AMD Radeon RX 560 XT vs NVIDIA Tesla P4 Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The benchmark database shows a clear, consistent advantage for the NVIDIA Tesla P4 across both available test suites. In Geekbench OpenCL, the Tesla P4 scores 34,947 against 31,387 for the AMD Radeon RX 560 XT, producing an 11.3% delta in favor of the NVIDIA card. That margin is substantial — it places the Tesla P4 in a performance tier that, based on average benchmark scores, sits between the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile (38,135) and the AMD Radeon PRO W6400 (37,157), with the Tesla P4's average of 37,628 landing just 0.1% below the RTX 4070's 37,648.

The Vulkan results tell a similar story, though the gap narrows slightly. The Tesla P4 posts 40,309 against 36,879 for the RX 560 XT, a 9.3% advantage. This is notable because Vulkan tends to favor AMD's GCN architecture in many workloads, yet the Pascal-based Tesla P4 still manages to outpace it by a healthy margin. The RX 560 XT's Vulkan score of 36,879 is respectable — it beats its own OpenCL result by roughly 17.5% — but it cannot close the distance to the Tesla P4, whose Vulkan score is 15.3% higher than its own OpenCL number.

Looking at the broader context from the nearestRivals data, the Tesla P4's average benchmark score of 37,628 places it at the 81st percentile of all GPUs, while the RX 560 XT's 34,133 sits at the 79th percentile. The two-percentile gap may seem small, but the underlying scores reveal a more meaningful separation. The RX 560 XT's nearest rival is the NVIDIA RTX A2000 12 GB at 34,154 (a 0.1% difference), while the Tesla P4 is effectively tied with the RTX 4070 at 37,648 (a -0.1% delta). That places the two cards roughly 3,500 points apart on average, which corresponds to the observed 11.3% and 9.3% deltas in the individual tests.

Neither card shows a win in any head-to-head benchmark where the RX 560 XT comes out ahead; the wins tally is 2 for the Tesla P4 and 0 for the RX 560 XT. The largest margin of victory for the Tesla P4 is in OpenCL (11.3%), and its smallest is in Vulkan (9.3%). Both margins are consistent and reproducible across the two test types, suggesting a fundamental performance advantage rather than a workload-specific anomaly.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous: the NVIDIA Tesla P4 wins both available benchmarks and holds a higher average score, higher percentile ranking, and a positive delta in every head-to-head comparison. Any user selecting between these two cards strictly on measured performance should choose the Tesla P4. The 11.3% OpenCL lead and 9.3% Vulkan lead are not marginal — they represent a full performance tier of separation.

However, the verdict is not purely about raw speed. The Tesla P4 is a single-slot, 75 W card with no display outputs, designed for server-side inference and compute tasks. The RX 560 XT is a dual-slot, 150 W card with 1x HDMI 2.0b and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a outputs, clearly intended for workstation or consumer use where display connectivity matters. If the workload requires driving monitors, the RX 560 XT is the only viable option despite its lower scores. If the workload is headless compute — such as GPU-accelerated inference in a data center — the Tesla P4's superior performance and lower power draw make it the logical pick.

The production status of both cards is end-of-life, so this is not a forward-looking recommendation. But for anyone sourcing hardware from the used market or existing inventory, the Tesla P4 delivers more compute per watt and more absolute performance. The RX 560 XT's only redeeming factors in this comparison are its display outputs and its larger memory bus relative to its memory capacity — but those do not show up in the benchmark scores.

Where Each One Wins

NVIDIA Tesla P4 wins on:

• OpenCL performance: 34,947 vs 31,387 (11.3% ahead)
• Vulkan performance: 40,309 vs 36,879 (9.3% ahead)
• Average benchmark score: 37,628 vs 34,133 (10.2% ahead)
• Overall percentile: 81st vs 79th
• Power efficiency: 75 W TDP vs 150 W TDP, with higher performance
• Form factor: single-slot vs dual-slot, no power connectors required
• Memory capacity: 8 GB vs 4 GB
• FP32 compute: 5.704 TFLOPS vs 4.394 TFLOPS
• Pixel rate: 71.30 GPixel/s vs 39.23 GPixel/s
• Texture rate: 178.2 GTexel/s vs 137.3 GTexel/s
• Transistor count: 7,200 million vs 5,700 million (on a 16 nm process vs 14 nm)

AMD Radeon RX 560 XT wins on:

• Display outputs: 1x HDMI 2.0b, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a vs none
• Memory bandwidth: 224.0 GB/s vs 192.3 GB/s
• Memory clock: 1750 MHz vs 1502 MHz (7 Gbps vs 6 Gbps effective)
• FP16 performance: 4.394 TFLOPS (1:1) vs 89.12 GFLOPS (1:64) — a massive difference in half-precision throughput
• Base and boost clocks: 1074 MHz / 1226 MHz vs 886 MHz / 1114 MHz
• Transistor density: 24.6M / mm² vs 22.9M / mm²
• Physical length: 241 mm vs 168 mm (though this is not a win in any practical sense)

The RX 560 XT's FP16 capability is worth emphasizing. Its 4.394 TFLOPS in half precision matches its FP32 output, whereas the Tesla P4's FP16 is severely limited at 89.12 GFLOPS. For workloads that rely on half-precision compute — such as certain machine learning inference paths — the RX 560 XT would be dramatically faster, despite losing in the OpenCL and Vulkan tests that presumably use FP32.

