AMD Radeon Pro W5500 vs NVIDIA Tesla K10 Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded database contains one direct head-to-head comparison between the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 and the NVIDIA Tesla K10, and it is a decisive victory for the AMD part. In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the Radeon Pro W5500 scores 45,615 points against the Tesla K10's 14,029 points. That represents a delta of 225.1 percent, meaning the AMD card delivers more than three times the compute throughput in this particular workload. No other shared benchmarks exist in the database for these two products, so this single result defines the entire competitive landscape between them.

To put that OpenCL gap into context, the Radeon Pro W5500's average benchmark score across all recorded tests is 15,679, while the Tesla K10's average is 14,029. The W5500's nearest rivals in the database include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti with an average score of 15,548 and a delta of 0.8 percent, the AMD Radeon R9 M380 at 15,521 with a delta of 1 percent, the AMD Radeon RX 7700 at 15,852 with a delta of -1.1 percent, and the AMD Radeon R9 370X at 15,862 with a delta of -1.2 percent. This places the W5500 in a tight cluster where it is roughly on par with high-end gaming GPUs from several generations, slightly ahead of the GTX 1080 Ti but marginally behind the RX 7700 and R9 370X.

The Tesla K10, by contrast, sits in a lower performance tier. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 with an average score of 14,150 and a delta of -0.9 percent, the AMD Radeon RX 570X at 13,871 with a delta of 1.1 percent, the NVIDIA RTX A2000 Mobile at 13,821 with a delta of 1.5 percent, and the AMD Radeon 660M at 13,812 with a delta of 1.6 percent. The K10 is therefore slightly ahead of the GTX 680 but behind the RX 570X, the RTX A2000 Mobile, and the Radeon 660M. While the K10's percentile ranking among all GPUs is 55, the W5500 sits at 58, indicating that the AMD card is positioned higher in the overall distribution of recorded graphics hardware performance.

The single OpenCL result is striking because it is not a marginal win. A 225.1 percent advantage is overwhelming, and it reflects fundamental differences in architecture, memory bandwidth, and compute capability that will be explored in subsequent sections. For any workload that relies on OpenCL acceleration, the Radeon Pro W5500 is the clear choice based on the recorded measurements.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU wins the only direct benchmark comparison in the database?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro W5500 wins the Geekbench OpenCL test with a score of 45,615 against the NVIDIA Tesla K10's 14,029, a delta of 225.1 percent.

Q: How do the two cards compare in overall average benchmark scores?

A: The Radeon Pro W5500 has an average benchmark score of 15,679 across all its recorded tests, while the Tesla K10 has an average of 14,029 from its single recorded OpenCL result.

Q: What is the percentile ranking for each card among all GPUs in the database?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro W5500 ranks in the 58th percentile, while the NVIDIA Tesla K10 ranks in the 55th percentile.

Q: Which rivals are closest to the Radeon Pro W5500 in average score?

A: The nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti with an average score of 15,548 (0.8 percent behind the W5500), the AMD Radeon R9 M380 at 15,521 (1 percent behind), the AMD Radeon RX 7700 at 15,852 (1.1 percent ahead), and the AMD Radeon R9 370X at 15,862 (1.2 percent ahead).

Q: Which rivals are closest to the Tesla K10 in average score?

A: The nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 at 14,150 (0.9 percent ahead of the K10), the AMD Radeon RX 570X at 13,871 (1.1 percent behind), the NVIDIA RTX A2000 Mobile at 13,821 (1.5 percent behind), and the AMD Radeon 660M at 13,812 (1.6 percent behind).

Q: Does the Tesla K10 have any recorded benchmark wins over the Radeon Pro W5500?

A: No. The database records zero wins for the Tesla K10 and one win for the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 in their head-to-head comparisons.

Where Each One Wins

The use-case split between these two cards is stark, driven by the single recorded benchmark and the broader specification context. The AMD Radeon Pro W5500 wins the only direct comparison, the Geekbench OpenCL test, by a margin of 225.1 percent. This makes it the obvious choice for any application that relies on OpenCL compute acceleration, which includes a wide range of general-purpose GPU computing tasks, video processing, and scientific workloads that are written against the OpenCL API. The W5500's additional benchmark results, such as a Passmark G3D score of 8,978 and a Passmark GPU Compute score of 4,804, further indicate that it has substantial graphics and compute capabilities beyond the single OpenCL test.

The NVIDIA Tesla K10, on the other hand, has no recorded wins in the head-to-head data. Its only benchmark entry, the Geekbench OpenCL score of 14,029, is the basis for its entire performance profile. However, the K10 does have a distinguishing feature that matters for certain deployments: it has no display outputs. This means it is designed exclusively for compute-oriented server or workstation environments where rendering to a screen is not required. For users who need a dedicated compute accelerator that does not drive displays, the K10's design aligns with that purpose, even if its raw performance is far lower than the W5500 in the recorded OpenCL test.

