Intel Arc A580 vs NVIDIA Quadro M6000 Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded data shows a clear and consistent victory for the Intel Arc A580 across every shared benchmark in the database. In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the Arc A580 scores 91,657 points against the Quadro M6000's 39,688 points. That is a delta of 130.9% in favor of the Intel part, meaning the Arc A580 more than doubles the raw compute throughput of the older NVIDIA workstation card in this particular workload. The result is not a marginal edge; it is a commanding lead that places the two products in entirely different performance tiers.

The Geekbench Vulkan test tells a similar story, though with a narrower margin. The Arc A580 posts 79,381 points while the Quadro M6000 manages 46,913 points, a 69.2% advantage for the Intel card. Vulkan is a modern low-level API, and the gap here reflects not only raw shader throughput but also architectural efficiency gains that the Maxwell 2.0 design cannot overcome. The Intel part wins both head-to-head comparisons, giving it a 2-0 record in the shared benchmark suite.

Context from the broader database reinforces this outcome. The Arc A580 holds an average benchmark score of 57,756 across all recorded tests, which places it in the 87th percentile of all GPUs in the database. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 5600 OEM at 58,085 (a 0.6% difference), the Intel Arc A570M at 58,239 (0.8% lower), and the AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT at 58,392 (1.1% lower). The Arc A580 sits within roughly one percent of these cards, indicating that its aggregate performance is competitive with a group of mid-range and upper-mid-range GPUs from both AMD and Intel's own lineup.

The Quadro M6000, by contrast, has an average benchmark score of 43,301, placing it in the 84th percentile. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 Mobile at 43,268 (0.1% higher), the NVIDIA Quadro M6000 24 GB at 43,262 (0.1% higher), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER at 43,223 (0.2% higher). The M6000's aggregate score is effectively indistinguishable from these cards, all within a 0.8% band. This suggests that while the M6000 is not a weak performer in absolute terms, it is grouped with modern mobile and mid-range desktop parts rather than with high-end current-generation hardware.

The average score difference between the two cards is substantial. The Arc A580's 57,756 average is roughly 33% higher than the Quadro M6000's 43,301. In practical terms, the data indicates that the Intel card delivers significantly more compute performance per benchmark pass, and the individual test results confirm that the advantage is consistent rather than workload-specific.

Architecture Differences

The underlying architectures could hardly be more different, separated by seven years of GPU design evolution. The Intel Arc A580 uses the DG2-512 chip built on the Xe-HPG architecture, part of the Alchemist generation (Arc 5). It is fabricated on a 6 nm process at TSMC, with 21,700 million transistors packed into a 406 mm² die. That yields a transistor density of 53.4 million transistors per square millimeter. The Quadro M6000 uses the GM200 chip on the Maxwell 2.0 architecture, part of the Quadro Maxwell (Mx000) generation. It is built on a 28 nm process, also at TSMC, with 8,000 million transistors on a much larger 601 mm² die, giving a density of just 13.3 million transistors per square millimeter. The density difference is nearly 4x, a direct consequence of the process node gap.

Both cards have identical counts of shader units and texture mapping units: 3,072 shading units and 192 TMUs. Both also have 96 ROPs. The similarity ends there. The Arc A580 includes 24 ray tracing cores, a feature entirely absent from the Quadro M6000, which has no ray tracing hardware at all. This is a generational divide: Maxwell 2.0 predates hardware-accelerated ray tracing in NVIDIA's lineup, while Xe-HPG was designed with it as a core capability.

Clock speeds also differ markedly. The Arc A580 runs at a base clock of 1700 MHz and boosts to 2000 MHz. The Quadro M6000 operates at a much lower 988 MHz base and 1114 MHz boost. Combined with the architectural improvements in execution efficiency, the Intel card achieves 12.29 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, while the Quadro M6000 manages 6.844 TFLOPS. The Arc A580 also supports FP16 at 24.58 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio), while the M6000 has no recorded FP16 throughput.

Memory subsystems are another major point of divergence. The Arc A580 uses 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, delivering 512.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The Quadro M6000 uses 12 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus, but its bandwidth is only 317.4 GB/s. The Intel card has more bandwidth despite the narrower bus and smaller capacity, thanks to the faster GDDR6 memory running at 2000 MHz (16 Gbps effective) versus the M6000's 1653 MHz (6.6 Gbps effective). The M6000 does have 4 GB more capacity, which can matter for very large datasets that fit within a single frame buffer, but the bandwidth advantage belongs entirely to the Arc A580.

The pixel and texture rates reflect the clock and architecture differences. The Arc A580 delivers 192.0 GPixel/s and 384.0 GTexel/s, while the Quadro M6000 delivers 106.9 GPixel/s and 213.9 GTexel/s. Both cards are dual-slot designs, but the power profiles differ: the Arc A580 has a 175 W TDP with two 8-pin connectors and a suggested 450 W PSU, while the Quadro M6000 has a 250 W TDP with a single 8-pin connector and a suggested 600 W PSU. The M6000 consumes more power while delivering less performance, a clear sign of the efficiency gains from the 6 nm process.

