AMD Radeon Pro WX 3200 vs NVIDIA Tesla K20Xm Comparison

The recorded database pits two very different professional GPUs against each other: NVIDIA's Tesla K20Xm, a Kepler-era compute card, and AMD's Radeon Pro WX 3200, a compact Polaris-based workstation part. On paper they are separated by nearly seven years, radically different process nodes, and entirely different design intents. Yet the benchmark data places them closer than that gap might suggest, with the Tesla holding a percentile rank of 52 against all GPUs in the database versus 50 for the WX 3200. That proximity is worth unpacking, because the single head-to-head result tells a more decisive story than the percentile figures imply.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

There is only one direct comparison in the database, but it is a meaningful one. In Geekbench OpenCL, the Tesla K20Xm scores 17215 against 11228 for the Radeon Pro WX 3200, a 53.3 percent advantage for the NVIDIA card. That is not a marginal win; it is a beating, and it aligns with the raw throughput figures recorded for each part.

The explanation sits largely in the shading resources. The K20Xm carries 2688 shading units against 640 on the WX 3200, more than four times the count. Texture mapping units follow the same pattern, 224 versus 32, as do render output units at 48 versus 16. The resulting texture rate is 164.0 GTexel/s for the Tesla versus 41.44 GTexel/s for the AMD card, and the pixel rate splits 40.99 GPixel/s against 20.72 GPixel/s. Memory bandwidth compounds the gap: 249.6 GB/s on a 384-bit bus against 96.00 GB/s on a 128-bit bus, a consequence of the Tesla's 6 GB of GDDR5 running at 5.2 Gbps effective versus 4 GB at 6 Gbps effective on the WX 3200. The narrower bus simply cannot be rescued by faster memory chips.

Raw compute confirms the picture. The K20Xm is rated at 3.935 TFLOPS FP32, versus 1.658 TFLOPS on the WX 3200. The Geekbench OpenCL result, a 53.3 percent margin, tracks almost exactly with what those compute figures would predict, which suggests the benchmark is compute-bound and the database's synthetic ratings are internally consistent here.

The only benchmark where the WX 3200 has no answer is also the only one recorded for it. The database contains a Geekbench Metal score of 8035 for the Tesla and no Metal result for the AMD card, so no comparison can be drawn there. The win tally stands at one to zero in NVIDIA's favor.

The Verdict

The data points to a clear split. If the workload is OpenCL compute, the Tesla K20Xm is the stronger card by a wide margin, 53.3 percent in the only direct measurement available. Nothing in the recorded results suggests the WX 3200 closes that gap anywhere else.

But raw performance is not the whole record. The WX 3200 draws 65 W and needs no auxiliary power connectors, with a suggested PSU of just 250 W, while the Tesla consumes 235 W with a 550 W PSU recommendation. The WX 3200 is single-slot, 167 mm long and 69 mm tall, fitting into compact chassis; the K20Xm is dual-slot and 267 mm long. The AMD card also offers four mini-DisplayPort 1.4a outputs, whereas the Tesla has no display outputs at all, because it was never intended to drive a monitor. For any deployment that involves actually looking at a screen, the WX 3200 is the only option of the two.

One more data point frames the context: launch MSRP was 7,699 USD for the Tesla K20Xm and 199 USD for the WX 3200. Both are end-of-life parts now, so those figures are historical markers rather than shopping guidance, but they underline how differently these products were positioned.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU wins the only head-to-head benchmark?

A: The NVIDIA Tesla K20Xm. It scored 17215 in Geekbench OpenCL versus 11228 for the Radeon Pro WX 3200, a 53.3 percent advantage.

Q: How do the two compare against the broader GPU database?

A: The Tesla K20Xm sits at the 52nd percentile against all recorded GPUs with an average score of 12625; the WX 3200 sits at the 50th percentile with an average score of 11228. Despite the large generational gap, they land in nearly the same neighborhood overall.

Q: Which rival GPUs score closest to each card?

A: The Tesla K20Xm's nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 7600M XT (average score 12710, 0.7 percent ahead), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 (12773, 1.2 percent ahead), the GeForce GTX 590 (12830, 1.6 percent ahead), and the AMD Radeon Pro 455 (12831, 1.6 percent ahead). The WX 3200 is essentially tied with the AMD FirePro W4300 at 11225, within 0.3 percent of the GeForce GTX 780M at 11261, and about 1.3 percent ahead of both the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q and RTX PRO 6000D Blackwell Max-Q at 11088 in the recorded averages.

