In this video I’m testing two popular Haswell-EP chips for a dedicated Chia plotting 1U server: the Xeon E5-2699 v3 versus the Xeon E5-2697 v3. This box has been running great for me, and with my current setup it was cranking out K32 plots in under 24 minutes. Since a few people recommended the 2697 v3 as a “better fit” for this workload, I pulled the 2699, dropped in the 2697, and ran the same plotting workflow so we can compare real plot times. I go over the build and what changed since my last video (I doubled RAM from 64GB to 128GB so I can do Phase 1 completely in memory). I also swapped to a Dynatron R31 Narrow heatsink with a vapor chamber. Then I break down the specs that actually matter here—especially all-core turbo, because Intel doesn’t make that obvious. On paper both boost to 3.6GHz, but under full load the 2699 sits around 2.8GHz all-core while the 2697 can hold about 3.1GHz. In my tests, the 2699 still wins: ~24 minutes per plot versus ~26 minutes on the 2697. That’s about 60 vs 56 plots/day, or roughly an extra 11.8TB/month on the 2699. But the 2697 is about $50 cheaper, so I talk through which one makes sense depending on your budget and how hard you’re scaling your farm.