Intel Arc A580 vs NVIDIA Tesla M40 Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded data shows a decisive performance advantage for the Intel Arc A580 across every shared benchmark. In Geekbench OpenCL, the Arc A580 scores 91,657 against the Tesla M40's 39,192, which translates to a 133.9% delta in favor of Intel. That is more than double the raw compute score, a gap that reflects not just architectural age but a fundamental difference in execution efficiency.

The Vulkan results tell a similar story, though with a slightly narrower margin. The Arc A580 posts 79,381 in Geekbench Vulkan, while the Tesla M40 manages 44,602. The 78% delta still leaves NVIDIA's card trailing by a wide margin, but it is notably Vulkan is a modern API where the Maxwell architecture was never designed to excel. The fact that the M40 stays within 78% of the Arc A580 in Vulkan, while falling 133.9% behind in OpenCL, suggests the gap grows larger when the workload leans on newer compute paths.

Looking at the aggregate numbers, the Arc A580 holds an average benchmark score of 57,756 across all recorded tests, placing it in the 87th percentile of all GPUs in the database. The Tesla M40 averages 41,897, good for the 83rd percentile. The percentile difference is smaller than the raw score difference might imply, which indicates that the M40 still sits above a large portion of the GPU population, even though it is decisively outclassed by the Intel part.

The nearest rivals for each card provide useful context. The Arc A580's closest competitors are the AMD Radeon RX 5600 OEM at 58,085 (0.6% higher), the Intel Arc A570M at 58,239 (0.8% higher), the AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT at 58,392 (1.1% higher), and the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE at 57,367 (0.7% lower). This cluster of scores, all within roughly 1% of each other, shows that the Arc A580 sits in a tightly contested performance band where small architectural advantages decide the ordering.

The Tesla M40's nearest rivals paint a different picture. The NVIDIA Tesla M40 24 GB variant scores 41,707, just 0.5% lower than the 12 GB model. The GeForce RTX 3080 Ti scores 41,187, which is 1.7% lower than the M40 in this database, a surprising result that reflects the benchmark mix rather than real-world gaming performance. The AMD Radeon RX 7650 GRE sits 1.9% higher at 42,723, and the Radeon Pro 5300 trails by 2.5% at 40,870.

The head-to-head record is clean: the Arc A580 wins both recorded comparisons, 2 wins to 0. There is no benchmark in the database where the Tesla M40 pulls ahead. The closest the M40 gets is in Vulkan, where it still loses by a substantial margin. In OpenCL, the result is not close enough to invite further analysis; the Arc A580 simply dominates.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The Intel Arc A580 averages 57,756 across all recorded benchmarks, while the NVIDIA Tesla M40 averages 41,897. The Arc A580 also ranks higher in the overall percentile distribution at 87th, compared to the M40's 83rd.

Q: How large is the performance gap in OpenCL?

A: The Arc A580 scores 91,657 in Geekbench OpenCL versus 39,192 for the Tesla M40. That is a 133.9% delta, meaning the Intel card delivers well over double the OpenCL performance of the NVIDIA card.

Q: Does the Tesla M40 win any benchmark in the head-to-head comparison?

A: No. The database records two head-to-head tests, Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Vulkan, and the Arc A580 wins both. The M40's closest result is in Vulkan, where it trails by 78%.

Q: How does each card compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Arc A580 sits within 1.1% of four rivals: the RX 5600 OEM (0.6% higher), Arc A570M (0.8% higher), RX 6950 XT (1.1% higher), and RX 9070 GRE (0.7% lower). The Tesla M40 is within 2.5% of its rivals: the M40 24 GB (0.5% higher), RTX 3080 Ti (1.7% higher), RX 7650 GRE (1.9% lower), and Radeon Pro 5300 (2.5% higher).

Q: What explains the Tesla M40's high percentile despite losing badly to the Arc A580?

A: The M40's 83rd percentile reflects its position against the entire GPU population in the database, not just the Arc A580. Many GPUs score below 41,897, so the M40 still outperforms a majority of recorded hardware, even though it is far behind the Arc A580's 87th percentile.

