AMD Radeon RX 6500M vs NVIDIA Tesla M10 Comparison

The AMD Radeon RX 6500M and the NVIDIA Tesla M10 represent two vastly different eras and purposes in GPU design, despite their similar overall benchmark percentiles. The RX 6500M is a modern, power-efficient mobile gaming chip built on a 6 nm process, while the Tesla M10 is a legacy, high-power compute accelerator from the Maxwell generation. The data shows a decisive performance victory for the AMD part in the tested workloads, but the Tesla M10 counters with double the memory capacity and a different physical footprint, making the choice highly dependent on the specific use case.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6500M has a higher average benchmark score of 10362, compared to the NVIDIA Tesla M10's 9724. This places the RX 6500M in the 48th percentile of all GPUs, slightly ahead of the Tesla M10's 47th percentile.

Q: How large is the performance gap in the Geekbench OpenCL test?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6500M scores 38586 in Geekbench OpenCL, which is 274% higher than the NVIDIA Tesla M10's score of 10318. This is the smaller of the two performance deltas between the cards.

Q: What is the most significant difference in memory specifications?

A: The NVIDIA Tesla M10 offers 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus, while the AMD Radeon RX 6500M provides 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 64-bit bus. Despite having half the capacity and bus width, the RX 6500M achieves a higher memory bandwidth of 144.0 GB/s versus the Tesla M10's 83.20 GB/s.

Q: How do their physical power requirements differ?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6500M has a TDP of 50 W and is an integrated graphics processor (IGP) with no power connectors, making it suitable for portable devices. In contrast, the NVIDIA Tesla M10 has a TDP of 225 W, requires a dual-slot cooler with a single 8-pin power connector, and needs a 550 W suggested power supply.

Q: Which GPU supports hardware ray tracing?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6500M includes 16 ray accelerators (RT cores) and supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2). The NVIDIA Tesla M10 has no RT cores listed and supports only DirectX 12 (11_0), indicating it lacks dedicated ray tracing hardware.

Q: What are the release dates for these two products?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6500M was released on 2022-01-03, while the NVIDIA Tesla M10 is significantly older, with a release date of 2016-05-17. Both products are currently marked as end-of-life in their production status.

Architecture Differences

The architectural divide between these two GPUs is generational and fundamental. The AMD Radeon RX 6500M is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture using a 6 nm process at TSMC, packing 5,400 million transistors into a 107 mm² die. This yields a transistor density of 50.5M per mm². In contrast, the NVIDIA Tesla M10 uses the Maxwell architecture on a much older 28 nm process, also from TSMC, with only 1,870 million transistors spread across a larger 148 mm² die, resulting in a density of just 12.6M per mm².

The compute configuration reflects their different design goals. The RX 6500M is equipped with 1024 shading units, 64 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs. It also integrates 16 dedicated ray tracing cores, a feature entirely absent from the Tesla M10. The NVIDIA part is leaner in this regard, with 640 shading units, 40 TMUs, and 16 ROPs, and it lacks any tensor or ray tracing cores.

Clock speeds and fabrication node differences drive a massive throughput gap. The AMD chip operates at a base clock of 2000 MHz and a boost clock of 2400 MHz, while the Tesla M10 is significantly slower at 1033 MHz base and 1306 MHz boost. Consequently, the RX 6500M delivers 4.915 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 9.830 TFLOPS of FP16 (via a 2:1 ratio), whereas the Tesla M10 manages only 1.672 TFLOPS of FP32 and has no listed FP16 capability. The pixel and texture rates follow suit: 76.80 GPixel/s and 153.6 GTexel/s for the AMD part versus 20.90 GPixel/s and 52.24 GTexel/s for the NVIDIA part.

Memory architecture also diverges sharply. The RX 6500M uses 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 64-bit interface running at 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective), achieving 144.0 GB/s. The Tesla M10 uses 8 GB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus at 1300 MHz (5.2 Gbps effective), which yields a lower 83.20 GB/s bandwidth. The interface is also different: the mobile AMD chip uses PCIe 4.0 x4, while the Tesla M10 uses the older PCIe 3.0 x16 standard. Finally, the Tesla M10 is a dual-slot card with no display outputs, while the RX 6500M is an IGP with outputs dependent on the portable device.

The Verdict

The benchmark data presents a clear performance hierarchy for compute workloads. The AMD Radeon RX 6500M wins both head-to-head tests decisively, with a 274% lead in Geekbench OpenCL and a 380.1% lead in Geekbench Vulkan. This is consistent with the raw specifications, where the RX 6500M offers nearly three times the FP32 throughput and nearly double the memory bandwidth of the Tesla M10. For any application that relies on OpenCL or Vulkan compute, the RX 6500M is the superior choice by a wide margin.

