Xeon E5540 's Advantages
Higher specification of memory (1066 vs 3)
Lower TDP (80W vs 130W)
Intel Xeon E5 1620 's Advantages
Released 3 years late
Newer PCIe version (3 vs 2)
Higher base frequency (3.6GHz vs 2.533GHz)
Larger L3 cache size (10MB vs 8MB)
More modern manufacturing process (32nm vs 45nm)