Q: Which card has more memory?

A: The Tesla M40 has 12 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 384-bit bus, while the Arc A580 has 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus. However, the Arc A580's memory bandwidth is 512.0 GB/s, notably higher than the M40's 288.4 GB/s.

Architecture Differences

The Intel Arc A580 and NVIDIA Tesla M40 come from entirely different eras of GPU design. The Arc A580 uses the DG2-512 chip built on Intel's Xe-HPG architecture, part of the Alchemist generation under the Arc 5 family. It is fabricated on a 6 nm process at TSMC, packing 21,700 million transistors into a 406 mm² die. That works out to a transistor density of 53.4 million per square millimeter, a figure that reflects modern manufacturing efficiency.

The Tesla M40 uses the GM200 chip, built on NVIDIA's Maxwell 2.0 architecture from the Tesla Maxwell generation. It is manufactured on a 28 nm process, also at TSMC, with 8,000 million transistors spread across a much larger 601 mm² die. The transistor density is just 13.3 million per square millimeter. The die size difference is striking: the M40 is physically larger, yet contains roughly 63% fewer transistors, which shows how far process technology advanced between 2015 and 2023.

Clock speeds reinforce the architectural divide. The Arc A580 runs at 1700 MHz base and 2000 MHz boost, while the Tesla M40 operates at 948 MHz base and 1112 MHz boost. Even with the same 3072 shading units and 192 texture mapping units on both cards, the Arc A580's higher clocks and newer design yield a massive throughput advantage. The pixel rate tells the story: 192.0 GPixel/s for the Arc A580 versus 106.8 GPixel/s for the M40. Texture rate follows the same pattern at 384.0 GTexel/s versus 213.5 GTexel/s.

Compute throughput is where the gap becomes decisive. The Arc A580 delivers 12.29 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, while the Tesla M40 manages 6.832 TFLOPS. The Arc A580 also supports FP16 at 24.58 TFLOPS with a 2:1 ratio, a capability the Tesla M40 lacks entirely; the database lists no FP16 figure for the M40. This makes the Intel card substantially more flexible for mixed-precision workloads, though the M40's compute capabilities were aimed at a different era of scientific computing.

Feature support diverges sharply. The Arc A580 includes 24 ray tracing cores and supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), Vulkan 1.4, and OpenGL 4.6. The Tesla M40 has no ray tracing cores and tops out at DirectX 12 (12_1), though it does match Vulkan 1.4 and OpenGL 4.6. The Arc A580 also uses a PCIe 4.0 x16 interface, while the M40 is limited to PCIe 3.0 x16. Display output is another major difference: the Arc A580 provides 1x HDMI 2.1 and 3x DisplayPort 2.0, while the Tesla M40 has no display outputs at all, as it was designed as a compute accelerator.

The memory subsystems are equally divergent. The Arc A580 uses 8 GB of GDDR6 with a 256-bit bus, achieving 512.0 GB/s of bandwidth at 2000 MHz (16 Gbps effective). The Tesla M40 uses 12 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus, but its bandwidth is only 288.4 GB/s at 1502 MHz (6 Gbps effective). The Arc A580's smaller capacity is offset by significantly faster memory technology, giving it 223.6 GB/s more bandwidth.

Power and physical requirements also differ. The Arc A580 has a 175 W TDP with dual 8-pin power connectors and a suggested 450 W power supply. The Tesla M40 draws 250 W, uses a single 8-pin EPS connector, and requires a 600 W power supply. Both are dual-slot cards, but the M40 is specified at 267 mm (10.5 inches) in length, while the Arc A580's dimensions are not recorded in the database. The M40 requires more power for less performance, a direct consequence of its older 28 nm process.

