GPU Comparison

AMD Radeon Pro 575 and NVIDIA Tesla P4 are both end-of-life professional GPUs from the 2016-2017 era, but they target fundamentally different use cases. The data shows a clear split: the Radeon Pro 575 is a mobile-oriented graphics card for Apple Mac systems, while the Tesla P4 is a datacenter inference accelerator with no display outputs. In the two shared benchmark tests, the Tesla P4 wins both, but the margins are slim, 1% in OpenCL and 6% in Vulkan. However, the specification sheets reveal that these are very different pieces of silicon, and the performance gap is far less important than the architectural and form-factor differences when choosing between them.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Radeon Pro 575 wins in the context of workstation graphics and compatibility with portable devices. It is an MXM Module, meaning it is designed to slot into laptops or all-in-one systems, and its display outputs are described as "Portable Device Dependent." This makes it the only option of the two for a system that needs to drive a screen directly. Its GCN 4.0 architecture supports DirectX 12 (12_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.3, which are standard for a workstation card of its era. It also delivers a 1:1 FP16 to FP32 ratio, giving it 4.489 TFLOPS in both precisions, which is useful for compute workloads that can tolerate reduced precision without a speed penalty.

The NVIDIA Tesla P4 wins in raw compute throughput and efficiency. Its Pascal architecture is built on a 16 nm TSMC process, and it has a significantly higher FP32 rating of 5.704 TFLOPS. It also has a much larger memory pool at 8 GB compared to 4 GB, which is critical for inference workloads that need to hold larger models. The Tesla P4 has no display outputs, which is a strong signal that it is meant for headless servers, and its single-slot, 75 W TDP with no power connectors makes it easy to deploy in dense server configurations. It also has a higher pixel rate of 71.30 GPixel/s and a higher texture rate of 178.2 GTexel/s, indicating stronger fill-rate performance for certain rendering tasks, even though that is not its primary purpose.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from different foundries and use different process nodes. The Radeon Pro 575 is built on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries, packing 5,700 million transistors into a 232 mm² die, resulting in a transistor density of 24.6M / mm². The Tesla P4 uses a 16 nm process at TSMC, with 7,200 million transistors on a 314 mm² die, for a density of 22.9M / mm². Despite being on a slightly older node, the Tesla P4 has more than 26% more transistors and a die that is about 35% larger by area.

The compute configurations differ substantially. The Radeon Pro 575 has 2048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs. The Tesla P4 has 2560 shading units, 160 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, the latter being exactly double the Radeon's count. This explains the Tesla P4's higher fill rates. The Radeon Pro 575's FP16 performance matches its FP32 at 4.489 TFLOPS (1:1), while the Tesla P4's FP16 is dramatically reduced at 89.12 GFLOPS (1:64), indicating that the Tesla P4 is not designed for FP16 compute workloads at all.

Memory subsystems also diverge. The Radeon Pro 575 uses 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus, achieving 217.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The Tesla P4 doubles the capacity to 8 GB of GDDR5 on the same 256-bit bus but at a lower effective speed of 6 Gbps, yielding 192.3 GB/s. This is a rare case where the larger memory pool comes with slightly lower bandwidth. The Radeon Pro 575's memory clock is 1695 MHz (6.8 Gbps effective), while the Tesla P4's is 1502 MHz (6 Gbps effective).

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The shared benchmark suite includes only two tests, and the Tesla P4 wins both. In Geekbench OpenCL, the Tesla P4 scores 34947 against the Radeon Pro 575's 34596, a 1% margin. In Geekbench Vulkan, the Tesla P4 scores 40309 against 37878, a 6% advantage. These are modest leads, especially considering the Tesla P4's higher theoretical FP32 throughput (5.704 vs 4.489 TFLOPS). The 1% OpenCL gap is within the noise of typical benchmark variance, while the 6% Vulkan gap suggests the Tesla P4's architecture has an edge in that specific API.

The average benchmark scores from the broader database paint a similar picture. The Radeon Pro 575 has an average benchmark score of 39555, while the Tesla P4 sits at 37628. This is counterintuitive given the head-to-head results, but it reflects the fact that the Radeon Pro 575 also has a Geekbench Metal score of 46192, which is its strongest result and pulls its average up. The Tesla P4 has no Metal score listed, only OpenCL and Vulkan. The Radeon Pro 575's percentile rank is 82 vs the Tesla P4's 81, meaning it lands slightly higher in the global GPU ranking despite losing the direct comparisons.

