AMD Radeon HD 8870M vs NVIDIA Tesla M10 Comparison

The NVIDIA Tesla M10 and AMD Radeon HD 8870M represent two very different eras of GPU design, and the benchmark data from our database reflects that gap clearly. The Tesla M10, built on the Maxwell architecture, is a professional compute card aimed at datacenter workloads, while the Radeon HD 8870M is a mobile graphics solution from AMD's GCN 1.0 generation. Their head-to-head results show a decisive advantage for the NVIDIA part, but the specifics of where and how that advantage appears are worth examining in detail.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database contains a single direct comparison between these two GPUs: the Geekbench OpenCL test. In this test, the NVIDIA Tesla M10 scored 10,318 points, while the AMD Radeon HD 8870M scored 8,462 points. This translates to a 21.9% advantage for the Tesla M10, a substantial margin that reflects the fundamental differences in their design targets and capabilities.

Looking at the broader context, the Tesla M10's average benchmark score across all recorded tests is 9,724. Its nearest rivals in the database include the NVIDIA Tesla C2070 with an average score of 9,716 (a 0.1% delta), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 at 9,780 (a -0.6% delta), the NVIDIA Quadro P4000 at 9,665 (a 0.6% delta), and the AMD Radeon Pro WX 2100 at 9,653 (a 0.7% delta). These figures place the Tesla M10 in a tightly contested band of professional and high-end consumer GPUs, all within 1% of each other. The Tesla M10 sits comfortably in this group, performing nearly identically to the GTX 1070 and slightly ahead of the Quadro P4000 and Radeon Pro WX 2100.

The Radeon HD 8870M, by contrast, has an average benchmark score of 8,462, which is exactly its OpenCL score since that is its only recorded benchmark. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce MX330 at 8,458 (a 0.1% delta), the AMD Radeon 880M at 8,436 (a 0.3% delta), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675MX at 8,427 (a 0.4% delta), and the Intel Arc A380 at 8,558 (a -1.1% delta). This places the 8870M in a lower performance tier, clustering with entry-level and older mid-range parts. The delta between the Tesla M10 and the 8870M's respective peer groups is stark: the Tesla M10's closest rivals are all within a fraction of a percent of its score, while the 8870M's rivals are similarly close to its own lower score. The 21.9% gap in the head-to-head test is therefore not an outlier; it is consistent with the positioning of both cards in the overall GPU landscape.

The percentile rankings reinforce this. The Tesla M10 sits at the 47th percentile among all GPUs in the database, meaning it outperforms roughly half of all recorded graphics cards. The Radeon HD 8870M sits at the 43rd percentile, a modest but noticeable drop. While both are mid-pack performers, the Tesla M10's percentile is higher, and the absolute score difference of 1,856 points in OpenCL is significant for compute workloads.

Where Each One Wins

The data shows a clear winner in every recorded category: the NVIDIA Tesla M10 wins the sole head-to-head benchmark, giving it a 1-0 record against the Radeon HD 8870M. There are no tests in the database where the AMD part comes out ahead. However, the nature of each card's design suggests different use cases, even if the benchmark results do not show a direct AMD victory.

The Tesla M10 is built for compute acceleration in server environments. Its 8 GB of GDDR5 memory, paired with a 128-bit bus, delivers 83.20 GB/s of bandwidth. This is a modest bandwidth figure by modern standards, but the card's compute throughput is where it shines. Its FP32 performance is rated at 1.672 TFLOPS, and its texture rate reaches 52.24 GTexel/s. These specifications, combined with its 640 shading units and 40 texture mapping units, make it well-suited for tasks like virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), cloud gaming, and general-purpose GPU compute. The card has no display outputs, which confirms its role as a backend compute device rather than a rendering solution.

The Radeon HD 8870M, on the other hand, is a mobile GPU from 2013, designed for laptops. Its 2 GB of GDDR5 memory and 72.00 GB/s bandwidth are lower than the Tesla M10's figures, and its FP32 performance of 992.0 GFLOPS is roughly 40% lower. Its pixel rate of 12.40 GPixel/s and texture rate of 31.00 GTexel/s are also well below the Tesla M10's 20.90 GPixel/s and 52.24 GTexel/s. For its time, the 8870M would have been a capable mobile gaming and multimedia part, but it lacks the raw compute horsepower of the Tesla M10 for professional workloads.

