Intel Xeon E5 2697 v2 's Advantages
Released 4 years and 6 months late
Newer PCIe version (3 vs 2)
Higher base frequency (2.7GHz vs 2.533GHz)
Larger L3 cache size (30MB vs 8MB)
More modern manufacturing process (22nm vs 45nm)
Xeon E5540 's Advantages
Higher specification of memory (1066 vs 3)
Lower TDP (80W vs 130W)