Intel Xeon E5 v4 · Broadwell-EP

Dual Xeon E5-2690 v4 Dedicated Server

28 cores, 56 threads and 70 MB of combined L3 cache at a 2.6 GHz base clock — €24 a month more than the entry Xeon for 75% more cores and a faster turbo. The best price-to-throughput ratio in our Intel range.

Physical cores
28c
Per month
€249
Provisioning
<1hr
Locations
12

Full specification

CPU cores28c / 56t
Clock speed2.6 GHz base · 3.5 GHz turbo
L3 cache2× 35 MB L3
Memory128 GB DDR4-2133 ECC
Memory channels8 channels (4 per socket)
Storage6× SSD bays
Network1 Gbps guaranteed, unmetered
TDP2× 135 W
ManagementIPMI / KVM-over-IP, full root
DDoS protection2.5 Tbps inline, always on

The E5-2690 v4 is Broadwell-EP at its most balanced: 14 cores per socket, a 2.6 GHz base that turbos to 3.5 GHz, and 35 MB of L3 per die. In a dual-socket board that is 28 cores, 56 threads and 70 MB of cache — meaningfully more parallel capacity than the v3 generation, and a higher clock at the same time.

The €24 gap between this and the E5-2630 v3 buys 12 extra cores and 300 MHz on both base and turbo, which is why it is the configuration most customers choose. It sits at the point where a workload is heavy enough to need real core count but does not yet justify the jump to DDR5 and NVMe on the EPYC platform.

Broadwell also brought better per-clock performance and improved memory latency over Haswell, so this is not simply a core-count upgrade — mixed workloads that interleave single-threaded and parallel phases benefit on both axes.

What this configuration is good at

Where the Dual Xeon E5-2690 v4 earns its price against the rest of the range.

Database primaries

70 MB of L3 keeps hot indexes resident, and the 3.5 GHz turbo helps point queries that cannot be parallelised. 128 GB ECC covers a substantial working set.

Mixed virtualisation

56 threads splits cleanly into many guests while leaving each one a real core. A practical Proxmox host for a small fleet.

Game server hosting

Most game loops are single-threaded, so the 3.5 GHz turbo matters more than raw core count. 28 cores lets you run many instances on one box.

Media transcoding

FFmpeg scales almost linearly with thread count. 56 threads makes short work of batch VOD encoding pipelines.

When to pick something else

Workloads bound by memory bandwidth or NVMe throughput will do better on the EPYC 9254, which has twelve DDR5 channels per socket and ten NVMe bays against this board's eight DDR4 channels and six SATA SSD bays.

Compare the full dedicated range

Every configuration ships with IPMI, 1 Gbps unmetered bandwidth and 2.5 Tbps DDoS protection.

ConfigurationCoresBase clockMemoryStorageMonthly
Dual Xeon E5-2630 v316c / 32t2.4 GHz base128 GB DDR4-21336× SSD bays225
Dual Xeon E5-2690 v428c / 56t2.6 GHz base128 GB DDR4-21336× SSD bays249
Dual Xeon E5-2699 v444c / 88t2.2 GHz base256 GB DDR4-21336× SSD bays325
Single EPYC 925424c / 48t2.9 GHz base128 GB DDR5-480010× NVMe bays485
Dual EPYC 925448c / 96t2.9 GHz base256 GB DDR5-480010× NVMe bays739
Dual EPYC 9554128c / 256t3.1 GHz base512 GB DDR5-480024× NVMe bays1049
Dual EPYC 9754256c / 512t2.3 GHz base1024 GB DDR5-480024× NVMe bays1659

Available locations

The Dual Xeon E5-2690 v4 can be provisioned in any of our twelve datacenters, subject to stock at the chosen site.

Dual Xeon E5-2690 v4 — common questions

Why is this only €24 more than the E5-2630 v3?

The v3 sits at the bottom of the range as an entry price point. The E5-2690 v4 is the volume configuration, and it is priced to be the obvious default — 12 more cores and a higher clock for a small step up.

What turbo clock can I actually expect?

3.5 GHz on lightly threaded work. With all 28 cores loaded the sustained all-core frequency settles lower, which is normal for a 135 W part; the 2.6 GHz base is the figure to plan capacity against.

Is ECC memory included?

Yes, all 128 GB is registered ECC DDR4. Single-bit errors are corrected transparently, which matters for databases and any process expected to run for months.

Can I add more RAM?

Yes. The board has spare DIMM slots across both sockets. Tell us the capacity you need and we will quote the upgrade before provisioning.

How long does deployment take?

Under an hour from order to root access, including OS install and IPMI credentials. Hardware is racked and ready in advance rather than built to order.

Ready in under a minute

Deploy your first server now.

No contracts, no minimums. Start on an Ion KVM VPS at €0.0063 an hour and move to a monthly bare-metal server the day you outgrow it.

$ voxa deploy --plan ion --location amsterdam

KVM VPS billed hourly, capped monthly · Dedicated billed monthly · No setup fee

Included on every plan
Free IPv4 + IPv6
Every VPS
Unmetered traffic
1–10 Gbps
DDoS mitigation
2.5 Tbps
Root / IPMI access
Included
Setup fee
€0.00
Minimum term
None