Intel Arc B580 vs NVIDIA Tesla K20m Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded data shows a decisive advantage for the Intel Arc B580 across every shared benchmark test. In Geekbench OpenCL, the Arc B580 scores 92,821 against the Tesla K20m's 16,241, a delta of 471.5% in favor of the Intel card. This is not a marginal gap; it represents a generational chasm in raw compute performance, with the Arc B580 delivering nearly six times the OpenCL throughput of the older Tesla part.

The Vulkan results tell a similar story, though slightly less extreme. The Arc B580 posts 109,672 in Geekbench Vulkan, while the Tesla K20m manages only 21,936. That works out to a 400% advantage for the Intel card, or five times the score. Vulkan is a modern, low-overhead API that the Kepler architecture was never designed to handle efficiently, and the data reflects that limitation clearly.

What makes these numbers more striking is the context of the overall average scores. The Arc B580 carries an average benchmark score of 23,021, placing it in the 68th percentile of all GPUs in the database. The Tesla K20m, by contrast, averages 19,089 and sits in the 64th percentile. While both cards sit in the upper half of the database, the distance between them in the head-to-head tests is far larger than their percentile rankings suggest. The nearest rival to the Arc B580 is the AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP at 23,061, a negligible 0.2% behind, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 sits at 23,172, which is 0.7% ahead. The Tesla K20m's closest competitor is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Mobile at 19,049, just 0.2% behind, with the AMD Radeon RX 6600 at 19,036 trailing by 0.3%.

In short, every shared benchmark in the database produces a win for the Intel Arc B580, with no recorded test where the Tesla K20m comes out ahead.

FAQ

Q: How much faster is the Intel Arc B580 than the Tesla K20m in OpenCL?

A: The Arc B580 scores 92,821 in Geekbench OpenCL versus 16,241 for the Tesla K20m, which is 471.5% higher.

Q: Does the Tesla K20m win any benchmark against the Arc B580?

A: No. Across the two shared benchmarks in the database, Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Vulkan, the Arc B580 wins both. The win count is 2 for Intel and 0 for NVIDIA Tesla.

Q: How do these cards compare to their nearest rivals?

A: The Arc B580's average score of 23,021 puts it within 0.7% of the RTX 3080 and 1% behind the NVIDIA P106-100. The Tesla K20m's average of 19,089 is 0.4% behind the GeForce GTX 780 and 0.3% ahead of the Quadro K6000.

Q: Which card has better Vulkan performance?

A: The Arc B580 scores 109,672 in Geekbench Vulkan, compared to 21,936 for the Tesla K20m, a 400% advantage for Intel.

Q: What is the production status of each card?

A: The Intel Arc B580 is listed as Active, while the NVIDIA Tesla K20m is End-of-life. The Tesla K20m's predecessor is Tesla Fermi and its successor is Tesla Maxwell, while the Arc B580's predecessor is Alchemist.

Q: Do these cards support the same graphics APIs?

A: No. The Arc B580 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The Tesla K20m supports DirectX 12 (11_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.175. Both share OpenGL 4.6, but the Intel card supports newer versions of DirectX and Vulkan.

Architecture Differences

The Intel Arc B580 is built on the BMG-G21 chip using the Xe2-HPG architecture, part of the Battlemage (Arc 5) generation. It is fabricated on a 5 nm process at TSMC, with 19,600 million transistors packed into a 272 mm² die. That yields a transistor density of 72.1 million per square millimeter. The Tesla K20m, in contrast, uses the GK110 chip with the Kepler architecture from the Tesla Kepler (Kxx) generation. It is built on a 28 nm process, also at TSMC, with 7,080 million transistors on a 561 mm² die. Its transistor density is just 12.6 million per square millimeter.

These architectural differences extend to the compute pipelines. The Arc B580 has 2,560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 80 render output units. It also includes 20 dedicated ray tracing cores, a feature entirely absent from the Tesla K20m, which has no ray tracing hardware at all. The Tesla K20m fields 2,496 shading units, 208 TMUs, and only 40 ROPs. Despite having more texture units, the older card's lower clock speeds and older architecture result in far lower throughput rates.

The pixel and texture rates illustrate this clearly. The Arc B580 achieves 213.6 GPixel/s and 427.2 GTexel/s, while the Tesla K20m manages only 36.71 GPixel/s and 146.8 GTexel/s. Floating point performance tells a similar story: the Arc B580 delivers 13.67 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, nearly four times the Tesla K20m's 3.524 TFLOPS. The Intel card also supports FP16 at 27.34 TFLOPS with a 2:1 ratio, while the Tesla K20m has no recorded FP16 capability.

The API support reflects the age gap between these designs. The Arc B580 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The Tesla K20m is limited to DirectX 12 (11_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.175. Both cards share OpenGL 4.6, but the Intel architecture is clearly designed for modern graphics workloads, while the Tesla is a compute-oriented accelerator from an earlier era.

