Intel Xeon E5-2630L v3 review: testing the 8-core CPU in popular games and benchmarks

The Intel Xeon E5-2630L v3 is one of the most affordable 8-core, 16-thread processors for the LGA 2011 v3 socket. However, it's also a rather controversial choice, essentially held back by its strict 55W TDP. Because of this power limit, the clock speed rarely reaches the theoretical maximum of 2900 MHz. Even in lighter workloads like gaming, it usually hovers around 2700-2800 MHz, dropping to 2400-2600 MHz during heavy tasks like rendering or video encoding.

You might be wondering: what frequency does the E5-2630L v3 run at under extreme workloads like LinX? The answer is simple: 2000 MHz.

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Of course, all these frequencies assume a modified BIOS with Unlock Turbo Boost. In theory, all active cores can run at the single-core turbo frequency. For the E5-2630L v3, that's 2900 MHz. However, because of the low 55W TDP, reaching this frequency is practically impossible.

In this article, we'll see if the relatively low-clocked, 8-core, 16-thread Xeon E5-2630L v3 can beat its higher-clocked Haswell sibling, the 6-core, 12-thread Xeon E5-2620 v3, in popular games, apps, and benchmarks.

Welcome to the second article of our November benchmarking session!

Processor

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Our review sample is marked SR209. It was manufactured in Malaysia and has a base clock speed of 1800 MHz.

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Since the Intel Xeon E5-2630L v3 fits into the LGA 2011 v3 socket, it naturally supports all essential modern instruction sets: FMA3, AES, AVX, AVX2, EM64T, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, and SSE4.2. This means you don't have to worry about compatibility issues: this chip will run any game or application for the foreseeable future.

The budget 8-core chip has a base clock of 1800 MHz, but as mentioned, it can boost up to 2800 MHz across all 16 threads. The E5-2630L v3 features 256 KB of L2 cache per core and a massive 20 MB shared L3 cache. Its memory controller frequency is locked at 2900 MHz (which is also the L3 cache speed), while the maximum RAM speed is limited to DDR4-1866 MHz.

Technical specifications of the tested CPUs:

You can find more detailed specs, design details, and a quick overview of the other featured CPUs in our first article of the September bench session.

Test bench:

• Processors: Xeon E5-2620, Xeon E5-2620 v3, Xeon E5-2630L v3, Xeon E5-2643, Xeon X5570, and Xeon X5660;

• Cooling: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black Edition (RR-212S-20PK-R1);

• LGA 1366 RAM: 2x 8GB HyperX Genesis Na’Vi Edition (KHX16C9C2K2/8), 16GB total;

• LGA 2011 RAM: 2x 8GB Micron MT36JSF1G72PZ-1G4M1HF, 16GB total;

• LGA 2011 v3 RAM: 4x 4GB G.SKILL DDR4@1866MHz F4-2400C15S-4GNT, 16GB total (10-10-10-24 timings);

• LGA 2011 motherboard: DELL T3610 (09M8Y8);

• LGA 2011 v3 motherboard: Kllisre X99-D8 (AD12) with modified BIOS (Turbo Boost unlocked, timing control enabled);

• LGA 1366 motherboard: DELL T3500 (09KPNV);

• Graphics card: KFA2 GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER 8GB (115% power limit);

• SSD: KINGSTON 120GB SA400S37120G (Windows 10 1903/Apps);

• HDD: Seagate 2TB ST2000DM008-2FR102 (Games);

• Power supply: Chieftec GPS-1250C.

Software:

• Windows 10 Pro v1909 x64;

• CPU-Z v1.93.0 x64;

• AIDA64 v6.10.5200;

• NVIDIA Driver v452.06;

• Cinebench R15.38;

• Cinebench R20.060;

• xNormal 3.19.3.39669 x64 (NM Map anti-aliasing x4, AO Map anti-aliasing x1);

• Blender 2.90.0;

• HWBot x265 Benchmark v2.0.0;

• WinRAR v5.91 x64;

• 7-Zip v20.02 alpha x64.

Games and graphics settings:

All of the games below were updated to their latest stable versions.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey:

• API: DirectX 11;

• Display mode: Fullscreen;

• Resolution: 1280×720;

• Resolution scale: 100%;

• VSync: Off;

• Graphics preset: Max;

• Adaptive quality: Off;

• Anti-aliasing: Off;

• Shadows: Ultra;

• Environment: Ultra;

• Texture detail: High;

• Terrain: High;

• Clutter density: Ultra;

• Fog: High;

• Water: Ultra;

• Screen space reflections: High;

• Volumetric clouds: Ultra;

• Character texture detail: High;

• Character: High;

• Volumetric lighting: Ultra;

• Depth of field: High.

