AMD Radeon PRO V710 vs NVIDIA Tesla P40 Comparison

The AMD Radeon PRO V710 is the clear performance leader over the NVIDIA Tesla P40 in the only directly comparable benchmark, but the Tesla P40 retains distinct advantages in legacy software compatibility and transistor density metrics. In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the Radeon PRO V710 scores 116,460 against the Tesla P40's 62,017, a massive 46.7% advantage. However, the Tesla P40 posts a higher average benchmark score of 65,095 versus the Radeon's 58,657, indicating that the AMD card's lead is not universal across all workloads. The two cards occupy nearly identical overall percentile rankings (89th for NVIDIA, 88th for AMD), making them peers in the broader GPU landscape despite their architectural differences.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU wins in raw compute performance?

A: The AMD Radeon PRO V710 wins decisively. In the Geekbench OpenCL test, it scores 116,460 versus the NVIDIA Tesla P40's 62,017, a 46.7% lead. The AMD card also delivers 27.65 TFLOPS FP32 performance, more than double the Tesla P40's 11.76 TFLOPS.

Q: How do their memory specifications compare?

A: The Radeon PRO V710 offers 28 GB of GDDR6 memory with 504.0 GB/s bandwidth on a 224-bit bus. The Tesla P40 has 24 GB of GDDR5 memory with 347.1 GB/s bandwidth on a 384-bit bus. The AMD card has both more capacity and significantly higher bandwidth.

Q: Which card is more power-efficient?

A: The Radeon PRO V710 is substantially more power-efficient. It has a 158 W TDP and requires a 450 W suggested PSU, while the Tesla P40 has a 250 W TDP and needs a 600 W suggested PSU. The AMD card delivers higher performance while consuming 92 W less.

Q: What are the architecture and process node differences?

A: The Tesla P40 uses NVIDIA's Pascal architecture on a 16 nm TSMC process with 11,800 million transistors on a 471 mm² die. The Radeon PRO V710 uses AMD's RDNA 3.0 architecture on a 5 nm TSMC process with 28,100 million transistors on a smaller 346 mm² die.

Q: Which card supports newer graphics APIs?

A: The Radeon PRO V710 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the Tesla P40 only supports DirectX 12 (12_1). Both cards support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4.

Q: How do their nearest rivals compare in average benchmark scores?

A: The Tesla P40's closest rival is the AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100 (64,212 average, 1.4% behind), while the Radeon PRO V710's closest rival is the NVIDIA P102-100 (58,528 average, 0.2% behind). Both cards are tightly grouped with their competition.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two GPUs spans nearly a decade of design philosophy. The NVIDIA Tesla P40 is built on the Pascal architecture (GP102 chip) using TSMC's 16 nm process, packing 11,800 million transistors onto a 471 mm² die with a transistor density of 25.1M per mm². The AMD Radeon PRO V710 uses the RDNA 3.0 architecture (Navi 32 chip, codename "Wheat Nas") on TSMC's 5 nm process, cramming 28,100 million transistors onto a smaller 346 mm² die with an impressive 81.2M transistors per mm². This means the AMD chip has over 2.3 times the transistor density of the NVIDIA part.

The clock speeds tell a similar story of generational progress. The Tesla P40 runs at a 1303 MHz base clock and 1531 MHz boost, with memory at 1808 MHz (7.2 Gbps effective). The Radeon PRO V710 operates at 1900 MHz base and 2000 MHz boost, with memory at 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective). The AMD card's memory clock is more than double the NVIDIA card's effective rate, contributing to its superior 504.0 GB/s bandwidth versus 347.1 GB/s.

Shader resources differ notably. The Tesla P40 has 3840 shading units, 240 TMUs, and 96 ROPs. The Radeon PRO V710 has 3456 shading units, 216 TMUs, and 96 ROPs — slightly fewer shading units and TMUs, but it adds 54 dedicated ray tracing cores, which the NVIDIA card lacks entirely. The AMD card also achieves a higher pixel rate of 192.0 GPixel/s versus 147.0 GPixel/s for the NVIDIA card, and a higher texture rate of 432.0 GTexel/s versus 367.4 GTexel/s.

The FP16 compute capability highlights a major design divergence. The Radeon PRO V710 delivers 27.65 TFLOPS FP16 with a 1:1 ratio to FP32, while the Tesla P40 delivers a paltry 183.7 GFLOPS FP16 at a 1:64 ratio. This makes the AMD card vastly superior for workloads that leverage half-precision math. The Tesla P40 uses a dual-slot cooler with an 8-pin EPS power connector, while the Radeon PRO V710 fits in a single slot with a standard 1x 8-pin connector.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only direct benchmark comparison available is the Geekbench OpenCL test, and the result is emphatic. The AMD Radeon PRO V710 scores 116,460, while the NVIDIA Tesla P40 scores 62,017. This represents a 46.7% advantage for the AMD card, meaning the Radeon delivers nearly twice the OpenCL performance of the Tesla. This is the single head-to-head data point, and AMD wins it outright, giving the Radeon PRO V710 a 1-0 win tally in the headToHeadBenchmarks array.

