AMD Radeon PRO W6600 vs NVIDIA Tesla P40 Comparison

The AMD Radeon PRO W6600 and NVIDIA Tesla P40 represent two very different approaches to professional computing, separated by nearly five years of architectural evolution. The data shows the W6600, built on a modern 7 nm process with RDNA 2.0, consistently outperforms the older 16 nm Pascal-based Tesla P40 in the available benchmark suite, despite the P40's larger memory pool and higher raw shader count. This head-to-head comparison reveals that architectural efficiency often trumps brute-force specifications, but the Tesla P40 still holds strategic advantages in memory capacity that the raw scores do not fully capture.

FAQ

Q: Which card has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon PRO W6600 scores an average of 81,995 points, while the NVIDIA Tesla P40 averages 65,095 points. This puts the W6600 in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs, whereas the P40 sits in the 89th percentile.

Q: How large is the performance gap in the head-to-head tests?

A: In Geekbench OpenCL, the W6600 scores 73,514 versus the P40's 62,017, a delta of 18.5%. In Geekbench Vulkan, the W6600 scores 78,428 against 68,172, a 15% advantage.

Q: What memory configurations do the two cards offer?

A: The Tesla P40 comes with 24 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 384-bit bus, delivering 347.1 GB/s of bandwidth. The W6600 has 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, providing 224.0 GB/s.

Q: Are there any benchmark tests where the Tesla P40 wins?

A: No. Across the two available head-to-head benchmarks (OpenCL and Vulkan), the W6600 wins both. The P40 has no recorded Geekbench Metal score, while the W6600 achieves 94,042 in that test.

Q: What are the power requirements for each card?

A: The W6600 has a TDP of 100 W and requires a single 6-pin power connector with a suggested 300 W power supply. The P40 draws 250 W, uses an 8-pin EPS connector, and needs a 600 W power supply.

Q: How do the closest rival scores compare to each card's average?

A: The W6600's nearest rival, the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X, scores 80,959, just 1.3% behind. The P40's closest rival, the AMD Radeon VII, scores 66,004, which is 1.4% ahead of the P40.

The Verdict

The benchmark data points decisively toward the AMD Radeon PRO W6600 for any workload that prioritizes compute performance in OpenCL or Vulkan environments. It wins both head-to-head tests by double-digit margins, achieves a higher average score, and does so with dramatically lower power consumption. The W6600 also offers modern display outputs—four DisplayPort 1.4a connectors—making it a viable option for workstation setups that require visual output.

The NVIDIA Tesla P40, however, is not without purpose. Its 24 GB memory capacity is three times larger than the W6600's 8 GB, and its 347.1 GB/s bandwidth is 55% higher. For workloads that are memory-bound rather than compute-bound—such as large model inference or datasets that exceed 8 GB—the P40's capacity advantage could be the deciding factor. The P40 also has 3840 shading units versus the W6600's 1792, and 240 TMUs versus 112, suggesting potential strength in certain texture-heavy operations despite losing overall.

The verdict is nuanced: the W6600 is the superior all-around performer in the tested metrics and is the clear choice for general professional compute. The P40 is a specialized tool for memory-hungry tasks where its 24 GB pool is non-negotiable. For most users, the W6600's efficiency and speed make it the pragmatic pick, but the P40 remains relevant for specific large-memory deployments.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The two available head-to-head tests show a consistent and substantial lead for the AMD Radeon PRO W6600. In Geekbench OpenCL, the W6600 scores 73,514 against the Tesla P40's 62,017, yielding an 18.5% advantage. This is not a marginal win; it represents a significant performance gap in a widely used general-purpose compute API.

The Vulkan test tells a similar story. The W6600 achieves 78,428 points, while the P40 manages 68,172, a 15% difference. Vulkan is often more efficient on modern architectures, and the W6600's RDNA 2.0 design with 28 ray accelerators likely contributes to this margin, though the benchmark does not isolate that factor. The P40's Pascal architecture, from 2016, has no dedicated ray tracing hardware, which may explain part of the gap.