Battlefield V:

• API — DirectX 12;

• Fullscreen — Fullscreen;

• Fullscreen resolution — 1280×720;

• Chromatic aberration — Yes;

• Film grain — Yes;

• Vignette — Yes;

• Lens distortion — Yes;

• DXR Enabled — Yes;

• RTX DLSS — Yes;

• Framerate limit — 200;

• Future frame rendering — No;

• Vertical sync — No;

• GPU memory restriction — No;

• Graphics quality — Ultra;

• Texture quality — Ultra;

• Lighting quality — Ultra;

• Effects quality — Ultra;

• Post-processing quality — Ultra;

• Mesh quality — Ultra;

• Terrain quality — Ultra;

• Undergrowth quality — Ultra;

• Ambient occlusion — HBAO;

• Ray-traced reflections quality — Ultra;

• High fidelity objects — Ultra;

Control Ultimate Edition:

• API — DirectX 12;

• Display mode — Fullscreen;

• Resolution — 1280×720;

• Render resolution — 853×480;

• NVIDIA DLSS — On;

• V-Sync — Off;

• Graphics preset — High;

• Far object detail — High;

• Texture quality — High;

• Texture filtering — High;

• Shadow resolution — High;

• Shadow filtering — Medium;

• Volumetric lighting — High;

• Terrain quality — Medium;

• SSAO — On;

• Screen space reflections — Medium (unavailable with RTX active);

• Global reflections — High;

• MSAA — 2X;

• Film grain — On;

• Motion blur — On;

• Ray tracing — On;

• Ray tracing preset — High (if disabled, all subordinate settings are also disabled);Ray-traced reflections — On; Ray-traced transparent reflections — On;

• Ray-traced indirect diffuse lighting — On;

• Ray-traced contact shadows — On;

• Ray-traced debris — On;

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive:

• API: DirectX 9;

• Resolution: 1280×720;

• Display mode: Fullscreen;

• Global shadow quality: High;

• Model and texture detail: High;

• Texture streaming: On;

• Effects detail: High;

• Shader detail: Very high;

• Boost player contrast: Off;

• Multicore rendering: On;

• Multisample anti-aliasing mode: 8X MSAA;

• FXAA anti-aliasing: On;

• Texture filtering mode: Anisotropic 16X;

• V-Sync: Off;

• Motion blur: Off;

• Triple monitor mode: Off.

Destiny 2:

• API: DirectX 11;

• Display mode: Fullscreen;

• Resolution: 1280×720;

• V-Sync: Off;

• Framerate cap: Off;

• Field of view: 105 degrees;

• Graphics preset: Highest;

• Anti-aliasing: SMAA;

• SSAO: 3D;

• Anisotropic texture filtering: 16X;

• Texture quality: Highest;

• Shadow quality: Highest;

• Depth of field: High;

• Environment detail distance: High;

• Character detail distance: High;

• Foliage detail distance: High;

• Foliage shadow distance: Highest;

• Light shafts: High;

• Motion blur: On;

• Wind impulses: On;

• Render resolution: 100%

• Chromatic aberration: On;

• Film grain: On.

Far Cry 5:

• API: DirectX 11;

• Display mode: Fullscreen;

• Resolution: 1280×720;

• Graphics quality: Max;

• Texture filtering: Max;

• Shadows: Max;

• Geometry and vegetation: Max;

• Water: High;

• Terrain: High;

• Volumetric fog: High;

• HD textures: Off;

• Anti-aliasing: TAA;

• Motion blur: Off;

• V-Sync: Off;

• Field of view: 75 degrees;

• Dynamic resolution: Off;

• Resolution scale: 1 (100%).

For Honor:

• API — DirectX 11;

• Display mode — Fullscreen;

• Resolution — 1280×720;

• V-Sync — Off;

• Field of view — 70 degrees;

• Graphics quality — Very High;

• Texture filtering — Anisotropic 16x;

• Anti-aliasing — TAA;

• Image scaling — 100%;

• Detail level — Very High;

• Texture quality — High;

• Dynamic shadows — Very High;

• Terrain detail — High;

• Ambient occlusion — MHBAO;

• Dynamic reflections — High;

• Motion blur — On;

• Supersampling — Off.

