Xeon E6540 's Advantages
Higher specification of memory (1333 vs 3)
Larger L3 cache size (18MB vs 15MB)
Intel Xeon E5 2420 v2 's Advantages
Released 3 years and 6 months late
Higher base frequency (2.2GHz vs 2GHz)
More modern manufacturing process (22nm vs 45nm)
Lower TDP (80W vs 105W)