AMD Radeon PRO W7700 vs NVIDIA Tesla P40 Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded benchmark data shows a decisive performance advantage for the AMD Radeon PRO W7700 across both tested workloads. In Geekbench OpenCL, the AMD card scores 108,245 against the NVIDIA Tesla P40's 62,017, a delta of 74.5% in favor of the newer AMD part. The gap widens further in Geekbench Vulkan, where the Radeon PRO W7700 reaches 129,706 compared to the Tesla P40's 68,172, an even larger 90.3% advantage.

These are not marginal wins. The AMD card's OpenCL result is substantially higher than any score recorded for the Tesla P40, and the Vulkan gap approaches double the performance. The data indicates that in compute-heavy synthetic workloads, the Radeon PRO W7700 is in a different performance tier entirely. The Tesla P40, despite its Pascal-era architecture and larger 24 GB memory pool, simply cannot match the raw throughput of the newer RDNA 3.0 design.

The average benchmark score across the tested workloads reinforces this: the AMD card averages 118,976 across both tests, while the NVIDIA card averages 65,095. That is an approximately 54% higher average score for the AMD product. The wins count stands at 2 for the Radeon PRO W7700 and 0 for the Tesla P40 in this head-to-head comparison.

Looking at the broader database, the AMD card sits at the 95th percentile of all GPUs, while the Tesla P40 sits at the 89th percentile. The AMD card's nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GB10 (average score 117,393, only 1.3% behind) and the NVIDIA RTX 4000 SFF Ada Generation (117,088, 1.6% behind). This places the Radeon PRO W7700 in a highly competitive field at the top tier of recorded performance. The Tesla P40, by contrast, sits near the AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100 (64,212, 1.4% behind) and the AMD Radeon VII (66,004, 1.4% ahead of the P40). Its performance class is roughly comparable to a mid-range Radeon VII, not the modern workstation flagship the AMD card represents.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous: the AMD Radeon PRO W7700 is the superior performer in every benchmark recorded. For users who prioritize raw compute throughput in OpenCL and Vulkan workloads, the AMD card offers a 74.5% and 90.3% advantage respectively. This is a generational leap, not a refinement.

The NVIDIA Tesla P40, despite its 24 GB of GDDR5 memory, is an older design. Its memory bandwidth is 347.1 GB/s, which is lower than the AMD's 576.0 GB/s. The Tesla P40 is also end-of-life in terms of production status. The AMD card, meanwhile, is a current product with a 16 GB GDDR6 memory configuration and a 256-bit bus. The AMD is the clear choice for any modern compute workload that relies on OpenCL or Vulkan. The Tesla's only potential edge lies in its larger memory capacity, but that does not translate to a performance win in the recorded tests.

Who should pick the AMD Radeon PRO W7700? Anyone whose application benefits from high FP32 throughput (31.95 TFLOPS vs. 11.76 TFLOPS) and modern API support, including DirectX 12 Ultimate and Vulkan 1.4. The AMD card is also the only one of the two with display outputs (4x DisplayPort 2.1), making it suitable for workstation use that requires visual output. The Tesla P40 has no display outputs, which means it is strictly a compute accelerator.

Who should pick the NVIDIA Tesla P40? Based solely on the recorded data, almost no one. The P40's 24 GB memory might be useful for large datasets that exceed the W7700's 16 GB, but the card is older, slower, less efficient (250 W TDP vs. 190 W), and end-of-life. The 11.76 TFLOPS FP32 performance is less than half of the AMD's 31.95 TFLOPS. The database shows a clear winner for nearly all use cases.

Architecture Differences

The AMD Radeon PRO W7700 and the NVIDIA Tesla P40 are built on vastly different architectures, separated by several generations of design philosophy. The AMD card uses the Navi 32 chip, based on the RDNA 3.0 architecture, with the codename "Wheat Nas". This is part of the Radeon Pro Navi (Navi III Series) generation. The process node is 5 nm, manufactured by TSMC, with 28,100 million transistors packed into a 346 mm² die. This results in a transistor density of 81.2M per mm², a figure that reflects the modern manufacturing process.

The NVIDIA Tesla P40, in contrast, uses the GP102 chip based on the Pascal architecture. This is part of the Tesla Pascal (Pxx) generation. The process node is 16 nm, also from TSMC, but with only 11,800 million transistors on a much larger 471 mm² die. The transistor density is 25.1M per mm², which is roughly one-third the density of the AMD chip. This is a fundamental difference in manufacturing technology and design efficiency.