Horizon Zero Dawn:

• API — DirectX 12;

• Display mode — Fullscreen;

• Resolution — 1280×720;

• Field of view — 70 degrees;

• Adaptive frame rate — Off;

• Frame rate limit — Unlimited;

• Render scale — 100%;

• V-Sync — Off;

• Preset — Ultimate Quality;

• Textures — Ultra;

• Model quality — Ultra;

• Anisotropic filtering — Ultra;

• Shadows — Ultra;

• Reflections — High;

• Clouds — Ultra;

• Anti-aliasing — TAA;

• Motion blur — On;

• Ambient occlusion — Ultra.

Red Dead Redemption 2:

• API — Vulkan;

• Resolution — 1280×720;

• Display Mode — Fullscreen;

• V-Sync — Off;

• Texture Quality — Ultra;

• Anisotropic Filtering — 8x;

• Lighting Quality — Medium;

• Global Illumination Quality — High;

• Shadow Quality — High;

• Far Shadow Quality — High;

• SSAO — High;

• Reflection Quality — Low;

• Mirror Quality — High;

• Water Quality — High;

• Volumetric Effects Quality — Medium;

• Particle Quality — Medium;

• Tessellation Quality — High;

• TAA — Off;

• FXAA — On;

• MSAA — Off;

• Near Volumetric Resolution — Medium;

• Far Volumetric Resolution — Medium;

• Volumetric Lighting Quality — Medium;

• Unlocked Volumetric Raymarch Resolution — Off;

• Particle Lighting Quality — Medium;

• Soft Shadows — Ultra;

• Grass Shadows — Medium;

• Long Shadows — On;

• Full Resolution SSAO — On;

• Water Refraction Quality — High;

• Water Reflection Quality — High;

• Water Physics Quality — High;

• Resolution Scale — Off;

• TAA Sharpening — Low;

• Motion Blur — On;

• Reflection MSAA — Off;

• Geometry Level of Detail — Ultra;

• Grass Level of Detail — Medium;

• Tree Quality — Medium;

• Parallax Occlusion Mapping Quality — Ultra;

• Decal Quality — High;

• Fur Quality — Medium;

• Tree Tessellation — Off.

Remnant: From the Ashes:

• API — DirectX 11;

• Display Mode — Fullscreen;

• Resolution — 1280×720;

• Motion Blur — On;

• V-Sync — Off;

• Shadow Distance — 100;

• Shadow Quality — Ultra;

• Anti-Aliasing — Ultra;

• View Distance — Ultra;

• Textures — Ultra;

• Post-Processing — Ultra;

• Effects — Ultra;

• Foliage Quality — Ultra;

• Framerate Limit — 0;

• Minimize Input Delay — On;

• Field of View — 1.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider:

• API — DirectX 12

• Resolution — 1280×720;

• NVIDIA RTX DLSS — On;

• Display Mode — Fullscreen;

• Exclusive Fullscreen — On;

• V-Sync — Off;

• Graphics Quality — Ultra;

• Texture Quality — Ultra;

• Ray-Traced Shadow Quality — Ultra;

• Ambient Occlusion — HBAO+;

• Depth of Field — High;

• World Detail Quality — Ultra;

• Tessellation — On;

• Bloom — On;

• Motion Blur — On;

• Screen Space Reflections — On;

• Screen Space Contact Shadows — High;

• PureHair — Medium;

• Volumetric Lighting — On;

• Lens Flare — On;

• Screen Effects — On.

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2:

• API — DirectX 12;

• Display Mode — Fullscreen;

• Resolution — 1280×720;

• Reduce Input Latency — On (slightly reduces input lag at the cost of a small performance hit);

• Graphics Quality — Custom (disabling V-Sync in this game automatically switches the quality preset to 'Custom' without changing other settings);

• V-Sync — Off;

• Frame Rate Limit — Off;

• Shadow Quality — High;

• Local Shadows — High;

• Local Shadow Resolution — High;

• Contact Shadows Sun — High;

• Resolution Scale — 100%;

• Sharpening — 70%;

• Particle Quality — Maximum;

• Volumetric Fog — Maximum;

• Reflection Quality — Medium;

• Local Reflection Quality — High;

• Vegetation Quality — Medium;

• Sub-Surface Scattering — On;

• Anisotropic Filtering — 16x;

• Parallax Mapping — On;

• Ambient Occlusion — High;

• Depth of Field — On;

• Object Detail — 100;

• Extra Streaming Distance — 10;

• Neutral Lighting — Off;

• Lens Flare — On;

• Vignette — On.