When placed in context with their nearest rivals, the results gain further clarity. The W6600's average score of 81,995 puts it just 1.3% ahead of the Radeon Pro Vega 64X and 2.7% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090. The P40's average of 65,095 places it 1.4% behind the Radeon VII and only 1.4% ahead of the WX 9100. The W6600 is competing at a higher performance tier, while the P40 sits closer to its immediate competition, making its losses in the head-to-head more pronounced.

Specification Differences

The two cards diverge sharply on nearly every major specification. The W6600 uses 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, while the P40 uses 24 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus. Memory bandwidth follows the bus width: the P40 delivers 347.1 GB/s versus the W6600's 224.0 GB/s.

Clock speeds favor the W6600 overwhelmingly. Its base clock is 2331 MHz with a boost of 2580 MHz, compared to the P40's 1303 MHz base and 1531 MHz boost. The W6600's memory runs at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective), while the P40's memory is at 1808 MHz (7.2 Gbps effective). The higher effective data rate on the W6600 partially compensates for its narrower bus.

The physical and power profiles are also starkly different. The W6600 is a single-slot card measuring 241 mm in length, with a 100 W TDP and a single 6-pin connector. The P40 is dual-slot, 267 mm long and 111 mm tall, with a 250 W TDP and an 8-pin EPS connector. The P40 also has no display outputs, making it a compute-only accelerator, while the W6600 offers four DisplayPort 1.4a outputs.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two cards is generational. The W6600 is built on RDNA 2.0 architecture using TSMC's 7 nm process, packing 11,060 million transistors into a 237 mm² die. The P40 uses the older Pascal architecture on a 16 nm process, with 11,800 million transistors spread across a much larger 471 mm² die. The transistor density tells the story: the W6600 achieves 46.7M transistors per mm², nearly double the P40's 25.1M per mm².

Shader resources are higher on the P40 in absolute terms—3840 shading units and 240 TMUs versus 1792 and 112 on the W6600. However, the W6600's higher clocks and newer instruction set deliver better real-world performance in the benchmarks. The W6600 also includes 28 ray accelerators, a feature entirely absent from the P40, which has no RT cores or tensor cores. The P40's FP16 throughput is severely limited at 183.7 GFLOPS (1:64 ratio), while the W6600 delivers 18.49 TFLOPS FP16 via a 2:1 ratio. FP32 performance is closer, with the P40 at 11.76 TFLOPS and the W6600 at 9.247 TFLOPS, but the benchmark results show the W6600's efficiency wins out.

The API support also differs. The W6600 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the P40 is limited to DirectX 12 (12_1). Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4, but the W6600's newer architecture is better positioned for future feature updates.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Radeon PRO W6600 wins in every measured benchmark, making it the clear choice for compute-heavy tasks in OpenCL and Vulkan environments. Its 18.5% lead in OpenCL and 15% lead in Vulkan suggest that any workload leveraging these APIs—rendering, simulation, or general GPU compute—will see tangible performance benefits. The W6600's 92nd percentile ranking versus the P40's 89th further reinforces its position at a higher performance tier. Its 100 W TDP also makes it far easier to integrate into dense workstation environments or systems with limited power budgets, and its four DisplayPort outputs mean it can serve as a display-capable workstation card.

The NVIDIA Tesla P40 wins in memory capacity and bandwidth. Its 24 GB GDDR5 pool is three times larger than the W6600's 8 GB, and its 347.1 GB/s bandwidth is 55% higher. For workloads that require loading large models or datasets that exceed 8 GB, the P40 is the only viable option between the two. Its 3840 shading units and 240 TMUs also provide raw texture throughput that could benefit specific compute patterns, even if the overall benchmark scores do not reflect an advantage. The P40's lack of display outputs positions it purely as a server or compute accelerator, which may be preferable in headless environments where the W6600's display capabilities are unused. For users with memory-intensive inference or batch processing tasks, the P40's capacity is its sole but compelling argument.