AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX vs NVIDIA Tesla K80 Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The data available for direct comparison between the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX and the NVIDIA Tesla K80 is limited to two OpenCL and Vulkan workloads, but the results are decisive and dramatic. In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the RX 7900 XTX scores 50,465 points against the Tesla K80’s 18,620 points. That is a 171% advantage — the AMD part more than doubles the NVIDIA accelerator’s output in this compute-oriented benchmark. The Geekbench Vulkan result is even more lopsided: the RX 7900 XTX posts 85,612 points, while the Tesla K80 manages only 19,111 points. The delta here is 348%, meaning the Radeon card is roughly four and a half times faster in this specific API workload.

The win count is 2-0 in favor of the RX 7900 XTX, with zero benchmark victories for the Tesla K80 in the shared test set. This is not a close contest by any measure. The Vulkan gap is particularly telling because it represents a modern graphics API workload — the Tesla K80, with its Kepler architecture and no display outputs, was never designed for such tasks, and the numbers reflect that fundamental mismatch.

Looking at the broader context, the RX 7900 XTX’s average benchmark score across all recorded tests is 19,410, which places it at the 64th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rival in that aggregate ranking is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB, with an average score of 19,334 and a delta of just 0.4% — essentially a statistical tie. The NVIDIA TITAN Xp sits 1.2% ahead at 19,177, while the Quadro K5200 and FirePro D300 trail by 1% and 1.2%, respectively. This suggests that while the RX 7900 XTX dominates the Tesla K80 in head-to-head tests, its aggregate standing is surprisingly mid-pack, likely dragged down by older DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 results where it scores only 330 and 166 points, respectively.

The Tesla K80, by contrast, has an average benchmark score of 18,866 and sits at the 63rd percentile — nearly identical to the RX 7900 XTX’s 64th percentile. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 (18,789, +0.4%), the RTX 2000 Ada Generation (18,954, -0.5%), the Quadro K6000 (19,030, -0.9%), and the AMD Radeon RX 6600 (19,036, -0.9%). This is a remarkable finding: despite being a 2014-era compute card with no display outputs, the Tesla K80’s aggregate benchmark score is within 2.9% of the RX 7900 XTX’s average. The reason becomes clear when examining the individual scores — the RX 7900 XTX has ten recorded benchmarks, including several low DirectX legacy tests, while the Tesla K80 has only two, both from Geekbench. The Tesla’s average is therefore skewed by the absence of those legacy workloads.

The Verdict

From the data, the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is the clear winner in every measurable head-to-head comparison. Its 171% OpenCL lead and 348% Vulkan lead are not marginal — they represent generational and architectural leaps that no amount of driver optimization can close. The RX 7900 XTX is built on a 5 nm process, has 24 GB of GDDR6 memory, and supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, Vulkan 1.4, and modern display outputs including HDMI 2.1a and DisplayPort 2.1. The Tesla K80, with 12 GB of GDDR5, PCIe 3.0, and no display outputs, is fundamentally a different class of product — a compute accelerator from 2014 that lacks even basic graphics output capabilities.

Who should pick the RX 7900 XTX? Anyone whose workload involves modern graphics APIs, real-time rendering, or any task that benefits from Vulkan or DirectX 12 Ultimate features. The data also shows it has a robust feature set with 96 ray tracing cores, 6,144 shading units, and a 384-bit memory bus delivering 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth. For gaming, content creation, or any visual computing task, the RX 7900 XTX is the only sensible choice between these two.

Who should pick the Tesla K80? The data offers no benchmark evidence for such a choice. Its only wins would be in scenarios where its 300 W TDP (versus 355 W) and single 8-pin power connector (versus dual 8-pin) might be preferable for power-constrained environments. The Tesla K80’s 12 GB of GDDR5 with 240.6 GB/s bandwidth is a fraction of the RX 7900 XTX’s capacity and speed. Its 4.113 TFLOPS FP32 performance is less than 7% of the RX 7900 XTX’s 61.39 TFLOPS. Unless a system literally cannot supply 355 W or accommodate a 287 mm card, the data provides no reason to select the Tesla K80.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two GPUs is vast and explains the benchmark results. The RX 7900 XTX uses the Navi 31 chip on TSMC’s 5 nm process, packing 57,700 million transistors into a 529 mm² die. The Tesla K80 uses the GK210 chip on TSMC’s 28 nm process, with just 7,100 million transistors across a slightly larger 561 mm² die. The transistor density tells the story: 109.1 million transistors per mm² for the Radeon versus 12.7 million for the Tesla — a 8.6x difference in integration density.

The RX 7900 XTX is built on RDNA 3.0 architecture with a chip codename "Plum Bonito" and belongs to the Navi III (RX 7000) generation. It includes 96 ray tracing cores, which the Tesla K80 lacks entirely — the Kepler 2.0 architecture has no RT cores and no tensor cores on either card. The Radeon also has 6,144 shading units, 384 TMUs, and 192 ROPs, compared to the Tesla’s 2,496 shading units, 208 TMUs, and 48 ROPs. Clock speeds differ enormously: the RX 7900 XTX runs at 1,929 MHz base and 2,498 MHz boost, while the Tesla K80 crawls at 562 MHz base and 824 MHz boost.

Memory architecture is another differentiator. The RX 7900 XTX uses 24 GB of GDDR6 on a 384-bit bus, achieving 960.0 GB/s bandwidth. The Tesla K80 offers 12 GB of GDDR5 on the same 384-bit bus width, but only reaches 240.6 GB/s. The Radeon’s memory runs at 2,500 MHz (20 Gbps effective), while the Tesla’s is at 1,253 MHz (5 Gbps effective). The RX 7900 XTX also supports PCIe 4.0 x16, double the bandwidth of the Tesla’s PCIe 3.0 x16 interface.

