GPU Comparison

# Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA Tesla K80 and AMD Radeon RX 460 split their two head-to-head benchmark matchups exactly one win apiece, but the nature of those wins reveals sharply different design philosophies. The Tesla K80 takes the Geekbench OpenCL test with a score of 18,620 against the RX 460's 17,855, a 4.3% margin. This is a compute-oriented victory, consistent with a dual-GPU accelerator built for scientific workloads rather than interactive graphics. The RX 460 counters in the Geekbench Vulkan test, scoring 20,198 against the Tesla's 19,111, a 5.4% swing in the opposite direction. Vulkan's low-level API favors the newer architecture with modern feature support, and the RX 460's 12_0 DirectX compliance and Vulkan 1.3 support give it an edge in API-forward workloads.

The broader benchmark picture shows both cards sitting at nearly identical performance percentiles. The Tesla K80 lands at the 63rd percentile of all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 18,866, while the RX 460 sits at the 62nd percentile with an average of 18,373. That 493-point gap in average scores is less than the delta between individual tests, meaning the two cards trade blows depending on the workload. The Tesla's closest rivals, the GeForce RTX 2070 (18,789, 0.4% behind), RTX 2000 Ada Generation (18,954, 0.5% ahead), Quadro K6000 (19,030, 0.9% ahead), and Radeon RX 6600 (19,036, 0.9% ahead), all cluster within a single percentage point. The RX 460's rival set is similarly tight: Intel Arc A770M (18,383, 0.1% ahead), AMD FirePro D500 (18,533, 0.9% ahead), Radeon Pro 5700 (18,189, 1% behind), and RTX 3060 Mobile (18,159, 1.2% behind). Neither card dominates its competitive tier; both are mid-pack performers whose value depends entirely on the specific application.

The use-case split is clear. The Tesla K80 wins where raw FP32 throughput and memory bandwidth matter, its 4.113 TFLOPS and 240.6 GB/s bandwidth dwarf the RX 460's 2.150 TFLOPS and 112.0 GB/s. The RX 460 wins where API modernity, clock speed, and efficiency matter, its 1090 MHz base and 1200 MHz boost clocks, 75 W power draw, and 14 nm process give it a decisive edge in latency-sensitive and power-constrained scenarios. For a database-driven analysis, the data indicates the Tesla is the compute specialist while the RX 460 is the general-purpose graphics card with better software ecosystem compatibility.

FAQ

Q: Which card has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA Tesla K80 has a higher average benchmark score at 18,866, compared to the AMD Radeon RX 460's 18,373. This puts the Tesla at the 63rd percentile of all GPUs and the RX 460 at the 62nd percentile.

Q: How do the two cards compare in Vulkan performance?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 460 wins the Geekbench Vulkan test with a score of 20,198, beating the NVIDIA Tesla K80's 19,111 by 5.4%. This is the RX 460's largest victory in any benchmark.

Q: What is the OpenCL performance difference between these cards?

A: The NVIDIA Tesla K80 scores 18,620 in Geekbench OpenCL, while the AMD Radeon RX 460 scores 17,855. The Tesla leads by 4.3% in this compute-oriented workload.

Q: Which card has better API support for modern graphics applications?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 460 supports DirectX 12 (12_0) and Vulkan 1.3, while the NVIDIA Tesla K80 supports DirectX 12 (11_1) and Vulkan 1.2.175. The RX 460's newer API levels make it more suitable for current gaming and graphics workloads.

Q: How do the nearest rivals compare for each card?

A: The Tesla K80's closest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070, which scores 18,789, just 0.4% behind. The RX 460's closest rival is the Intel Arc A770M at 18,383, which is 0.1% ahead. Both cards sit within a 2% band of their respective competitors.

Q: Which card has the higher memory bandwidth?

A: The NVIDIA Tesla K80 has significantly higher memory bandwidth at 240.6 GB/s, compared to the AMD Radeon RX 460's 112.0 GB/s. The Tesla also has a wider 384-bit memory bus versus the RX 460's 128-bit bus.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The two Geekbench tests provide the only direct comparison data, and they paint a picture of near-total parity with workload-dependent swings. In Geekbench OpenCL, the Tesla K80 scores 18,620 against the RX 460's 17,855, a 765-point gap that translates to a 4.3% advantage for NVIDIA. This is the expected outcome given the Tesla's hardware profile: 2,496 shading units, 208 texture mapping units, and 48 ROPs, all running at a modest 562 MHz base and 824 MHz boost. The RX 460 counters with just 896 shading units, 56 TMUs, and 16 ROPs, but clocks far higher at 1090 MHz base and 1200 MHz boost. The Tesla's raw compute resources overwhelm the RX 460's clock advantage in OpenCL, which tends to scale with shader count and memory throughput.