FAQ

Q: Which card has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA Tesla P4 has an average benchmark score of 37,628, compared to 34,133 for the AMD Radeon RX 560 XT. This places the Tesla P4 at the 81st percentile of all GPUs, while the RX 560 XT sits at the 79th percentile.

Q: How much faster is the Tesla P4 in OpenCL and Vulkan?

A: In Geekbench OpenCL, the Tesla P4 scores 34,947 versus 31,387 for the RX 560 XT, a lead of 11.3%. In Geekbench Vulkan, the Tesla P4 scores 40,309 versus 36,879, a lead of 9.3%.

Q: Does the RX 560 XT have any performance advantage at all?

A: Yes, in half-precision (FP16) compute. The RX 560 XT delivers 4.394 TFLOPS in FP16 (1:1 ratio with FP32), while the Tesla P4 is limited to 89.12 GFLOPS (1:64 ratio). This is a 49x difference in FP16 throughput, though it does not affect the OpenCL or Vulkan scores in the data.

Q: What are the memory specifications of each card?

A: The Tesla P4 has 8 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus with 192.3 GB/s bandwidth, running at 1502 MHz (6 Gbps effective). The RX 560 XT has 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus with 224.0 GB/s bandwidth, running at 1750 MHz (7 Gbps effective). The RX 560 XT has higher bandwidth despite less capacity.

Q: Which card is more suitable for a headless server environment?

A: The Tesla P4 is clearly designed for such use. It has no display outputs, a 75 W TDP, single-slot form factor, and no power connectors. The RX 560 XT requires a 150 W TDP, dual-slot space, and a 1x 6-pin power connector, and it includes display outputs that are unnecessary in a headless configuration.

Q: How do these cards compare to their nearest rivals?

A: The Tesla P4's average score of 37,628 is 0.1% below the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 (37,648) and 0.3% above the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 (37,507). The RX 560 XT's average score of 34,133 is 0.1% below the NVIDIA RTX A2000 12 GB (34,154) and 0.2% below the NVIDIA RTX A1000 (34,207).

Architecture Differences

The two cards are built on fundamentally different architectures from different process nodes and foundries. The NVIDIA Tesla P4 uses the GP104 chip on a 16 nm TSMC process, featuring 7,200 million transistors on a 314 mm² die, resulting in a transistor density of 22.9M / mm². It belongs to the Pascal architecture, specifically the Tesla Pascal generation (Pxx), and was released in September 2016. Its predecessor is Tesla Maxwell and its successor is Tesla Volta.

The AMD Radeon RX 560 XT uses the Ellesmere chip on a 14 nm GlobalFoundries process, featuring 5,700 million transistors on a 232 mm² die, giving a higher transistor density of 24.6M / mm². It is built on GCN 4.0 architecture as part of the Polaris (RX 500) generation, released in March 2019. Its predecessor is Arctic Islands and its successor is Vega.

The compute configuration differs significantly. The Tesla P4 has 2,560 shading units, 160 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, whereas the RX 560 XT has 1,792 shading units, 112 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. This gives the Tesla P4 a 43% advantage in shading units and a 100% advantage in ROPs. The Tesla P4's pixel rate is 71.30 GPixel/s versus 39.23 GPixel/s for the RX 560 XT, and its texture rate is 178.2 GTexel/s versus 137.3 GTexel/s. Neither card has ray tracing cores or tensor cores.

Clock speeds favor the AMD card in raw terms: the RX 560 XT runs at a base of 1074 MHz and boost of 1226 MHz, while the Tesla P4 runs at 886 MHz base and 1114 MHz boost. However, the Tesla P4 compensates with its wider compute architecture. Memory clocks also favor AMD at 1750 MHz (7 Gbps effective) versus 1502 MHz (6 Gbps effective).

API support is comparable, with both cards supporting DirectX 12 (12_1 for NVIDIA, 12_0 for AMD), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan (1.4 for NVIDIA, 1.3 for AMD). The Tesla P4 uses a PCIe 3.0 x16 interface and requires a 250 W suggested PSU, while the RX 560 XT also uses PCIe 3.0 x16 but requires a 450 W suggested PSU. The Tesla P4 is single-slot and 168 mm long with no power connectors; the RX 560 XT is dual-slot and 241 mm long with a single 6-pin connector.