Intel Xeon E5-2690 vs Intel Xeon E5-2696 v2

Xeon E5-2690 vs Xeon E5-2696 v2 specs and performance

Our benchmark analysis concludes that the Xeon E5-2690 performs better than the Xeon E5-2696 v2. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Xeon E5-2696 v2 in all gaming tests too.

In terms of the number of cores of each of these CPUs, the Xeon E5-2696 v2 has significantly more cores than the Xeon E5-2690. Indeed, the Xeon E5-2696 v2 has 12 cores compared to 8 cores found in the Xeon E5-2690. It also has more threads than the Xeon E5-2690.

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 E5-2690 has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.