 Ti.