The Verdict

The data points to a clear recommendation for most use cases: the Intel Arc A580 outperforms the NVIDIA Tesla M40 in every recorded benchmark, delivers more than double the OpenCL score, and does so at a lower 175 W TDP. The Arc A580's support for ray tracing, DirectX 12 Ultimate, and modern display outputs makes it the more versatile card for any workload that touches current graphics APIs. Its 512.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 12.29 TFLOPS FP32 compute give it a decisive edge in both raw throughput and memory-bound tasks.

The Tesla M40 retains one advantage from the recorded data: its 12 GB memory capacity exceeds the Arc A580's 8 GB. For workloads that require more than 8 GB of VRAM, the M40's larger frame buffer could be relevant. However, that capacity comes with substantially lower bandwidth and compute performance, so any benefit would be limited to specific memory-capacity-bound scenarios. The M40's 83rd percentile ranking shows it is not obsolete by database standards, but it is clearly a legacy part.

Buyers seeking a card for modern gaming, content creation, or general compute should choose the Arc A580 without hesitation. The 133.9% OpenCL lead and 78% Vulkan lead are decisive, and the newer architecture ensures compatibility with current APIs. The Tesla M40 is only appropriate for niche compute workloads that specifically need 12 GB of memory and do not benefit from the Arc A580's higher bandwidth or compute throughput. Its end-of-life production status and lack of display outputs further limit its appeal.

The Arc A580 wins the head-to-head with 2 wins to 0, and the performance data reflects a generational leap rather than a close contest. The verdict is straightforward: the Intel Arc A580 is the superior GPU in almost every measurable way, with the Tesla M40's only real argument being its larger memory pool.

Specification Differences

The following specifications differ between the two cards, based solely on the recorded data:

• Process node: Intel Arc A580 uses 6 nm TSMC; NVIDIA Tesla M40 uses 28 nm TSMC.
• Transistors: Arc A580 has 21,700 million; M40 has 8,000 million.
• Die size: Arc A580 is 406 mm²; M40 is 601 mm².
• Transistor density: Arc A580 is 53.4M per mm²; M40 is 13.3M per mm².
• Base clock: Arc A580 is 1700 MHz; M40 is 948 MHz.
• Boost clock: Arc A580 is 2000 MHz; M40 is 1112 MHz.
• Memory clock: Arc A580 is 2000 MHz (16 Gbps effective); M40 is 1502 MHz (6 Gbps effective).
• Memory size: Arc A580 has 8 GB GDDR6; M40 has 12 GB GDDR5.
• Memory bus width: Arc A580 is 256-bit; M40 is 384-bit.
• Memory bandwidth: Arc A580 is 512.0 GB/s; M40 is 288.4 GB/s.
• Ray tracing cores: Arc A580 has 24; M40 has none.
• Pixel rate: Arc A580 is 192.0 GPixel/s; M40 is 106.8 GPixel/s.
• Texture rate: Arc A580 is 384.0 GTexel/s; M40 is 213.5 GTexel/s.
• FP32 performance: Arc A580 is 12.29 TFLOPS; M40 is 6.832 TFLOPS.
• FP16 performance: Arc A580 is 24.58 TFLOPS (2:1); M40 has no recorded FP16 figure.
• TDP: Arc A580 is 175 W; M40 is 250 W.
• Power connectors: Arc A580 uses 2x 8-pin; M40 uses 8-pin EPS.
• Suggested PSU: Arc A580 is 450 W; M40 is 600 W.
• Bus interface: Arc A580 is PCIe 4.0 x16; M40 is PCIe 3.0 x16.
• Display outputs: Arc A580 has 1x HDMI 2.1 and 3x DisplayPort 2.0; M40 has no outputs.
• DirectX support: Arc A580 is 12 Ultimate (12_2); M40 is 12 (12_1).
• Production status: Arc A580 is active; M40 is end-of-life.
• Release date: Arc A580 released 2023-10-09; M40 released 2015-11-09.
• Length: M40 is 267 mm (10.5 inches); Arc A580 length is not recorded.
• Architecture: Arc A580 uses Xe-HPG (Alchemist); M40 uses Maxwell 2.0 (Tesla Maxwell).