The AMD chip has 3,072 shading units, 192 texture mapping units, and 96 ROPs. It also includes 48 ray tracing cores, which are absent entirely from the Tesla P40. The NVIDIA chip has 3,840 shading units and 240 texture mapping units, but the same 96 ROPs. Despite having more shading units, the Pascal design is far less efficient per unit. The pixel rate is 249.6 GPixel/s for the AMD card versus 147.0 GPixel/s for the NVIDIA card. The texture rate is 499.2 GTexel/s for AMD versus 367.4 GTexel/s for NVIDIA.

The presence of ray tracing cores is a major architectural divergence. The Radeon PRO W7700 can handle hardware-accelerated ray tracing, while the Tesla P40 cannot. This is reflected in the API support: the AMD card supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the NVIDIA card only supports DirectX 12 (12_1). Both cards support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4, so those API levels are similar. The memory architecture also differs: the AMD uses GDDR6 memory at 18 Gbps effective speed, while the NVIDIA uses GDDR5 at 7.2 Gbps effective speed.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ significantly across nearly every specification field. The AMD Radeon PRO W7700 has a base clock of 1900 MHz and a boost clock of 2600 MHz. The NVIDIA Tesla P40 has a base clock of 1303 MHz and a boost clock of 1531 MHz. The AMD card's higher clocks, combined with its more efficient architecture, explain the significant performance delta.

Memory configurations differ: the AMD has 16 GB of GDDR6 with a 256-bit bus, delivering 576.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The NVIDIA has 24 GB of GDDR5 with a 384-bit bus, but only delivers 347.1 GB/s of bandwidth. The narrower bus and faster memory on the AMD card result in a bandwidth advantage of 228.9 GB/s, despite the NVIDIA card having more raw memory capacity. FP32 compute is another major discrepancy: the AMD card delivers 31.95 TFLOPS, whereas the NVIDIA card delivers 11.76 TFLOPS. FP16 performance is even more skewed, with the AMD card delivering 63.90 TFLOPS (2:1) against the NVIDIA's 183.7 GFLOPS (1:64). The FP16 ratio of 1:64 on the NVIDIA card indicates that it is heavily optimized for FP32, making it poorly suited for modern AI workloads that benefit from FP16.

Power consumption differs as well: the AMD card has a TDP of 190 W, while the NVIDIA card has a TDP of 250 W. The AMD card uses a single 8-pin power connector and requires a 450 W power supply. The NVIDIA card uses an 8-pin EPS connector and requires a 600 W power supply. The AMD card is also more power-efficient per FLOP, which is expected given the 5 nm manufacturing process.

The bus interface differs: the AMD uses PCIe 4.0 x16, while the NVIDIA uses PCIe 3.0 x16. For compute tasks, the newer bus standard can offer higher data transfer rates, though the impact over PCIe 3.0 might be modest for some workloads. Display outputs are completely different: the AMD has 4x DisplayPort 2.1, while the NVIDIA has no display outputs. The Tesla P40 is a compute-only accelerator, whereas the Radeon PRO W7700 can drive a workstation monitor directly. Physical dimensions are also different: the AMD card is 241 mm long and 111 mm tall, while the NVIDIA card is 267 mm long and 111 mm tall. The NVIDIA is longer by 26 mm.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU wins in Geekbench OpenCL?

A: The AMD Radeon PRO W7700 wins with a score of 108,245 compared to the NVIDIA Tesla P40's 62,017, a 74.5% difference.

Q: What is the Vulkan score difference between the two cards?

A: The AMD Radeon PRO W7700 scores 129,706 in Geekbench Vulkan, while the NVIDIA Tesla P40 scores 68,172, resulting in a 90.3% advantage for the AMD card.

Q: Does the NVIDIA Tesla P40 have any advantage in memory capacity?

A: Yes, the Tesla P40 has 24 GB of GDDR5 memory, which is larger than the AMD's 16 GB of GDDR6. However, the AMD card has much higher bandwidth at 576.0 GB/s versus 347.1 GB/s for the NVIDIA.

Q: What is the FP32 compute performance of each card?

A: The AMD Radeon PRO W7700 delivers 31.95 TFLOPS, while the NVIDIA Tesla P40 delivers 11.76 TFLOPS, a significant advantage for the AMD card.

Q: Which card has a higher transistor count?

A: The AMD Radeon PRO W7700 has 28,100 million transistors on its 5 nm process, whereas the NVIDIA Tesla P40 has 11,800 million transistors on a 16 nm process.

Q: What is the release date difference between the two?

A: The AMD Radeon PRO W7700 was released in November 2023, while the NVIDIA Tesla P40 was released in September 2016. The AMD is newer by several years.