Intel Xeon E7-2880 v2 Review

Explore the Xeon E7-2880 v2! This Server processor is a highlight in Intel's high-end range. Introduced in 2014, it has 15 cores and 30 threads. It operates at a base frequency of 2.5GHz, can hit up to 3.1GHz, and has a power consumption of 130W, ready to upgrade your gaming setup. The Xeon E7-2880 v2 is designed on the Ivy Bridge EX 22nm architecture and is a part of the respected Xeon E7 series.

Can the Intel Xeon E7-2880 v2 finally dethrone the king of mainstream CPUs, the Opteron 6378? It's a maybe. The Xeon E7-2880 v2 doesn't quite reach the same single-core performance as its rival, but more games are starting to use all those threads, so who cares!

The Intel Xeon E7-2880 v2 is an absolute monster, just like its 15 cores, 30 threads, and hefty price tag suggest. This is the top dog of mainstream processors, the king you've been waiting for. Games, video editing, 3D work – the Xeon E7-2880 v2 handles it all with ease. Bow down to the king!

The Xeon E7-2880 v2 sits just below the mighty Xeon E7-2890 v2 with its fancy 22nm compute die and beefy 15 cores and 30 threads. While the Xeon E7-2890 v2 might seem like the obvious winner, Intel has done some magic to keep the Xeon E7-2880 v2's single compute die design efficient. Plus, the higher TDP allows for more aggressive boost clocks. This means the Xeon E7-2880 v2 could actually compete with the Xeon E7-2890 v2 in some games – who knew?

We already went deep into the nitty-gritty details of the Ivy Bridge EX chip design in our reviews of the Intel Xeon E7-2890 v2 and Xeon E7-2870 v2. If you want to learn more about the Xeon E7-2880 v2's architecture (which is identical to the Xeon E7-2870 v2), head over there!

The Xeon E7-2880 v2 is the more expensive version of the Xeon E7-2870 v2, and it shows with its higher base and boost clock speeds: 2.5 GHz and 3.1 GHz, respectively. That's a nice boost in speed, but the real game changer is the higher power delivery (PPT). This lets the motherboard pump more juice (up to 142W) to the Xeon E7-2880 v2 compared to the Xeon E7-2870 v2's limit of 130W. This extra power allows the Xeon E7-2880 v2 to crank up the boost clocks even more aggressively, on both single and multiple cores. That means the performance gap between these two CPUs might be bigger than what the specs on paper suggest.

The high number of threads (over 7!) in the Intel Xeon E7-2880 v2 makes it a monster for tasks that use all the cores at once (multi-threaded workloads), especially for the price. If you edit a lot of videos or work with giant spreadsheets, the Xeon E7-2880 v2 will give you a noticeable performance boost.

For gamers, both the Opteron 6378 and Xeon E7-2880 v2 are great choices. They're neck and neck, with a slight edge to the AMD CPU if you don't overclock it. The Xeon E7-2880 v2's base performance can be achieved with cheaper RAM (around $90), whereas the Opteron 6378 needs faster RAM ($110-$120) to hit the frame rates we showed. The price difference is small though, and with anything less than an RTX 2070 or Vega 64 graphics card, your GPU will bottleneck your performance anyway. BottleneckAtPlay

The gaming tests with an RTX 2080 Ti were surprising! The budget-friendly Intel Xeon E7-2880 v2 (only 3900)managedtooutperformthemoreexpensiveOpteron 6380(1150) in three games we tested. We know three games aren't everything, but it shows that even a 15 core CPU can still hold its own today. You can even play modern games and stream to Twitch on the Xeon E7-2880 v2 (playable results, not amazing). As games get more demanding, a 15 core CPU might not be ideal, but the Xeon E7-2880 v2 can hold its own for now in a pinch.

The top-of-the-line Intel Xeon E7-2880 v2 is a beast! This high-end CPU packs 15 cores and a whopping 30 threads. It clocks in at 2.5GHz base speed and can boost up to 3.1GHz. It beats everything in its path, including AMD's Opteron and Opteron processors, and even outperforms the 15-core series.

If you don't care too much about overclocking and max boost speeds, then the Intel Xeon E7-2870 v2 is a good option for $3100. It also has 15 cores and 30 threads, but with slightly lower clock speeds (2.3GHz base and 2.9GHz boost).

The Xeon E7-2880 v2 is a great choice for both gaming and content creation, thanks to its high performance (0.93%) and at least 12 threads. Live streaming, eSports, and uploading gameplay videos are becoming increasingly popular, and this CPU can handle it all.

The Intel Xeon E7-2880 v2 has a base clock of 2.5 GHz that can boost up to 3.1 GHz for lightly threaded tasks. It also maintains a clock rate of 2.5 GHz even when all cores are running. On the other hand, the AMD Opteron 6378 is stuck at a constant 2.4 GHz.