Looking at nearest rivals, the Radeon Pro 575's average score of 39555 is nearly identical to the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile's 39568 (0% delta), and it is 1.1% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro 575X (39116). It trails the AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 (40063) by 1.3% and the AMD Radeon Pro 580 (40318) by 1.9%. The Tesla P4's average of 37628 is 0.1% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 (37648), 0.3% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 (37507), 1.3% ahead of the AMD Radeon PRO W6400 (37157), and 1.3% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile (38135).

Specification Differences

The two cards differ in nearly every key specification. The Radeon Pro 575 uses the Ellesmere chip with GCN 4.0 architecture, while the Tesla P4 uses GP104 with Pascal. The Radeon Pro 575 is a 14 nm GlobalFoundries part; the Tesla P4 is a 16 nm TSMC part. Transistor counts are 5,700 million vs 7,200 million, and die sizes are 232 mm² vs 314 mm². The Radeon Pro 575 has no listed base or boost clocks, while the Tesla P4 has a base of 886 MHz and a boost of 1114 MHz.

Memory is a major differentiator: 4 GB vs 8 GB, with bandwidth of 217.0 GB/s vs 192.3 GB/s. The Radeon Pro 575 has 2048 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 32 ROPs; the Tesla P4 has 2560, 160, and 64, respectively. Pixel rate is 35.07 GPixel/s vs 71.30 GPixel/s, and texture rate is 140.3 GTexel/s vs 178.2 GTexel/s. FP32 is 4.489 TFLOPS vs 5.704 TFLOPS, and FP16 is 4.489 TFLOPS vs 89.12 GFLOPS. TDP is 150 W vs 75 W. Slot width is MXM Module vs Single-slot. The Tesla P4 has a suggested PSU of 250 W; the Radeon Pro 575 does not list one. Display outputs are "Portable Device Dependent" for AMD and "No outputs" for NVIDIA. The APIs differ: DirectX 12 (12_0) vs 12 (12_1), Vulkan 1.3 vs 1.4. Physical length is 168 mm (6.6 inches) for the Tesla P4; the Radeon Pro 575 has no listed dimensions. Release dates are 2017-06-04 for AMD and 2016-09-12 for NVIDIA. The Tesla P4 has a predecessor (Tesla Maxwell) and successor (Tesla Volta); the Radeon Pro 575 lists neither.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has higher raw FP32 compute performance?

A: The NVIDIA Tesla P4, at 5.704 TFLOPS, compared to the AMD Radeon Pro 575's 4.489 TFLOPS.

Q: How much memory bandwidth does each card have?

A: The Radeon Pro 575 has 217.0 GB/s, while the Tesla P4 has 192.3 GB/s, despite the Tesla having double the capacity (8 GB vs 4 GB).

Q: Which card is more energy-efficient based on TDP?

A: The Tesla P4, with a 75 W TDP, is half the 150 W TDP of the Radeon Pro 575.

Q: Which card supports DirectX 12_1?

A: Only the NVIDIA Tesla P4, which lists DirectX 12 (12_1). The AMD Radeon Pro 575 supports DirectX 12 (12_0).

Q: What is the average benchmark score difference between the two?

A: The Radeon Pro 575 has an average score of 39555, which is 1,927 points higher than the Tesla P4's 37628, a 5.1% advantage.

Q: Which card has a higher transistor count?

A: The NVIDIA Tesla P4, with 7,200 million transistors, versus 5,700 million on the AMD Radeon Pro 575.

The Verdict

The data supports a clear split: the AMD Radeon Pro 575 is for systems that need a display output and a mobile form factor, while the NVIDIA Tesla P4 is for headless compute and inference servers. If you are building or upgrading a Mac workstation with an MXM slot, the Radeon Pro 575 is the only viable choice of the two, and its Geekbench Metal score of 46192 shows it has strong performance in Apple's ecosystem. If you need a low-power accelerator for a datacenter, the Tesla P4's 75 W TDP, single-slot design, and 8 GB of memory make it the obvious pick, despite its slightly lower average benchmark score. In direct compute comparisons, the Tesla P4 wins both OpenCL and Vulkan tests, but the margins are small enough (1% and 6%) that the decision should be driven by form factor, memory capacity, and power constraints rather than raw benchmark deltas. The Radeon Pro 575's higher average score of 39555 vs 37628 is largely attributable to its Metal result, which is irrelevant for the Tesla P4's intended use case. Choose the Radeon Pro 575 for graphics and portability; choose the Tesla P4 for dense, headless compute.