In practical terms, the Tesla M10 is the clear choice for anyone needing high-throughput compute in a rack-mounted system. The Radeon HD 8870M, given its end-of-life status and mobile origins, is best suited for legacy laptop applications where its 28 nm GCN architecture still provides adequate performance for older software. The benchmark data does not support any scenario where the 8870M outperforms the Tesla M10 in raw compute, so the use-case split is really about deployment environment: the Tesla M10 for datacenter compute, the 8870M for mobile graphics in aging notebooks.

FAQ

Q: How much faster is the NVIDIA Tesla M10 than the AMD Radeon HD 8870M in OpenCL?

A: The Tesla M10 scores 10,318 in Geekbench OpenCL, while the Radeon HD 8870M scores 8,462. This gives the Tesla M10 a 21.9% advantage in that specific test.

Q: What is the average benchmark score for each GPU?

A: The Tesla M10 has an average benchmark score of 9,724 across all recorded tests. The Radeon HD 8870M has an average score of 8,462, which is based on its single recorded OpenCL benchmark.

Q: How does each GPU rank against all other GPUs in the database?

A: The Tesla M10 sits at the 47th percentile, meaning it outperforms a slight majority of all GPUs. The Radeon HD 8870M sits at the 43rd percentile, placing it below the Tesla M10 in overall standing.

Q: Which GPUs are the closest competitors to the Tesla M10?

A: The nearest rivals to the Tesla M10 are the NVIDIA Tesla C2070 (average score 9,716, 0.1% delta), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (9,780, -0.6% delta), the NVIDIA Quadro P4000 (9,665, 0.6% delta), and the AMD Radeon Pro WX 2100 (9,653, 0.7% delta). All of these are within 1% of the Tesla M10's average score.

Q: Which GPUs are the closest competitors to the Radeon HD 8870M?

A: The nearest rivals to the Radeon HD 8870M are the NVIDIA GeForce MX330 (average score 8,458, 0.1% delta), the AMD Radeon 880M (8,436, 0.3% delta), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675MX (8,427, 0.4% delta), and the Intel Arc A380 (8,558, -1.1% delta). These are all within 1.1% of the 8870M's score.

Q: Does the Radeon HD 8870M win any benchmark against the Tesla M10?

A: No. The database records one head-to-head benchmark (Geekbench OpenCL), and the Tesla M10 wins it. The overall win count is 1 for the Tesla M10 and 0 for the Radeon HD 8870M.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ significantly in almost every hardware specification recorded in the database. The Tesla M10 uses a GM107 chip, while the Radeon HD 8870M uses a Venus chip. The Tesla M10 is built on TSMC's 28 nm process and contains 1,870 million transistors on a 148 mm² die. The Radeon HD 8870M is also on a 28 nm process from TSMC, but it has 1,500 million transistors on a smaller 123 mm² die. Transistor density is nearly identical, with the Tesla M10 at 12.6M per mm² and the Radeon at 12.2M per mm².

Clock speeds show a major divergence. The Tesla M10 runs at a base clock of 1033 MHz with a boost of 1306 MHz, while the Radeon HD 8870M runs at 725 MHz base and 775 MHz boost. Memory clocks also differ: the Tesla M10 uses 1300 MHz (5.2 Gbps effective), and the Radeon uses 1125 MHz (4.5 Gbps effective). Memory capacity favors the Tesla M10 with 8 GB versus 2 GB, though both use GDDR5 and a 128-bit bus. Bandwidth is 83.20 GB/s for the Tesla M10 and 72.00 GB/s for the Radeon.

Compute resources are identical in count but not in throughput. Both cards have 640 shading units, 40 TMUs, and 16 ROPs. However, the Tesla M10 achieves a pixel rate of 20.90 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 52.24 GTexel/s, while the Radeon HD 8870M achieves 12.40 GPixel/s and 31.00 GTexel/s. FP32 performance is 1.672 TFLOPS for the Tesla M10 and 992.0 GFLOPS for the Radeon.