FAQ

Q: Which card has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The Intel Arc A580 has an average benchmark score of 57,756, while the NVIDIA Quadro M6000 has an average of 43,301. The Arc A580 is approximately 33% higher.

Q: How much faster is the Intel Arc A580 in OpenCL?

A: The Arc A580 scores 91,657 in Geekbench OpenCL versus the Quadro M6000's 39,688, a 130.9% advantage for the Intel card.

Q: Does the Quadro M6000 have more memory bandwidth?

A: No. The Quadro M6000 has 317.4 GB/s of bandwidth, while the Intel Arc A580 has 512.0 GB/s. The M6000 does have more capacity at 12 GB versus 8 GB.

Q: Does the Quadro M6000 support hardware ray tracing?

A: No. The Quadro M6000 has no ray tracing cores. The Intel Arc A580 includes 24 ray tracing cores.

Q: Which card has a higher FP32 compute throughput?

A: The Intel Arc A580 delivers 12.29 TFLOPS of FP32, while the NVIDIA Quadro M6000 delivers 6.844 TFLOPS. The Intel card is roughly 80% higher.

Q: What is the transistor density difference between the two cards?

A: The Intel Arc A580 has a transistor density of 53.4 million transistors per mm², while the Quadro M6000 has 13.3 million transistors per mm².

Specification Differences

| Specification | Intel Arc A580 | NVIDIA Quadro M6000 |

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

| Architecture | Xe-HPG | Maxwell 2.0 |

| Generation | Alchemist (Arc 5) | Quadro Maxwell (Mx000) |

| Process Node | 6 nm | 28 nm |

| Transistors | 21,700 million | 8,000 million |

| Die Size | 406 mm² | 601 mm² |

| Transistor Density | 53.4M / mm² | 13.3M / mm² |

| Base Clock | 1700 MHz | 988 MHz |

| Boost Clock | 2000 MHz | 1114 MHz |

| Memory Size | 8 GB | 12 GB |

| Memory Type | GDDR6 | GDDR5 |

| Memory Bus Width | 256 bit | 384 bit |

| Memory Bandwidth | 512.0 GB/s | 317.4 GB/s |

| Memory Clock | 2000 MHz (16 Gbps effective) | 1653 MHz (6.6 Gbps effective) |

| Ray Tracing Cores | 24 | None |

| FP32 Compute | 12.29 TFLOPS | 6.844 TFLOPS |

| FP16 Compute | 24.58 TFLOPS (2:1) | None |

| Pixel Rate | 192.0 GPixel/s | 106.9 GPixel/s |

| Texture Rate | 384.0 GTexel/s | 213.9 GTexel/s |

| TDP | 175 W | 250 W |

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

| Suggested PSU | 450 W | 600 W |

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

| Display Outputs | 1x HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 2.0 | 1x DVI, 4x DisplayPort 1.2 |

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

| Production Status | Active | End-of-life |

| Release Date | 2023-10-09 | 2015-03-20 |

The Verdict

The data points to a straightforward conclusion: the Intel Arc A580 is the superior performer in every measured metric shared with the NVIDIA Quadro M6000. It wins both head-to-head benchmarks, has a higher average benchmark score, sits in a higher percentile of all GPUs, delivers nearly double the FP32 throughput, and does so at a lower TDP. The 130.9% OpenCL lead and 69.2% Vulkan lead are not narrow margins; they represent a generational leap in compute capability.

The Quadro M6000 retains one practical advantage: its 12 GB frame buffer is 50% larger than the Arc A580's 8 GB. For workloads that require holding very large working sets in VRAM and do not exceed the M6000's compute ceiling, that extra capacity could be relevant. The M6000 also has a longer physical footprint at 267 mm and 111 mm height, but the Arc A580's dimensions are not recorded in the database, so no size comparison can be made.

The M6000's nearest rivals in the database include modern NVIDIA parts like the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER and RTX 4090 Mobile, all within a 0.8% band of its average score. That places the M6000 firmly in the mid-range of current GPU performance. The Arc A580, by contrast, sits near the AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT, a former high-end desktop card, with only a 1.1% difference in average score. The performance class separation is real and consistent.

For buyers prioritizing raw compute, modern API support, ray tracing capability, and bandwidth, the Intel Arc A580 is the clear choice from the recorded data. For those who specifically need 12 GB of VRAM and are willing to sacrifice substantial compute throughput, the Quadro M6000 remains an option, though its end-of-life production status and older architecture make it difficult to recommend on performance grounds alone. The database record is unambiguous: the Arc A580 outperforms the M6000 in every shared benchmark and aggregate metric.