The Vulkan test flips the result. The RX 460 scores 20,198, beating the Tesla's 19,111 by 1,087 points, a 5.4% margin. This is a more surprising outcome given the Tesla's hardware advantage on paper. The explanation lies in architectural maturity and API implementation. The RX 460's GCN 4.0 architecture supports Vulkan 1.3, while the Tesla's Kepler 2.0 tops out at Vulkan 1.2.175. Vulkan's explicit control over hardware resources rewards architectures designed with modern graphics APIs in mind, and the RX 460's newer design (released in 2016 versus 2014) handles driver overhead and command submission more efficiently. The delta between the two tests, a 9.7 percentage point swing from OpenCL to Vulkan, demonstrates just how much API choice matters when comparing cards from different generations.

Looking at the absolute scores, both cards cluster near the same performance tier. The Tesla's average of 18,866 and the RX 460's average of 18,373 differ by just 2.6%. Neither card breaks into a higher performance class, and both sit within 1% of their nearest rivals. The Tesla's closest competitor, the GeForce RTX 2070, scores 18,789, essentially identical. The RX 460's closest competitor, the Intel Arc A770M, scores 18,383, also essentially identical. The data shows two cards that are statistically tied in overall performance but diverge meaningfully on specific workloads.

Specification Differences

The most striking difference is memory capacity. The Tesla K80 ships with 12 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus, delivering 240.6 GB/s of bandwidth. The RX 460 has 2 GB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus, yielding 112.0 GB/s. This 6x capacity difference and 2.1x bandwidth difference make the Tesla the clear choice for memory-intensive compute tasks like large dataset processing or high-resolution scientific visualization. The RX 460's smaller memory pool is adequate for 1080p gaming but would bottleneck in professional workloads.

Clock speeds tell the opposite story. The RX 460 runs at 1090 MHz base and 1200 MHz boost, while the Tesla operates at a comparatively low 562 MHz base and 824 MHz boost. The RX 460's clocks are 94% higher at base and 46% higher at boost, which partially compensates for its smaller shader count. Memory clocks also favor the RX 460 at 1750 MHz (7 Gbps effective) versus the Tesla's 1253 MHz (5 Gbps effective), though the Tesla's wider bus more than compensates in total bandwidth.

Power and physical specifications diverge dramatically. The Tesla K80 draws 300 W with a 700 W suggested PSU and requires a single 8-pin power connector, while the RX 460 draws just 75 W with a 250 W suggested PSU and needs no external power connectors. The Tesla is 267 mm long (10.5 inches) versus the RX 460's 170 mm (6.7 inches), and both are dual-slot cards. The Tesla has no display outputs, while the RX 460 offers 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 2.0b, and 1x DisplayPort 1.4a. The bus interface also differs: PCIe 3.0 x16 for the Tesla versus PCIe 3.0 x8 for the RX 460.

Architecture Differences

The Tesla K80 uses NVIDIA's Kepler 2.0 architecture on a 28 nm TSMC process with 7,100 million transistors on a 561 mm² die. The RX 460 uses AMD's GCN 4.0 architecture on a 14 nm GlobalFoundries process with 3,000 million transistors on a 123 mm² die. The process node difference is significant, 14 nm versus 28 nm, and explains the RX 460's much higher transistor density of 24.4M per mm² versus the Tesla's 12.7M per mm². The Tesla's die is 4.6 times larger, but the RX 460 packs its transistors more efficiently.

The shading unit counts reflect the architectural philosophies. The Tesla has 2,496 shading units, 208 TMUs, and 48 ROPs, while the RX 460 has 896 shading units, 56 TMUs, and 16 ROPs. The Tesla's pixel rate of 42.85 GPixel/s and texture rate of 171.4 GTexel/s dwarf the RX 460's 19.20 GPixel/s and 67.20 GTexel/s. FP32 performance follows suit: 4.113 TFLOPS for the Tesla versus 2.150 TFLOPS for the RX 460. Notably, the RX 460 supports FP16 at a 1:1 ratio (2.150 TFLOPS), while the Tesla lists no FP16 capability, a meaningful difference for machine learning workloads that leverage half-precision arithmetic.

Feature support diverges on API versions. The RX 460 supports DirectX 12 (12_0), Vulkan 1.3, and OpenGL 4.6. The Tesla supports DirectX 12 (11_1), Vulkan 1.2.175, and OpenGL 4.6. The RX 460's newer API levels reflect its 2016 release versus the Tesla's 2014 release. Neither card has ray tracing cores or tensor cores. The Tesla's generation is listed as "Tesla Kepler (Kxx)" with a predecessor of Tesla Fermi and successor of Tesla Maxwell, while the RX 460 belongs to "Arctic Islands (RX 400)" with a predecessor of Pirate Islands and successor of Polaris. Both cards are end-of-life products.