Xeon E5540 's Advantages
Higher base frequency (2.533GHz vs 2.4GHz)
Lower TDP (80W vs 120W)
Intel Xeon E5 2676 v3 's Advantages
Released 6 years and 3 months late
Higher specification of memory (2133 vs 1066)
Newer PCIe version (3 vs 2)
Larger L3 cache size (30MB vs 8MB)
More modern manufacturing process (22nm vs 45nm)