Despite this overwhelming OpenCL victory, the aggregate benchmark picture is more nuanced. The Tesla P40 has an average benchmark score of 65,095 across its two recorded benchmarks (Geekbench OpenCL at 62,017 and Geekbench Vulkan at 68,172). The Radeon PRO V710's average of 58,657 is actually lower, pulled down by its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of just 853. This suggests that while the AMD card crushes the NVIDIA card in OpenCL compute, the Tesla P40 may hold its own or even lead in other types of workloads, particularly those measured by Vulkan and older DX11/DX12 test suites.

The percentile rankings confirm their overall similarity. The Tesla P40 sits at the 89th percentile of all GPUs, while the Radeon PRO V710 sits at the 88th percentile. This means that despite the AMD card's massive OpenCL lead, the two GPUs are essentially equivalent in overall standing among all graphics cards, with the NVIDIA card holding a marginal edge in broader benchmark aggregation.

The Verdict

The data clearly favors the AMD Radeon PRO V710 for modern compute-heavy workloads. Its 46.7% lead in Geekbench OpenCL is decisive, and its architectural advantages are substantial: 27.65 TFLOPS FP32 (versus 11.76 TFLOPS), 504.0 GB/s memory bandwidth (versus 347.1 GB/s), 28 GB of memory (versus 24 GB), and ray tracing support with DirectX 12 Ultimate. The Radeon also does all of this with a 158 W TDP versus the Tesla's 250 W, making it the obvious choice for power-constrained environments.

However, the NVIDIA Tesla P40 is not without merit. Its average benchmark score of 65,095 exceeds the Radeon's 58,657, and its Vulkan score of 68,172 suggests strong performance in Vulkan-based applications. The Tesla also has a 384-bit memory bus, which can be advantageous for certain memory-latency-sensitive workloads, and it supports PCIe 3.0, which is sufficient for many older server platforms. The Tesla P40's higher percentile ranking (89th versus 88th) reinforces that it remains a competitive card despite its age.

Pick the Radeon PRO V710 if your workloads are compute-bound and leverage OpenCL, FP16, or ray tracing. Pick the Tesla P40 if you need Vulkan performance, are constrained by older PCIe 3.0 infrastructure, or require the specific compatibility profile of NVIDIA's Pascal architecture. The Tesla P40 is end-of-life, while the Radeon PRO V710 is a current-generation product released in October 2024, making the AMD card the more future-proof option.

Specification Differences

| Field | NVIDIA Tesla P40 | AMD Radeon PRO V710 |

|-------|------------------|---------------------|

| Architecture | Pascal | RDNA 3.0 |

| Process Node | 16 nm | 5 nm |

| Transistors | 11,800 million | 28,100 million |

| Die Size | 471 mm² | 346 mm² |

| Transistor Density | 25.1M / mm² | 81.2M / mm² |

| Base Clock | 1303 MHz | 1900 MHz |

| Boost Clock | 1531 MHz | 2000 MHz |

| Memory Clock | 1808 MHz (7.2 Gbps effective) | 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective) |

| Memory Size | 24 GB | 28 GB |

| Memory Type | GDDR5 | GDDR6 |

| Memory Bus Width | 384 bit | 224 bit |

| Memory Bandwidth | 347.1 GB/s | 504.0 GB/s |

| Shading Units | 3840 | 3456 |

| TMUs | 240 | 216 |

| ROPs | 96 | 96 |

| RT Cores | N/A | 54 |

| Pixel Rate | 147.0 GPixel/s | 192.0 GPixel/s |

| Texture Rate | 367.4 GTexel/s | 432.0 GTexel/s |

| FP32 | 11.76 TFLOPS | 27.65 TFLOPS |

| FP16 | 183.7 GFLOPS (1:64) | 27.65 TFLOPS (1:1) |

| TDP | 250 W | 158 W |

| Slot Width | Dual-slot | Single-slot |

| Power Connectors | 8-pin EPS | 1x 8-pin |

| Suggested PSU | 600 W | 450 W |

| Bus Interface | PCIe 3.0 x16 | PCIe 4.0 x16 |

| DirectX Support | 12 (12_1) | 12 Ultimate (12_2) |

| Release Date | 2016-09-12 | 2024-10-02 |

Where Each One Wins

AMD Radeon PRO V710 wins in: OpenCL compute workloads (46.7% faster in Geekbench OpenCL), FP32 and FP16 throughput (27.65 TFLOPS in both versus 11.76 TFLOPS and 183.7 GFLOPS respectively), memory bandwidth (504.0 GB/s versus 347.1 GB/s), memory capacity (28 GB versus 24 GB), power efficiency (158 W versus 250 W TDP), physical footprint (single-slot versus dual-slot), modern API support (DirectX 12 Ultimate with ray tracing), and PCIe 4.0 bandwidth.

NVIDIA Tesla P40 wins in: Average benchmark score across all recorded tests (65,095 versus 58,657), Vulkan performance specifically (68,172 in Geekbench Vulkan), broader memory bus width (384-bit versus 224-bit, which may reduce latency in certain access patterns), transistor count per die area is lower but it uses a larger die with more shading units (3840 versus 3456), and it has a higher percentile ranking among all GPUs (89th versus 88th). The Tesla also holds an advantage in specific legacy server environments where Pascal architecture and PCIe 3.0 are the established standard.