The Tesla M10 has a TDP of 225 W, a dual-slot form factor, a 1x 8-pin power connector, and a suggested PSU of 550 W. It measures 267 mm (10.5 inches) in length. The Radeon HD 8870M has no recorded TDP, slot width, power connector, or dimensions, reflecting its mobile design. The Tesla M10 has no display outputs, while the Radeon's display outputs are not recorded. Both use a PCIe 3.0 x16 bus interface.

API support differs slightly. The Tesla M10 supports DirectX 12 (11_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The Radeon HD 8870M supports DirectX 12 (11_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.170. The Tesla M10 was released on May 17, 2016, while the Radeon HD 8870M was released on March 31, 2013. Both are marked as end-of-life.

Architecture Differences

The architectural divide between these two GPUs is substantial. The Tesla M10 is based on NVIDIA's Maxwell architecture, which was designed for high compute efficiency and power management. Its GM107 chip is a small, efficient design that prioritizes throughput per watt. The Radeon HD 8870M uses AMD's Graphics Core Next (GCN) 1.0 architecture, the first iteration of GCN, which was designed with a focus on general-purpose compute and asynchronous execution.

The Tesla M10 belongs to the Tesla Maxwell generation (Mxx), succeeding the Tesla Kepler line and preceding Tesla Pascal. The Radeon HD 8870M belongs to the Solar System generation (HD 8800M), with its predecessor listed as London and its successor as Gem System. These generational labels reflect different product roadmaps: NVIDIA was targeting datacenter acceleration with the Tesla M10, while AMD was targeting mobile consumers with the 8870M.

Both architectures are built on the same 28 nm TSMC process, but their transistor counts and die sizes tell a story of different design philosophies. The Tesla M10 packs 1,870 million transistors into 148 mm², giving it a density of 12.6M per mm². The Radeon HD 8870M has 1,500 million transistors in 123 mm², a density of 12.2M per mm². The Tesla M10's larger die and higher transistor count allow for more aggressive clock speeds, which is reflected in its 1033 MHz base clock versus the Radeon's 725 MHz.

The compute units are numerically identical: 640 shading units, 40 TMUs, and 16 ROPs on both cards. However, the execution efficiency differs. Maxwell was known for its high instruction-level parallelism and efficient scheduling, while GCN 1.0 relied on a wavefront-based approach that could be less efficient in certain workloads. The benchmark results support this: the Tesla M10 achieves 1.672 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, while the Radeon HD 8870M manages 992.0 GFLOPS, a 68.5% advantage for NVIDIA.

Memory architecture is another key difference. Both use 128-bit GDDR5 interfaces, but the Tesla M10 has 8 GB of memory versus the Radeon's 2 GB. This fourfold capacity advantage is crucial for datacenter workloads like virtual desktop infrastructure, where multiple users need simultaneous memory allocation. The Tesla M10's bandwidth of 83.20 GB/s is also higher than the Radeon's 72.00 GB/s, though both are limited by their narrow 128-bit buses.

The Tesla M10 has no display outputs, which is unusual for a GPU but standard for a compute accelerator. It is designed to be installed in a server and accessed remotely. The Radeon HD 8870M, as a mobile part, would have been paired with a laptop display, though its output configuration is not recorded in the database. This fundamental difference in purpose explains the TDP disparity: the Tesla M10 draws 225 W and requires a dual-slot cooler and 8-pin power connector, while the Radeon HD 8870M's TDP is not recorded, as mobile GPUs are typically constrained by the laptop's thermal envelope.

API support also differs in subtle ways. The Tesla M10 supports DirectX 12 (11_0), while the Radeon HD 8870M supports DirectX 12 (11_1). The latter has a slightly higher feature level, which could matter for certain legacy applications. However, the Tesla M10 supports Vulkan 1.4, while the Radeon supports Vulkan 1.2.170, giving the NVIDIA card a more modern Vulkan implementation. Both support OpenGL 4.6.

In summary, the Tesla M10 is a higher-performing, more power-hungry compute card with newer architecture, more memory, and faster clocks. The Radeon HD 8870M is an older, lower-power mobile GPU with identical compute unit counts but significantly lower throughput. The 21.9% OpenCL gap between them is the direct result of these architectural and specification differences, and the database records no scenario where the AMD part closes that gap.