The Intel Xeon E5-1660 v2 was a server/workstation processor with 6 cores, launched in September 2013. It is part of the Xeon E5 lineup, using the Ivy Bridge-E architecture with Socket 2011. Thanks to Intel Hyper-Threading the core-count is effectively doubled, to 12 threads. Xeon E5-1660 v2 has 15 MB of L3 cache and operates at 3.7 GHz by default, but can boost up to 4 GHz, depending on the workload. Intel is making the Xeon E5-1660 v2 on a 22 nm production node using 1,860 million transistors. You may freely adjust the unlocked multiplier on Xeon E5-1660 v2, which simplifies overclocking greatly, as you can easily dial in any overclocking frequency.
With a TDP of 130 W, the Xeon E5-1660 v2 consumes a lot of power, so good cooling is definitely needed. Intel's processor supports DDR3 memory with a quad-channel interface. The highest officially supported memory speed is 1866 MT/s, but with overclocking (and the right memory modules) you can go even higher. ECC memory is supported, too, which is an important capability for mission-critical systems, to avoid data corruption. For communication with other components in the computer, Xeon E5-1660 v2 uses a PCI-Express Gen 3 connection. This processor lacks integrated graphics, you might need a graphics card.
Hardware virtualization is available on the Xeon E5-1660 v2, which greatly improves virtual machine performance. Additionally, IOMMU virtualization (PCI passthrough) is supported, so that guest virtual machines may directly use host hardware. Programs using Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) can run on this processor, boosting performance for calculation-heavy applications.