Specification Differences

The memory subsystems are fundamentally different. The Arc B580 comes with 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, delivering 456.0 GB/s of bandwidth at 2375 MHz (19 Gbps effective). The Tesla K20m has 5 GB of GDDR5 on a 320-bit bus, with 208.0 GB/s of bandwidth at 1300 MHz (5.2 Gbps effective). The Intel card has more capacity and more than double the bandwidth, despite the narrower bus.

Clock speeds also differ sharply. The Arc B580 runs at a base and boost clock of 2670 MHz. The Tesla K20m has no recorded base or boost clock in the database. The power profiles are closer than the performance gap might suggest: the Arc B580 has a TDP of 190 W with a suggested 450 W PSU and a single 8-pin power connector, while the Tesla K20m draws 225 W with a suggested 550 W PSU and requires both a 6-pin and an 8-pin connector.

The bus interfaces are different generations. The Arc B580 uses PCIe 4.0 x8, while the Tesla K20m uses PCIe 2.0 x16. Display output is another major differentiator: the Arc B580 has 1x HDMI 2.1a and 3x DisplayPort 2.1 outputs, while the Tesla K20m has no display outputs at all, confirming its role as a compute-only accelerator.

Physical dimensions are similar in length, with the Arc B580 at 272 mm (10.7 inches) and the Tesla K20m at 267 mm (10.5 inches), both dual-slot cards. The Arc B580 is 115 mm tall and 45 mm wide, while the Tesla K20m has no recorded height or width. The Arc B580 was released in December 2024 with a launch MSRP of 249 USD, while the Tesla K20m launched in January 2013 with a launch MSRP of 3,199 USD.

The Verdict

The data points to a clear conclusion: the Intel Arc B580 is the superior GPU in every measurable way. It wins both shared benchmarks, has a higher average benchmark score (23,021 versus 19,089), a higher percentile ranking (68th versus 64th), and is still an active production product. The Tesla K20m is end-of-life, lacks modern API support, has no display outputs, and trails by 471.5% in OpenCL and 400% in Vulkan.

For anyone building a system today, the Arc B580 is the only sensible choice between these two. It offers modern features like ray tracing cores, a 5 nm process, 12 GB of GDDR6 memory, and full display output support. The Tesla K20m is a compute accelerator from 2013 with no display outputs, no ray tracing, and a fraction of the performance. The only scenario where the Tesla K20m might appear in a build is if legacy compute workloads specifically require Kepler architecture, but the benchmark data offers no evidence that it can compete on performance.

The percentile rankings put both cards in the upper half of the database, but that is where the comparison ends. The Arc B580 sits in the 68th percentile, trading blows with the RTX 3080 and RX 580 2048SP within a 1% band. The Tesla K20m sits in the 64th percentile, alongside the RTX 4050 Mobile and RX 6600. The distance between these two cards in the head-to-head tests is far greater than their average score percentiles suggest, and the Intel card wins every recorded contest.

Where Each One Wins

The Intel Arc B580 wins in every recorded benchmark category. In Geekbench OpenCL, it dominates with a 471.5% lead. In Geekbench Vulkan, it leads by 400%. These are the only two benchmarks shared by both cards, so the win distribution is 2 for Intel, 0 for NVIDIA Tesla.

Beyond the shared benchmarks, the Arc B580's broader benchmark portfolio shows strength across DirectX tests. It records a Passmark G3D score of 15,748, a GPU compute score of 7,729, and a G2D score of 709. In DirectX-specific tests, it posts 183 in DirectX 9, 128 in DirectX 11, and 76 each in DirectX 10 and DirectX 12. It also scores 3,068 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12. The Tesla K20m has no recorded results for any of these tests, so no comparison is possible.

The Tesla K20m's only potential advantage is in its compute-oriented heritage. It is a Tesla-branded accelerator with no display outputs, designed for server environments where graphics output is unnecessary. It also has a shorter physical footprint at 267 mm versus 272 mm for the Arc B580, a difference of 5 mm that is unlikely to matter in most systems. In terms of power, the Tesla K20m draws 225 W versus 190 W for the Arc B580, so the Intel card is more efficient per watt. The Tesla K20m also supports fewer modern APIs, with Vulkan 1.2.175 instead of 1.4, and DirectX 12 (11_0) instead of 12 Ultimate (12_2).

For use cases, the Arc B580 is the clear pick for gaming, modern graphics workloads, and any task requiring display output or ray tracing. The Tesla K20m has no recorded scenario in the data where it outperforms the Intel card. Its role is limited to legacy compute tasks that specifically require Kepler architecture, and even then, the performance data suggests it would be a poor choice compared to the Arc B580. The verdict from the database is unambiguous: the Intel Arc B580 wins every measurable category, and the Tesla K20m's only distinguishing feature is that it is older, less capable, and end-of-life.