API support reflects their eras. The Radeon supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The Tesla supports DirectX 12 (11_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.175. The RX 7900 XTX has modern display outputs (HDMI 2.1a, two DisplayPort 2.1, one USB Type-C), while the Tesla K80 has no display outputs at all — it is purely a compute device. The Radeon was released on 2022-11-02, nearly eight years after the Tesla K80’s 2014-11-16 launch. Both are now end-of-life, with the Radeon succeeding Navi II and preceding Navi IV, while the Tesla succeeded Tesla Fermi and was itself succeeded by Tesla Maxwell.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster in Vulkan workloads?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is faster by 348%, scoring 85,612 points versus the NVIDIA Tesla K80’s 19,111 points in the Geekbench Vulkan test.

Q: Does the Tesla K80 have any benchmark wins against the RX 7900 XTX?

A: No. In the available head-to-head data, the RX 7900 XTX wins both tests (Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Vulkan), giving it a 2-0 record.

Q: What are the memory capacities of these two cards?

A: The RX 7900 XTX has 24 GB of GDDR6 memory with 960.0 GB/s bandwidth, while the Tesla K80 has 12 GB of GDDR5 with 240.6 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: Can the Tesla K80 output video to a display?

A: No. The Tesla K80 has no display outputs listed in its specifications, while the RX 7900 XTX offers 1x HDMI 2.1a, 2x DisplayPort 2.1, and 1x USB Type-C.

Q: How do their process nodes compare?

A: The RX 7900 XTX uses a 5 nm process from TSMC, while the Tesla K80 uses a 28 nm process also from TSMC. The Radeon’s transistor density is 109.1M per mm² versus 12.7M per mm² for the Tesla.

Q: What is the average benchmark score for each GPU?

A: The RX 7900 XTX has an average benchmark score of 19,410 across ten tests, while the Tesla K80 has an average of 18,866 across only two tests.

Where Each One Wins

The RX 7900 XTX wins in every benchmark category where both have data. In Geekbench OpenCL, it leads by 171%; in Geekbench Vulkan, by 348%. This dominance extends to its theoretical specifications: 61.39 TFLOPS FP32 versus 4.113 TFLOPS, 959.2 GTexel/s texture rate versus 171.4 GTexel/s, and 479.6 GPixel/s pixel rate versus 42.85 GPixel/s. The Radeon also wins on memory bandwidth (960.0 GB/s vs 240.6 GB/s), memory capacity (24 GB vs 12 GB), and ray tracing support (96 RT cores vs none).

The Tesla K80’s only advantages are in power-related specifications. It has a lower TDP at 300 W versus 355 W, requires a single 8-pin power connector instead of dual 8-pin, and needs a 700 W suggested PSU versus 750 W. It is also shorter at 267 mm versus 287 mm. These are not performance wins, but they could matter in systems with strict power delivery limits or physical space constraints. The Tesla K80 also has a smaller die area at 561 mm² versus 529 mm², though this is due to the older, less dense process rather than any design advantage.

For compute tasks that rely on OpenCL and can tolerate the older Kepler architecture’s limitations, the Tesla K80 is not competitive — the 171% deficit in OpenCL is insurmountable. The RX 7900 XTX’s 122.8 TFLOPS FP16 performance (2:1 ratio) versus the Tesla’s absence of FP16 data further cements the Radeon’s position for mixed-precision workloads.

Specification Differences

| Specification | AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX | NVIDIA Tesla K80 |

|---|---|---|

| Architecture | RDNA 3.0 | Kepler 2.0 |

| Process Node | 5 nm | 28 nm |

| Transistors | 57,700 million | 7,100 million |

| Die Size | 529 mm² | 561 mm² |

| Transistor Density | 109.1M / mm² | 12.7M / mm² |

| Base Clock | 1,929 MHz | 562 MHz |

| Boost Clock | 2,498 MHz | 824 MHz |

| Memory Clock | 2,500 MHz (20 Gbps effective) | 1,253 MHz (5 Gbps effective) |

| Memory Size | 24 GB | 12 GB |

| Memory Type | GDDR6 | GDDR5 |

| Memory Bus | 384 bit | 384 bit |

| Memory Bandwidth | 960.0 GB/s | 240.6 GB/s |

| Shading Units | 6,144 | 2,496 |

| TMUs | 384 | 208 |

| ROPs | 192 | 48 |

| RT Cores | 96 | N/A |

| Pixel Rate | 479.6 GPixel/s | 42.85 GPixel/s |

| Texture Rate | 959.2 GTexel/s | 171.4 GTexel/s |

| FP32 Performance | 61.39 TFLOPS | 4.113 TFLOPS |

| FP16 Performance | 122.8 TFLOPS (2:1) | N/A |

| TDP | 355 W | 300 W |

| Power Connectors | 2x 8-pin | 1x 8-pin |

| Suggested PSU | 750 W | 700 W |

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

| Display Outputs | 1x HDMI 2.1a, 2x DisplayPort 2.1, 1x USB Type-C | No outputs |

| DirectX Support | 12 Ultimate (12_2) | 12 (11_1) |

| Vulkan Support | 1.4 | 1.2.175 |

| Length | 287 mm (11.3 inches) | 267 mm (10.5 inches) |

| Release Date | 2022-11-02 | 2014-11-16 |