Conversely, the Radeon Pro W5500 includes 4x DisplayPort 1.4a outputs, making it suitable for visualization, multi-monitor setups, and interactive graphics workloads. The W5500 also has a significantly higher pixel rate of 59.36 GPixel/s versus the K10's 23.84 GPixel/s, and a texture rate of 163.2 GTexel/s versus 95.36 GTexel/s. These figures indicate that for any graphics-intensive task, including rendering, image processing, or display output, the W5500 is the superior option based on the recorded data. The K10's role is therefore confined to narrowly defined compute tasks where its dual-slot, no-output form factor is acceptable, and where the performance deficit relative to the W5500 is not the deciding factor.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ across nearly every specification category in the database. The AMD Radeon Pro W5500 is built on a 7 nm process node, while the NVIDIA Tesla K10 uses a 28 nm node. The W5500's die size is 158 mm² with 6,400 million transistors, yielding a transistor density of 40.5 million per mm². The K10 has a die size of 294 mm² and 3,540 million transistors, resulting in a density of 12.0 million per mm². Both are fabricated by TSMC, but the process generation gap is enormous.

Memory configuration differs sharply. The W5500 has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, with a bandwidth of 224.0 GB/s and an effective memory clock of 14 Gbps. The K10 has 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, with bandwidth of 160.0 GB/s and an effective memory clock of 5 Gbps. Despite the K10's wider bus, the W5500's faster memory technology provides substantially higher total bandwidth.

Compute resources also diverge. The W5500 has 1,408 shading units, 88 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs. The K10 has 1,536 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The K10 has more shading units and TMUs, but the W5500 achieves far higher clock speeds: base clock of 1,744 MHz and boost clock of 1,855 MHz, whereas the K10 has no recorded base or boost clock in the database. The resulting pixel rate for the W5500 is 59.36 GPixel/s, and texture rate is 163.2 GTexel/s. The K10's pixel rate is 23.84 GPixel/s, and texture rate is 95.36 GTexel/s. FP32 performance is 5.224 TFLOPS for the W5500 versus 2.289 TFLOPS for the K10. The W5500 also has FP16 capability at 10.45 TFLOPS (2:1), while the K10 has no recorded FP16 figure.

Power and physical specifications differ as well. The W5500 has a TDP of 125 W, is single-slot, and uses a single 6-pin power connector with a suggested PSU of 300 W. The K10 has a TDP of 225 W, is dual-slot, uses a 6-pin plus an 8-pin connector, and requires a suggested PSU of 550 W. The W5500 is 241 mm (9.5 inches) long and 111 mm (4.4 inches) high, while the K10 is 272 mm (10.7 inches) long with no recorded height. The W5500 uses PCIe 4.0 x8, while the K10 uses PCIe 3.0 x16. Display outputs are 4x DisplayPort 1.4a on the W5500, and no outputs on the K10.

Architecture Differences

The architectural divide between these two GPUs is fundamental. The AMD Radeon Pro W5500 is based on the Navi 14 chip using the RDNA 1.0 architecture, part of the Radeon Pro Navi generation. The NVIDIA Tesla K10 is based on the GK104 chip using the Kepler architecture, part of the Tesla Kepler generation. RDNA 1.0 is a modern graphics architecture designed for efficiency and high clock speeds, which is reflected in the W5500's 7 nm process and 1,855 MHz boost clock. Kepler, by contrast, is an older architecture from the Tesla Kepler (Kxx) series, built on 28 nm, and it predates the W5500 by several years in release timing: the W5500 was released in 2020, while the K10 was released in 2012.

Cache hierarchies and feature sets are not fully enumerated in the database, but the available API support indicates differences. The W5500 supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The K10 supports DirectX 12 (11_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.175. The DirectX feature level difference (12_1 versus 11_0) is notable, as it indicates the W5500 supports more advanced DirectX 12 features. Neither card has ray tracing cores or tensor cores recorded.

The W5500's predecessor is the Radeon Pro Vega, while the K10's predecessor is the Tesla Fermi and its successor is the Tesla Maxwell. The W5500 has no recorded successor. Both cards are marked as end-of-life in production status. The transistor density difference, 40.5 million per mm² versus 12.0 million per mm², is a direct consequence of the process node gap (7 nm versus 28 nm) and encapsulates the architectural generation leap between RDNA 1.0 and Kepler. The RDNA architecture emphasizes higher instructions-per-clock and lower power consumption, while Kepler was designed for a different era of GPU compute. The database does not include information on cache sizes, so no comparison can be made there. Overall, the architectural advantages of the W5500, combined with its larger memory pool and higher bandwidth, explain the 225.1 percent OpenCL performance lead over the K10.