Xeon Gold 5218 vs E5-2660

Primary details

Comparing Xeon E5-2660 and Xeon Gold 5218 processor market type (desktop or notebook), architecture, sales start time and price.

Place in the ranking	1193	539
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation	6.78	14.92
Market segment	Server	Server
Series	no data	Intel Xeon Gold
Power efficiency	5.11	10.32
Architecture codename	Sandy Bridge-EP (2012)	Cascade Lake (2019−2020)
Release date	6 March 2012 (12 years ago)	2 April 2019 (5 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$85	$1,273

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance per price, higher is better.

Xeon Gold 5218 has 120% better value for money than Xeon E5-2660.

Detailed specifications

Xeon E5-2660 and Xeon Gold 5218 basic parameters such as number of cores, number of threads, base frequency and turbo boost clock, lithography, cache size and multiplier lock state. These parameters indirectly say of CPU speed, though for more precise assessment you have to consider their test results.

Physical cores	8 (Octa-Core)	16 (Hexadeca-Core)
Threads	16	32
Base clock speed	2.2 GHz	2.3 GHz
Boost clock speed	3 GHz	3.9 GHz
Bus type	no data	DMI 3.0
Bus rate	8 GT/s	4 × 8 GT/s
Multiplier	no data	23
L1 cache	64 KB (per core)	1 MB
L2 cache	256 KB (per core)	16 MB
L3 cache	20480 KB (shared)	22 MB
Chip lithography	32 nm	14 nm
Die size	435 mm2	no data
Maximum core temperature	73 °C	87 °C
Number of transistors	2,270 million	no data
64 bit support	+	+
Windows 11 compatibility	-	+

Compatibility

Information on Xeon E5-2660 and Xeon Gold 5218 compatibility with other computer components: motherboard (look for socket type), power supply unit (look for power consumption) etc. Useful when planning a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. Note that power consumption of some processors can well exceed their nominal TDP, even without overclocking. Some can even double their declared thermals given that the motherboard allows to tune the CPU power parameters.

Number of CPUs in a configuration	2	4 (Multiprocessor)
Socket	FCLGA2011	FCLGA3647
Power consumption (TDP)	95 Watt	125 Watt

Technologies and extensions

Technological solutions and additional instructions supported by Xeon E5-2660 and Xeon Gold 5218. You'll probably need this information if you require some particular technology.

Instruction set extensions	Intel® AVX	Intel® SSE4.2, Intel® AVX, Intel® AVX2, Intel® AVX-512
AES-NI	+	+
AVX	+	+
vPro	no data	+
Enhanced SpeedStep (EIST)	+	+
Speed Shift	no data	+
Turbo Boost Technology	2.0	2.0
Hyper-Threading Technology	+	+
TSX	-	+
Idle States	+	no data
Thermal Monitoring	+	-
Flex Memory Access	-	no data
Demand Based Switching	+	no data
Turbo Boost Max 3.0	no data	-
Deep Learning Boost	-	+

Security technologies

Xeon E5-2660 and Xeon Gold 5218 technologies aimed at improving security, for example, by protecting against hacks.

TXT	+	+
EDB	+	+

Virtualization technologies

Virtual machine speed-up technologies supported by Xeon E5-2660 and Xeon Gold 5218 are enumerated here.

VT-d	+	+
VT-x	+	+
EPT	+	+

Memory specs

Types, maximum amount and channel quantity of RAM supported by Xeon E5-2660 and Xeon Gold 5218. Depending on the motherboard, higher memory frequencies may be supported.

Supported memory types	DDR3	DDR4-2667
Maximum memory size	384 GB	1 TB
Max memory channels	4	6
Maximum memory bandwidth	51.2 GB/s	128.001 GB/s
ECC memory support	+	+

Peripherals

Specifications and connection of peripherals supported by Xeon E5-2660 and Xeon Gold 5218.

PCIe version	3.0	3.0
PCI Express lanes	40	48

Synthetic benchmark performance

Various benchmark results of the processors in comparison. Overall score is measured in points in 0-100 range, higher is better.

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Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark performance rating. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

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Pros & cons summary

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Performance score	5.32	14.15
Recency	6 March 2012	2 April 2019
Physical cores	8	16
Threads	16	32
Chip lithography	32 nm	14 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	95 Watt	125 Watt

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Should you still have questions on choice between Xeon E5-2660 and Xeon Gold 5218, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

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