AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT vs NVIDIA Tesla K40c Comparison

The NVIDIA Tesla K40c and AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT represent two distinct eras of GPU design, separated by over a decade of architectural evolution. The data shows a fundamental split: the K40c is a compute-oriented relic from the Kepler generation, while the RX 7600 XT is a modern RDNA 3.0 graphics card. In the single head-to-head benchmark available, the AMD card delivers a decisive victory, but the full picture involves more than just raw scores. This analysis breaks down where each card wins, what separates their architectures, and who should choose which based strictly on the provided facts.

Where Each One Wins

The benchmark results present a clear, though lopsided, picture. The AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT wins the only direct comparison, the Geekbench OpenCL test, with a score of 92,426 against the Tesla K40c's 17,468. This represents an 81.1% lead for the AMD card, which is a substantial margin. In this specific compute workload, the RX 7600 XT is not just faster; it is in a different performance class entirely.

The NVIDIA Tesla K40c, however, has a story that is not defined by this single loss. Its average benchmark score is 17,468, which places it at the 61st percentile of all GPUs. This is a strong showing for a card from 2013. Its nearest rivals in the database include the AMD Radeon Pro 460 (score 17,509, delta -0.2%) and the AMD Radeon 780M (score 17,588, delta -0.7%). The K40c is essentially within 1% of these modern integrated and professional parts, indicating that its raw compute capability remains relevant in legacy or specific compute contexts. It also trails the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 (score 17,639) by just 1% in this metric.

The RX 7600 XT, despite winning the head-to-head, has a lower percentile rank at 60th, and its average benchmark score across all tests is 17,083. This average is dragged down by its very low scores in legacy DirectX tests, such as Passmark DirectX 9 (score 228) and Passmark DirectX 10 (score 85). Its victory is in modern, compute-heavy workloads, not in older API rasterization. The K40c, with no display outputs, is not designed for gaming or graphical workloads at all, so its win condition is purely theoretical compute headroom relative to its age.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gulf between these two cards is vast. The Tesla K40c is built on NVIDIA's Kepler architecture, using the GK180 chip, and fabricated on a 28 nm process at TSMC. This process packs 7,080 million transistors onto a massive 561 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 12.6 million per square millimeter. The RX 7600 XT, in contrast, uses AMD's RDNA 3.0 architecture with the Navi 33 chip, built on a 6 nm process, also at TSMC. This allows for 13,300 million transistors on a much smaller 204 mm² die, achieving a density of 65.2 million transistors per square millimeter. The RX 7600 XT is denser and more efficient in its use of silicon.

The compute configurations are fundamentally different. The K40c has 2,880 shading units, 240 TMUs, and 48 ROPs. The RX 7600 XT has fewer shading units (2,048) and TMUs (128), but more ROPs (64). The AMD card also features 32 dedicated ray tracing cores, a feature absent from the Kepler-based K40c. Clock speeds tell a significant story: the K40c has a base clock of 745 MHz and a boost of 876 MHz, while the RX 7600 XT operates at a base of 1980 MHz, a game clock of 2470 MHz, and a boost of 2755 MHz. This clock advantage is a primary driver of its performance lead.

Memory configurations also differ sharply. The K40c uses 12 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus, achieving a bandwidth of 288.4 GB/s. The RX 7600 XT has 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, with a bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s. Despite the narrower bus, the faster GDDR6 memory nearly matches the older card's bandwidth. The API support also reflects their eras: the K40c supports DirectX 12 (11_0) and Vulkan 1.2.175, while the RX 7600 XT supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4. The AMD card also has a much higher peak FP32 throughput at 22.57 TFLOPS versus the K40c's 5.046 TFLOPS.

The Verdict

The data dictates that the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT is the superior GPU for virtually all practical purposes. Its 81.1% lead in Geekbench OpenCL is the only direct comparison, and it is a decisive one. The RX 7600 XT is an active product with modern features, including display outputs (1x HDMI 2.1a, 3x DisplayPort 2.1), ray tracing cores, and support for the latest DirectX 12 Ultimate API. It is designed to be a functional, current-generation graphics card.

The NVIDIA Tesla K40c is an end-of-life product with no display outputs, making it unsuitable for any standard desktop use case. Its only win condition is in legacy compute tasks where its 12 GB of memory and Kepler architecture might be specifically required by older software. The data shows it is competitive with modern integrated graphics like the AMD Radeon 780M in Geekbench OpenCL, but it does not offer the feature set or performance of the RX 7600 XT. For anyone building a system today, the choice is clear. The RX 7600 XT is the only viable option. The K40c is a historical artifact, best understood as a benchmark curiosity rather than a recommended purchase.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has higher compute performance in the Geekbench OpenCL test?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT, with a score of 92,426, is 81.1% ahead of the NVIDIA Tesla K40c, which scores 17,468.

Q: Does the NVIDIA Tesla K40c have any display outputs?

A: No, the data lists its display outputs as "No outputs," meaning it cannot be used to drive a monitor directly.

Q: What are the memory capacities and types for each card?

A: The NVIDIA Tesla K40c has 12 GB of GDDR5 memory, while the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT has 16 GB of GDDR6 memory.

Q: Which GPU has a higher boost clock speed?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT has a boost clock of 2755 MHz, significantly higher than the NVIDIA Tesla K40c's boost clock of 876 MHz.

Q: Does the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT support ray tracing?

A: Yes, the data shows it has 32 ray tracing cores, a feature the NVIDIA Tesla K40c does not have.

Q: How does the NVIDIA Tesla K40c compare to the AMD Radeon 780M in average benchmark score?

A: They are very close. The K40c has an average score of 17,468, which is 0.7% behind the AMD Radeon 780M's score of 17,588.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only direct benchmark comparison available is Geekbench OpenCL. This test measures raw general-purpose compute performance, and the results are stark. The AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT scores 92,426, while the NVIDIA Tesla K40c scores 17,468. The delta percentage is -81.1% for the K40c, meaning it performs at less than one-fifth the level of the RX 7600 XT. This is a massive gap that cannot be overcome by any other metric.

Looking at the broader benchmark landscape, the RX 7600 XT shows a wide range of scores. In modern APIs, it excels, with a Geekbench Vulkan score of 48,366 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2,348. However, its legacy DirectX performance is surprisingly low, with Passmark scores of 228 in DirectX 9, 167 in DirectX 11, 85 in DirectX 10, and 65 in DirectX 12. These low scores contribute to its average benchmark score of 17,083, which is actually lower than the K40c's single Geekbench score.

The K40c's strength lies in its consistency. Its single score of 17,468 puts it in the 61st percentile of all GPUs, above its rival's 60th percentile. In the nearest rivals list, the K40c is shown to be within 1% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 and 0.5% of the AMD Radeon Pro 560. This suggests that for a narrow set of compute tasks, the decade-old Tesla card is still competitive with modern mid-range hardware. The RX 7600 XT, despite its massive win, is shown to be within 0.7% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 and 0.3% of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690, indicating that its average performance is not universally dominant. The head-to-head, however, is unequivocal: the RX 7600 XT is the clear winner in the only test where both are present.