AMD Radeon RX 590 GME vs NVIDIA Tesla M60 Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The benchmark data places the AMD Radeon RX 590 GME clearly ahead of the NVIDIA Tesla M60 in both available head-to-head tests, but the margin varies dramatically by workload. In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the RX 590 GME scores 36,294 against the Tesla M60’s 29,506, a 23% advantage. That is a solid, comfortable lead for a compute-oriented API, but it does not fundamentally change the class of performance you are looking at. The Vulkan result is where the gap becomes a chasm: the RX 590 GME posts 60,508 to the Tesla M60’s 31,473, a 92.3% delta. The AMD card nearly doubles the NVIDIA card’s score in this test, which is a decisive outcome for any application that can leverage Vulkan’s modern API features.

The overall average benchmark scores reinforce this hierarchy. The RX 590 GME carries an average benchmark score of 32,601, placing it in the 77th percentile of all GPUs. The Tesla M60 averages 30,490, which lands in the 75th percentile. While the percentile difference is small—just two points—the raw score gap of roughly 7% translates into the same tier of overall performance. Interestingly, the nearest rivals for the RX 590 GME include the AMD FirePro S9300 X2 (32,540, 0.2% behind) and the AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE (32,456, 0.4% behind), meaning the RX 590 GME sits in extremely tight company—its average score is within a fraction of a percent of those far newer cards. The Tesla M60’s closest competitors include the NVIDIA CMP 70HX (30,476, 0% delta) and the AMD Radeon RX 6700 (30,433, 0.2% behind), showing that it too is tightly clustered with its peers.

When dissecting the Vulkan result specifically, the RX 590 GME’s 60,508 score is not merely a win—it is a statement. The Tesla M60’s 31,473 Vulkan score is less than 52% of the AMD card’s output. This suggests that the NVIDIA card, designed in the Maxwell 2.0 era with a 28 nm process, does not translate its compute capabilities into modern graphics APIs efficiently. The RX 590 GME, built on GCN 4.0 and a 14 nm node, has a significant architectural advantage in this context. The OpenCL test, while still a win for AMD, shows a more modest gap, indicating that legacy compute workloads narrow the divide.

Where Each One Wins

The data shows a clear split: the AMD Radeon RX 590 GME wins every head-to-head benchmark recorded, with 2 wins and 0 losses. There is no test in the provided results where the NVIDIA Tesla M60 emerges victorious. However, the nature of the wins matters for practical use. The RX 590 GME’s 23% OpenCL lead suggests it is the stronger choice for general-purpose GPU compute tasks that rely on OpenCL, such as certain scientific simulations or media encoding workloads. Its 92.3% Vulkan advantage makes it the overwhelming pick for any modern game engine or application that uses Vulkan as its primary API—this is where the AMD card separates itself from the Tesla M60 entirely.

The Tesla M60, despite losing both tests, is not without a niche. Its average benchmark score of 30,490 places it in the 75th percentile, which is respectable. The card’s 64 ROPs and 75.39 GPixel/s pixel rate outclass the RX 590 GME’s 32 ROPs and 45.44 GPixel/s, suggesting it may hold an edge in fill-rate-bound scenarios like high-resolution rasterization without complex shading. However, the benchmark results do not include a test that isolates pixel throughput, so this remains speculative based on raw specification. For users constrained to the Tesla M60’s ecosystem—such as virtualization environments where NVIDIA’s vGPU technology is required—the card’s lack of display outputs (it has none) is a feature, not a bug, as it is designed for server deployment rather than desktop use.

Where the RX 590 GME wins is in versatility. It has 1x HDMI 2.0b and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a outputs, making it a functional desktop card, whereas the Tesla M60 cannot drive a display at all. The AMD card also supports Vulkan 1.3, while the Tesla M60 supports Vulkan 1.4—a specification edge for NVIDIA—but the benchmark scores do not reflect any benefit from that newer API version. For real-world use, the RX 590 GME is the only one of the two that can serve as a gaming or workstation card out of the box, and the data confirms it is faster in both compute APIs tested.

FAQ

Q: Which card has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 590 GME averages 32,601, which is 7% higher than the NVIDIA Tesla M60’s 30,490. The AMD card sits in the 77th percentile of all GPUs, while the Tesla M60 is in the 75th.

Q: How much faster is the RX 590 GME in Vulkan?

A: The RX 590 GME scores 60,508 in the Geekbench Vulkan test, while the Tesla M60 scores 31,473. That is a 92.3% delta, making the AMD card nearly twice as fast in this API.

Q: Is the Tesla M60 competitive in any benchmark?

A: The Tesla M60 loses both recorded head-to-head tests. Its closest result is in Geekbench OpenCL, where it trails by 23%, scoring 29,506 against the RX 590 GME’s 36,294.

Q: Do both cards have the same memory configuration?

A: Yes, both have 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus. However, the RX 590 GME’s memory runs at 2000 MHz (8 Gbps effective) for 256.0 GB/s bandwidth, while the Tesla M60’s memory runs at 1253 MHz (5 Gbps effective) for 160.4 GB/s.

Q: What are the closest rivals to each card based on average score?

A: The RX 590 GME’s nearest rival is the AMD FirePro S9300 X2, which is 0.2% behind at 32,540. The Tesla M60’s nearest rival is the NVIDIA CMP 70HX, which is 0% different at 30,476.

Q: Which card has higher power consumption?

A: The NVIDIA Tesla M60 has a TDP of 300 W, while the AMD Radeon RX 590 GME has a TDP of 175 W. The Tesla M60 also requires a 700 W suggested PSU, versus 450 W for the AMD card.

