Xeon E5540 's Advantages
Higher specification of memory (1066 vs 3)
Lower TDP (80W vs 130W)
Intel Xeon W3690 's Advantages
Released 1 years and 11 months late
Higher base frequency (3.466GHz vs 2.533GHz)
Larger L3 cache size (12MB vs 8MB)
More modern manufacturing process (32nm vs 45nm)