Q: Can either card drive displays?

A: Only the Radeon Pro WX 3200, which provides four mini-DisplayPort 1.4a outputs. The Tesla K20Xm has no display outputs at all.

Q: Which card fits smaller systems?

A: The WX 3200. It is single-slot, 167 mm long, and 69 mm tall, with a 65 W TDP and no power connectors. The Tesla K20Xm is dual-slot, 267 mm long, with a 235 W TDP and a 550 W suggested PSU.

Q: Do either of these cards support modern graphics APIs fully?

A: Partially. The WX 3200 supports DirectX 12 at feature level 12_0 and Vulkan 1.3, while the K20Xm supports DirectX 12 only at feature level 11_0 and Vulkan 1.2.175. Both support OpenGL 4.6.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ on nearly every line of the spec sheet. The Tesla K20Xm is built on TSMC's 28 nm process with 7,080 million transistors on a 561 mm² die, giving a density of 12.6M per mm². The WX 3200 uses GlobalFoundries' 14 nm node with 2,200 million transistors on a 103 mm² die, a density of 21.4M per mm². The smaller card is far denser, as its newer process would suggest, yet packs roughly a third of the transistor count.

Memory differs in scale: 6 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus at 249.6 GB/s for the Tesla, versus 4 GB on a 128-bit bus at 96.00 GB/s for the WX 3200. The bus interface is PCIe 3.0 x16 on the K20Xm but only PCIe 3.0 x8 on the WX 3200, a notable halving of host bandwidth. TDP splits 235 W versus 65 W. The FP32 compute rating is 3.935 TFLOPS versus 1.658 TFLOPS, and while the WX 3200 lists FP16 at 1.658 TFLOPS (1:1), the Tesla records no FP16 figure at all. Physically, the Tesla is longer and occupies two slots; the AMD card is shorter, single-slot, and lists a height of 69 mm where the Tesla records none. Release dates are 2012-11-11 for the K20Xm and 2019-07-01 for the WX 3200. Their lineages also diverge: the Tesla succeeded Fermi and was followed by Maxwell, while the WX 3200 descended from Radeon Pro GCN and was followed by Radeon Pro Vega.

Architecture Differences

The Tesla K20Xm uses the GK110 chip on the Kepler architecture, while the WX 3200 uses Polaris 23 on GCN 4.0. Kepler was a compute-first design, evidenced by the enormous shader count, 2688 units, and the absence of display circuitry. GCN 4.0 on Polaris took a balanced approach with far fewer resources per die, 640 shaders, but a much tighter manufacturing node at 14 nm versus 28 nm.

Feature support reflects the age gap. The WX 3200 exposes DirectX 12 at feature level 12_0 and Vulkan 1.3, while the Kepler part tops out at feature level 11_0 and Vulkan 1.2.175. Neither card has RT cores or tensor cores; those hardware blocks simply do not exist on either silicon generation. The WX 3200 does list a 1:1 FP16 rate matching its FP32 output, a feature the database does not record for the Tesla. Curiously, the Kepler card's higher feature asymmetry cuts both ways: its compute hardware is far larger, but its API and driver-level feature exposure is older.

Where Each One Wins

The Tesla K20Xm wins wherever raw throughput dominates. Its 53.3 percent OpenCL lead, backed by more than double the FP32 compute rating, nearly four times the memory bandwidth, and roughly four times the texture rate, makes it the recorded choice for compute-bound workloads that tolerate its 235 W draw, dual-slot footprint, and lack of display outputs.

The Radeon Pro WX 3200 wins on deployment practicality. It is the only card of the two that can drive monitors, supporting four mini-DisplayPort 1.4a outputs, and it does so from a single-slot, 65 W, connector-free design that fits a 167 mm envelope. Its API support is more current, with full DirectX 12 feature level 12_0 and Vulkan 1.3. Its nearest-rival cluster, including the FirePro W4300 and GTX 780M, shows it holding its own in its class even if it cannot touch the Kepler monster's compute numbers. For multi-monitor professional desktops in constrained systems, the data clearly favors the WX 3200; for headless number-crunching, the K20Xm stands well ahead.