However, the NVIDIA Tesla M10 is not without its justifications for specific buyers. Its 8 GB memory capacity is double that of the RX 6500M, which could be a decisive factor for workloads that require larger datasets to reside in local video memory, even if the bandwidth is lower. The Tesla M10 also has a longer physical footprint at 267 mm, but this is a design consideration for servers rather than a performance advantage. The Tesla M10's higher 225 W TDP and dedicated power connector suggest it is intended for a fixed, well-ventilated chassis, whereas the RX 6500M's 50 W IGP design prioritizes mobility and low power draw.

For a laptop or compact system where space and power are at a premium and compute performance is the priority, the RX 6500M is the obvious pick. For a server with available power and cooling infrastructure that needs more video memory for large-scale inference or data processing, the Tesla M10's 8 GB capacity is its only clear advantage, though its compute performance is drastically lower. The data suggests that for most modern tasks, the architectural advantages of the RX 6500M are overwhelming, but the Tesla M10's larger memory pool remains its sole redeeming feature.

Specification Differences

The following table highlights the key fields where the two products differ, based on the provided data.

| Specification | AMD Radeon RX 6500M | NVIDIA Tesla M10 |

| :--- | :--- | :--- |

| Architecture | RDNA 2.0 | Maxwell |

| Process Node | 6 nm | 28 nm |

| Transistors | 5,400 million | 1,870 million |

| Die Size | 107 mm² | 148 mm² |

| Base Clock | 2000 MHz | 1033 MHz |

| Boost Clock | 2400 MHz | 1306 MHz |

| Memory Size | 4 GB | 8 GB |

| Memory Type | GDDR6 | GDDR5 |

| Memory Bus | 64 bit | 128 bit |

| Memory Bandwidth | 144.0 GB/s | 83.20 GB/s |

| Shading Units | 1024 | 640 |

| TMUs | 64 | 40 |

| ROPs | 32 | 16 |

| RT Cores | 16 | None |

| Pixel Rate | 76.80 GPixel/s | 20.90 GPixel/s |

| Texture Rate | 153.6 GTexel/s | 52.24 GTexel/s |

| FP32 Performance | 4.915 TFLOPS | 1.672 TFLOPS |

| FP16 Performance | 9.830 TFLOPS | None |

| TDP | 50 W | 225 W |

| Slot Width | IGP | Dual-slot |

| Power Connectors | None | 1x 8-pin |

| Suggested PSU | Not specified | 550 W |

| Bus Interface | PCIe 4.0 x4 | PCIe 3.0 x16 |

| Display Outputs | Portable Device Dependent | No outputs |

| DirectX Support | 12 Ultimate (12_2) | 12 (11_0) |

| Release Date | 2022-01-03 | 2016-05-17 |

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The head-to-head data is limited to two Geekbench tests, but the results are stark and unambiguous. In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the AMD Radeon RX 6500M scores 38586, while the NVIDIA Tesla M10 scores 10318. This represents a delta of 274%, meaning the AMD part is nearly four times faster in this compute workload. This massive difference is likely attributable to the RX 6500M's higher clock speeds, newer architecture, and greater shader core count, which allow it to execute parallel workloads far more efficiently.

The Geekbench Vulkan test shows an even more pronounced gap. The RX 6500M achieves a score of 43837, compared to the Tesla M10's 9130, resulting in a 380.1% delta. The Vulkan API is a modern, low-overhead interface, and the RDNA 2.0 architecture's native support for it, combined with the higher bandwidth and raw compute, gives the AMD part a commanding lead. The Tesla M10, being a compute-focused card from the Maxwell era, appears to have much weaker Vulkan performance, which is consistent with its older design and lack of modern API optimizations.

Overall, the AMD Radeon RX 6500M wins both head-to-head benchmarks, securing a total of 2 wins to the NVIDIA Tesla M10's 0. The deltas of 274% and 380.1% are not marginal improvements but rather generational leaps in capability. The average benchmark score also corroborates this, with the RX 6500M at 10362 sitting above the Tesla M10's 9724. While the nearest rivals for the RX 6500M include the NVIDIA Tesla C2075 with a delta of -0.4% and the AMD Radeon RX 550X with a delta of -1.1%, the Tesla M10's closest competitors are the NVIDIA Tesla C2070 and GeForce GTX 1070, indicating it is in a different performance tier altogether when compared directly to the RX 6500M. The conclusion from the benchmark data is straightforward: for OpenCL and Vulkan performance, the RX 6500M is in a different league, rendering the Tesla M10 competitive only in scenarios where its 8 GB memory capacity is the primary requirement.