Intel Xeon E3-1220V5

The Xeon E3-1220 v5 sits in the 3rd percentile for single-thread and 4th percentile for multi-thread performance. It's cheap at $86 USD, but you're buying bottom-of-the-barrel compute. Only worth it as a drop-in replacement for a dead server chip.

Let's be direct: this chip is slow by modern standards. Single-thread performance lands in the 3rd percentile of our database, which means 97% of the CPUs we've tested run circles around it. Multi-thread is barely better at the 4th percentile. With only 4 cores and 4 threads, there's no hyperthreading to fall back on, and the 3.00 GHz clock is the ceiling, not the floor. The 8MB L3 cache helps a little with repetitive workloads, but it can't overcome the fundamental age of this architecture.

Efficiency is the real kicker. An 80W TDP for this level of performance puts it in the 4th percentile for efficiency. You're burning more power per unit of work than almost anything else in our database. The 14nm lithography was impressive in 2015, but it's been lapped multiple times since. Memory bandwidth of 34.1 GB/s is another bottleneck. Any workload that touches RAM frequently will feel the squeeze. The PCIe config options (1x16, 2x8, 1x8 + 2x4) are fine for basic storage and networking, but you won't be feeding a modern GPU with this thing.

Stacked against the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X, this Xeon looks like it's from another planet, because it basically is. The 9600X has 6 cores, 12 threads, and modern Zen 5 architecture. The E3-1220 v5 has 4 cores, 4 threads, and a Skylake-era design. It's not a fair fight, and the percentile data confirms it. The Dell Xeon E5-2637 V2 is a closer era match, but even that older chip offers more threads and better multi-thread throughput. The PC Server and Parts E5-2697 v2-cr is a 12-core monster from the same generation that will crush this quad-core in any parallel workload. The be quiet! Ryzen 3 Dark Rock Pro 5 isn't even a CPU, it's a cooler, which tells you how thin the competitive field is for this chip. The E3-1220 v5 doesn't really compete with anything modern. It just exists as a cheap replacement part.

At $86 USD on the used market, the E3-1220 v5 is cheap in absolute terms. But value is about what you get for your money, and here the math gets ugly. You're paying for a chip that delivers bottom-5% performance across the board. For context, a used Ryzen 5 1600 or even an older i7-6700 will often sell in a similar price range and absolutely demolish this Xeon in every metric. The EUR 105-113 listings in Europe are even harder to justify. The only scenario where this makes sense is if you already have a compatible LGA 1151 server board and just need a drop-in replacement. Otherwise, you're spending money to lock yourself into a dead platform.

The Intel Xeon E3-1220 v5 is a 2015-era server chip that lands in the bottom 5% of our database for single-thread, multi-thread, and efficiency scores. That's not a typo. We're talking 3rd, 4th, and 4th percentile respectively. If you're shopping for this in 2024, you're either building a dirt-cheap homelab, replacing a dead chip in an old server, or you found one in a drawer and got curious.

It's a 4-core, 4-thread part with 8MB of L3 cache, an 80W TDP, and a 3.00 GHz base clock. No turbo, no hyperthreading. The memory bandwidth tops out at 34.1 GB/s, which was fine when DDR4 was new but feels glacial now. The one bright spot is affordability, where it sits in the 82nd percentile. At around $86 USD on the used market, it's cheap. But cheap and good are different things.

Skip this if you're building anything new, gaming, doing content creation, or running modern server workloads. The 4th percentile efficiency score means you'll pay more in electricity over time than you saved on the purchase price. The 34.1 GB/s memory bandwidth ceiling will choke any data-heavy application. And with no hyperthreading and a locked 3.00 GHz clock, there's no headroom to grow into. If you need a cheap server chip, look at used Ryzen or even older Xeon E5 v3/v4 parts with more cores. They'll cost a bit more upfront but deliver dramatically better performance per dollar.

The Intel Xeon E3-1220 v5 is a relic. It was a budget server chip in 2015, and in 2024 it's a budget curiosity. The 82nd percentile affordability score is the only thing keeping it from being a complete write-off. If you have a dead server with an LGA 1151 socket and you need the cheapest possible fix, sure, grab one for $86. But if you're building anything new, or upgrading anything you care about, this chip will disappoint you. The 3rd percentile single-thread score isn't just bad, it's a warning label.