E5-26xx for virtualization

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Hey Guys,

I'm looking to setup a "test" environment at home. Here is what I've got so far:

1090T with 32G ram ecc - production
P2-965 with 16G ram ecc - I move vms here when I update OS on production but it otherwise sits off.
FX-8320 with 16G ram ecc - (vm backups on zfs/freebsd)
E3-1240 v3 8G ddr3 (non-ecc) - testing/experimenting only.

Thinkstation S30 w/ E5-2609 with 128G ram ecc reg - I'm looking to rebuild the S30 into production & make the other two backups for rebuilding.

I'm looking to obviously ditch the E5-2609 and replace it with something $250 or under from Ebay.
CPU Support is here:
http://www.lenovo.com/psref/pdf/withdraw/S30.pdf

Is there any advantage to going to an E5-2660v2 with lower clocks (+more cores & apicv) vs an E5-2670 ?

Has anyone seen real benefits from APICv in a virtualized environment?

 

[t_ski]

Mostly just lower power draw & less heat. There is no noticeable difference in my VDI cluster between VMs that are running on an E5-2680v1 and an E5-2680v2.

 

[TCM2]

v1 doesn't have RNG aka Secure Key.

 

[lopoetve]

IIRC, and I'm not looking it up right now, probably a slightly higher IPC, and some underlying minor changes.

Aww fuck it, I'm looking it up...

 

[luke51087]

Just a heads up i recently built out the s30 and put in a e5 2670 v1, got it for about 90, worked great i did update the bios to the newest one prior to swapping the CPU.
http://www.natex.us/Used-Servers-s/1846.htm
that site sells them second hand it looks like they only have the 2665. I think you can email them directly to ask if they have the 2670. was like 65 + shipping, and it was the newest stepping when i bought it.