• Water Quality — High;

• Chromatic Aberration — On;

• Projected Texture Resolution — 512;

• High Resolution Sky — On.

• Terrain Quality — High;

• Anti-aliasing — Maximum;

Watch_Dogs 2:

• Window mode — Fullscreen;

• Resolution — 1280×720;

• V-Sync — Off;

• Frame limit — 125;

• Field of view — 70;

• Pixel density — 1;

• Graphics quality — Ultra;

• Geometry — Ultra;

• Extra — 0%;

• Terrain — Ultra;

• Vegetation — Ultra;

• Texture resolution — Ultra;

• Texture filtering — Ultra;

• Shadows — Ultra;

• Headlight shadows — 2 cars;

• Water — High;

• Reflections — High;

• SSLR — Ultra;

• Dynamic particles — On;

• San Francisco fog — On;

• Depth of field — On;

• Motion blur — On;

• Bloom — On;

• Ambient occlusion — HMSSAO;

• Temporal filtering — Off;

• MSAA — Off;

• Post-processing and anti-aliasing — SMAA.

To see how these graphics settings look in action, check out the Xeon E5-2630L v3 benchmark video at the end of this article.

Benchmark and application testing

First, let's look at the results in basic benchmarks before moving on to real-world tasks and software suites. Some tests will include extra screenshots showing the actual CPU clock speed under load.

Overall performance:

CPU-Z benchmark

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In the built-in CPU-Z benchmark, the E5-2630L v3 ran at 2800 MHz, which yielded some impressive results. See for yourself: with a TDP of just 55 watts, this budget eight-core chip managed to beat its 85-watt, 6-core sibling by 15% in the multi-threaded test. Granted, due to its relatively low clock speed, the E5-2630L v3 fell 10% behind the E5-2620 v3 in single-thread performance. But let's be honest, such a solid lead in multi-threading completely offsets the deficit in single-threaded tasks, which are practically non-existent nowadays.

As we've already seen in our previous coverage, CPU-Z testing doesn't reflect real-world performance at all. So let's see how things hold up in more realistic benchmarks:

Rendering benchmarks:

Cinebench R15

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In Cinebench R15, our first somewhat realistic and representative workload, the E5-2630L v3 shows only a 10% lead over the E5-2620 v3. Given the eight-core's significantly higher price tag and relatively low single-thread performance, this margin isn't particularly convincing.

Cinebench R20

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How about a mere 0.5% lead for the E5-2630Lv3 over the E5-2620v3 in the current version of Cinebench R20? This benchmark makes heavy use of AVX2, an instruction set known to significantly spike power draw on any compatible CPU. Because of this, the strict 55W TDP limit kept the E5-2630Lv3's clock speed from rising above 2400 MHz during the run. That's the price you pay for a low TDP.

Corona Render 1.3

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In the aging Corona 1.3 benchmark, the playing field levels out a bit, with the E5-2630Lv3 pulling ahead of its closest rival by 5%. However, considering its 25% price premium, that's hardly impressive.

V-Ray render benchmark

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The V-Ray benchmark shows the 8-core Haswell chip leading the 6-core model by 8%.

Real-world rendering:

Blender

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The first real-world final render in Blender using the Cycles engine delivers a real shock: the 16-thread E5-2630Lv3 actually loses to the 12-thread E5-2620v3! While the gap is tiny, under 5%, the result itself is highly intriguing.

If you're looking to dive into the free 3D modeling software Blender, the E5-2620v3 is a much better buy than the E5-2630Lv3. Even just launching the application is noticeably faster on the 6-core Haswell chip.

xNormal

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Texture baking in the highly popular xNormal puts things back in order, with the E5-2630Lv3 taking the lead once again.

Video encoding

HWBot x265 benchmark, 1080p

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Encoding video to x265 is not the strong suit of this 55W 8-core CPU. Practically speaking, the E5-2630Lv3's advantage over the E5-2620v3 falls within the margin of error.

Archiving

7-Zip

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However, archiving in the free 7-Zip utility tells a completely different story. Here, the 8-core Haswell chip pulls ahead of its 6-core counterpart by a solid 15%.

WinRAR

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WinRAR has always been highly sensitive to thread counts and L3 cache size. Thanks to this, the E5-2630Lv3 lands its biggest win here, outperforming its closest rival by a massive 30% in real-world workloads!