Specification Differences

The two cards diverge sharply in their core specifications, despite sharing the same memory capacity and bus width. The AMD Radeon RX 590 GME uses a Polaris 20 chip on a 14 nm process from GlobalFoundries, while the NVIDIA Tesla M60 uses a GM204 chip on a 28 nm process from TSMC. Clock speeds favor AMD dramatically: the RX 590 GME has a base clock of 1257 MHz and a boost of 1420 MHz, whereas the Tesla M60 has a 557 MHz base and an 1178 MHz boost. The AMD card’s memory clock of 2000 MHz (8 Gbps effective) is far higher than the Tesla M60’s 1253 MHz (5 Gbps effective), yielding 256.0 GB/s versus 160.4 GB/s bandwidth.

Compute unit counts show a mixed picture. The RX 590 GME has 2304 shading units, 144 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The Tesla M60 has 2048 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. The AMD card wins on shader and texture counts, but the NVIDIA card has double the ROPs. Pixel rates reflect this: the Tesla M60 outputs 75.39 GPixel/s versus the RX 590 GME’s 45.44 GPixel/s. Texture rate goes the other way, with the AMD card at 204.5 GTexel/s versus 150.8 GTexel/s for NVIDIA. FP32 compute favors AMD at 6.543 TFLOPS versus 4.825 TFLOPS, and the AMD card supports FP16 at 6.543 TFLOPS (1:1), while the Tesla M60 has no FP16 rating listed.

Physical and power characteristics also differ. The RX 590 GME is 241 mm long, while the Tesla M60 is 267 mm. Both are dual-slot and use a single 8-pin power connector. The AMD card has a 175 W TDP and requires a 450 W PSU, while the NVIDIA card has a 300 W TDP and requires a 700 W PSU. Display outputs are a major differentiator: the RX 590 GME has 1x HDMI 2.0b and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a, while the Tesla M60 has no display outputs at all. The AMD card supports DirectX 12 (12_0) and Vulkan 1.3, while the Tesla M60 supports DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.4. Both support OpenGL 4.6.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gulf between these two GPUs is substantial and explains much of the benchmark disparity. The AMD Radeon RX 590 GME is built on GCN 4.0 architecture, fabricated on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries. Its Polaris 20 chip contains 5,700 million transistors on a 232 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 24.6 million per mm². The NVIDIA Tesla M60 uses Maxwell 2.0 architecture, fabricated on a 28 nm process at TSMC. Its GM204 chip contains 5,200 million transistors on a much larger 398 mm² die, resulting in a lower density of 13.1 million per mm². The process node advantage is clear: AMD packs more transistors into less space, which contributes to higher clocks and better efficiency.

Cache hierarchies differ, though the fact pack does not list exact cache sizes for either card. The RX 590 GME’s GCN 4.0 design relies on a traditional compute-oriented architecture with a large number of shading units (2304) and high FP32 throughput. The Tesla M60’s Maxwell 2.0 architecture is known for its efficiency per clock, but the data shows it cannot match AMD’s raw throughput in modern compute APIs. The Tesla M60’s 64 ROPs versus the RX 590 GME’s 32 ROPs suggests a design optimized for rasterization output, which is consistent with its higher pixel rate. However, the AMD card’s 204.5 GTexel/s texture rate versus 150.8 GTexel/s indicates a more balanced compute pipeline.

Feature sets also diverge. The RX 590 GME supports FP16 at a 1:1 ratio with FP32, meaning it can process half-precision at full speed—a boon for certain machine learning or graphics workloads. The Tesla M60 lists no FP16 support, limiting its flexibility in mixed-precision scenarios. Both cards lack RT cores and tensor cores, so neither is suited for ray tracing or tensor-based AI workloads. The Tesla M60’s generation is listed as "Tesla Maxwell (Mxx)" and its predecessor is "Tesla Kepler," with a successor of "Tesla Pascal." The RX 590 GME’s generation is "Polaris (RX 500)," with a predecessor of "Arctic Islands" and a successor of "Vega." The release dates show the Tesla M60 launched on 2015-08-29, while the RX 590 GME launched on 2020-03-08, a gap of over four years that explains the process and architecture improvements in the AMD card.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous: the AMD Radeon RX 590 GME is the faster card in every benchmark recorded. It wins Geekbench OpenCL by 23% and Geekbench Vulkan by 92.3%, and it holds a 7% lead in average benchmark score (32,601 versus 30,490). For anyone choosing between these two for compute or graphics workloads that use OpenCL or Vulkan, the RX 590 GME is the correct pick. Its higher clocks, greater FP32 throughput, and newer 14 nm process give it a decisive advantage over the Tesla M60’s older 28 nm Maxwell design.

The Tesla M60’s only statistical strengths are its higher pixel rate (75.39 GPixel/s versus 45.44 GPixel/s) and double the ROP count (64 versus 32), but no benchmark in the provided data confirms a real-world win from those specs. Its 300 W TDP and 700 W PSU requirement also make it less efficient than the RX 590 GME’s 175 W TDP and 450 W PSU requirement. The Tesla M60’s lack of display outputs further limits its use case to headless server environments where NVIDIA’s virtualization features are necessary, but the benchmark data does not show that those features buy any performance advantage in the tested APIs.

If you need a desktop-capable card with modern API support and faster compute, the RX 590 GME is the clear winner—it even offers display outputs and a higher average benchmark score. If you are locked into a Tesla-class server infrastructure, the M60’s 75th percentile standing is respectable, but it is slower in both head-to-head tests. The verdict is simple: choose the RX 590 GME for performance, and choose the Tesla M60 only if your system requires NVIDIA’s server-specific feature set. The numbers do not justify choosing the Tesla M60 on performance grounds alone.