That wraps up our synthetic benchmarks. Now, let's look at how the E5-2630Lv3 performs in games. This is where things should get unpredictable, since game engines rarely make good use of 16 threads.

Gaming benchmarks

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

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The latest installment in the Assassin's Creed series delivers an unexpected result: the low-frequency 8-core chip actually pulls slightly ahead of its 6-core Haswell sibling.

Battlefield V

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We see a similar story in Battlefield V. Both CPUs perform almost identically, with any difference in framerates falling well within the margin of error.

However, both Battlefield V and Assassin's Creed Odyssey are highly demanding titles with massive, detailed maps, and their engines are well-optimized for high thread counts. Let's see how these CPUs fare in games that only scale up to four threads:

Control Ultimate Edition

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Control's Northlight engine is highly optimized, but it caps out at four threads. This makes clock speed the deciding factor, giving an edge to the higher-clocked, 6-core E5-2620v3. Even so, it failed to build a meaningful lead, beating the 8-core E5-2630Lv3 by less than 5%.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

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In Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, things don't look quite as bright for the 8-core chip. Here, it trails the E5-2620v3 by roughly 11%.

Destiny 2

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Destiny 2 is a different story. In Bungie's title, the 2620v3 is just 4% faster than our main subject.

Far Cry 5

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Far Cry 5 also fails to properly utilize more than six threads. Still, in Ubisoft's flagship title, the E5-2630Lv3 delivers virtually the same performance as the E5-2620v3.

For Honor

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In another Ubisoft title, the medieval action game For Honor, both CPUs deliver virtually identical frame rates, with the difference well within the margin of error.

Horizon Zero Dawn

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In the relatively modern Horizon Zero Dawn, both Haswell chips once again perform neck-and-neck, delivering nearly identical frame rates.

Red Dead Redemption 2

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Surprisingly, Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption 2 scales quite well with the extra two cores and four threads, handing a win to the E5-2630Lv3. However, the performance gap is still largely within the margin of error, except for the 1% lows.

Remnant: From the Ashes

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Things are much more straightforward in Remnant: From the Ashes. In this souls-like action game, the higher-clocked 6-core Xeon E5-2620v3 takes a clear victory, delivering 9% higher frame rates than the 8-core Xeon E5-2630Lv3.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

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Just look at these CPU benchmark results in Shadow of the Tomb Raider! The average FPS on the E5-2630Lv3 is 16% higher than on the E5-2620v3. This is the biggest lead the 8-core has shown over the 6-core in all our game tests. Even more impressive is the minimum FPS: the E5-2630Lv3 is a massive 56% ahead of its closest competitor.

These are incredible results, and in theory, they hint at the future of gaming, especially with next-gen consoles running on 8-core, 16-thread chips.

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2

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Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 also shows a slight lead for the 8-core chip over its 6-core sibling. Either way, the average FPS difference is too big to be dismissed as a margin of error.

Watch_Dogs 2

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Watch_Dogs 2 is notoriously CPU-heavy. Because of this, hitting the coveted 60 FPS mark at max settings on budget CPUs is extremely difficult. Yet, the Xeon E5-2630Lv3 pulled it off. The 8-core chip broke the 60 FPS barrier, beating its rival by an impressive 13%.

You can watch the Xeon E5-2630L v3 benchmark video below. Keep in mind that the FPS data in the charts above was captured without recording, which consumes performance. That is why the frame rates in the video are slightly lower than those shown in the graphs.

Verdict

Remember what I said at the very beginning of this review? Well, nothing has really changed. The Xeon E5-2630L v3 remains a highly controversial chip with its own share of pros and cons.

On the plus side, the 8-core chip runs cool and draws very little power. In theory, even the cheapest aluminum cooler will handle it.

On the downside, it doesn't always show a clear advantage over the cheaper 6-core Xeon E5-2620 v3. In some scenarios, the E5-2630L v3 even lagged slightly behind its sibling.

Will this trend continue as next-gen consoles and more optimized software arrive? It's hard to say. For now, I think the 6-core Xeon E5-2620v3 is still the better buy. Most modern games utilize 6 to 12 threads and rarely scale to 16. If the E5-2620v3 doesn't cut it next year, it only cost you $20, and upgrading to a 12-core E5-2678 v3 ($60-$70) won't break the bank. Besides, higher-end LGA 2011 v3 processors will likely drop in price in a year, probably starting around $40-$50.

Ultimately, the choice is yours, but that is it for me today. I wish you high, stable frame rates and fast render times. Thanks for reading!

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