NVIDIA CMP 50HX vs NVIDIA Quadro M6000 Comparison

Where Each One Wins

The two cards in this comparison occupy completely different corners of NVIDIA's professional lineup, and the benchmark records reflect that split clearly. The NVIDIA CMP 50HX, built for the mining GPU generation, dominates the compute-oriented OpenCL workload with a 41.4% advantage over the Quadro M6000. In that test, the CMP 50HX scores 56,135 points against the Quadro's 39,688, a margin that speaks to the architectural gulf between a 2021 Turing part and a 2015 Maxwell part.

The Vulkan workload tells a much tighter story. The CMP 50HX still wins, but only by 1.1%, scoring 47,445 against the Quadro M6000's 46,913. That near-parity is notable: the older card, with its Maxwell 2.0 architecture and a decade-old design, manages to stay within striking distance in a modern graphics API. The data suggests the Quadro's strengths lie in rasterization throughput and memory bandwidth efficiency relative to its era, while the CMP 50HX pulls ahead decisively when raw compute density matters.

The wins tally is 2 for the CMP 50HX and 0 for the Quadro M6000, but that binary count hides the nuance. The OpenCL result is a landslide, the Vulkan result is effectively a tie in real-world terms. Buyers looking at these two in the database should understand that the CMP 50HX is a compute-first part with graphics capability bolted on, while the Quadro M6000 is a display-oriented workstation card that happens to compute adequately.

Architecture Differences

The architectural split between these two is vast, and the datasheet numbers make that explicit. The CMP 50HX uses the TU102 chip on TSMC's 12 nm process, packing 18,600 million transistors into a 754 mm² die. The Quadro M6000 uses the GM200 chip on TSMC's 28 nm process, with 8,000 million transistors on a 601 mm² die. That is a 10,600 million transistor difference and a 153 mm² die size gap, with the newer process enabling a transistor density of 24.7M per mm² versus 13.3M per mm² for the older part.

The memory subsystems diverge sharply as well. The CMP 50HX carries 10 GB of GDDR6 on a 320-bit bus, delivering 560.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The Quadro M6000 carries 12 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus, delivering 317.4 GB/s. The CMP 50HX has the higher bandwidth by a wide margin, but the Quadro has more capacity and a wider bus, which matters for certain workstation workloads that need large working sets rather than raw speed.

Compute resources differ in kind, not just quantity. The CMP 50HX has 3,584 shading units, 192 TMUs, 80 ROPs, 56 RT cores, and 448 tensor cores. The Quadro M6000 has 3,072 shading units, 192 TMUs, and 96 ROPs, with no RT cores and no tensor cores at all. The CMP 50HX's FP32 throughput is 11.07 TFLOPS against the Quadro's 6.844 TFLOPS, and the Turing part also exposes FP16 at 22.15 TFLOPS with a 2:1 ratio, a capability the Maxwell card lacks entirely. The CMP 50HX supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the Quadro tops out at DirectX 12 (12_1). Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4.

Physical and interface details diverge too. The CMP 50HX uses a PCIe 1.0 x4 bus interface, which is a striking bottleneck for a card with this much compute power, and it has no display outputs at all. The Quadro M6000 uses PCIe 3.0 x16 and offers 1x DVI and 4x DisplayPort 1.2 outputs. Both are dual-slot, both draw 250 W, both fit in the same 267 mm length, and both suggest a 600 W power supply. The CMP 50HX requires 2x 8-pin power connectors while the Quadro needs only 1x 8-pin.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The OpenCL result is the headline. The CMP 50HX scores 56,135 against the Quadro M6000's 39,688, a delta of 41.4% in favor of the Turing card. That margin is consistent with the FP32 throughput gap: 11.07 TFLOPS versus 6.844 TFLOPS is a 61.7% raw compute advantage, and the benchmark result shows a significant but not perfectly proportional fraction of that theoretical lead. The CMP 50HX also benefits from GDDR6 memory at 560.0 GB/s versus GDDR5 at 317.4 GB/s, which helps in memory-bound OpenCL kernels.

The Vulkan result is almost the opposite story. The CMP 50HX wins with 47,445 against 46,913, a 1.1% margin that falls within typical run-to-run variance. This is surprising given the architectural gap, but the data is clear: in a graphics-heavy API, the Quadro M6000's 96 ROPs and 384-bit memory bus hold their own against the CMP 50HX's 80 ROPs and 320-bit bus, despite the latter's higher clocks and newer architecture. The Quadro's 106.9 GPixel/s pixel rate versus the CMP 50HX's 123.6 GPixel/s is a 15.6% gap, yet the real-world Vulkan scores barely move. That suggests the Quadro's driver optimization for OpenGL and Vulkan workloads, inherited from its workstation lineage, partially compensates for its hardware deficit.

Context from the nearest rivals helps position both cards. The CMP 50HX has an average benchmark score of 51,790, sitting just 1.6% above the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT and 3.6% above the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64. The Quadro M6000 averages 43,301, nearly identical to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 Mobile (0.1% delta) and the Quadro M6000 24 GB variant (0.1% delta). The CMP 50HX lands at the 86th percentile of all GPUs, while the Quadro M6000 sits at the 84th percentile. Despite the massive OpenCL win, the overall percentile gap is only 2 points.

FAQ

Q: Which card wins OpenCL benchmarking?

A: The NVIDIA CMP 50HX wins decisively, scoring 56,135 versus the Quadro M6000's 39,688, a 41.4% advantage.

Q: Is the Vulkan performance gap as large as the OpenCL gap?

A: No. The CMP 50HX leads by just 1.1% in Vulkan, scoring 47,445 against 46,913, indicating near-parity in graphics-heavy workloads.

Q: How do these cards compare in memory bandwidth and capacity?

A: The CMP 50HX has 10 GB of GDDR6 on a 320-bit bus with 560.0 GB/s bandwidth. The Quadro M6000 has 12 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus with 317.4 GB/s bandwidth. The CMP 50HX has more bandwidth, the Quadro has more capacity.

Q: What are the transistor and die size differences?

A: The CMP 50HX uses 18,600 million transistors on a 754 mm² die at 12 nm. The Quadro M6000 uses 8,000 million transistors on a 601 mm² die at 28 nm, giving densities of 24.7M per mm² and 13.3M per mm² respectively.

Q: Does the Quadro M6000 support ray tracing or tensor cores?

A: No. The Quadro M6000 has no RT cores and no tensor cores. The CMP 50HX has 56 RT cores and 448 tensor cores.

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

A: The CMP 50HX averages 51,790 and sits at the 86th percentile. The Quadro M6000 averages 43,301 and sits at the 84th percentile.

The Verdict

The data points to a clear but conditional recommendation. For compute-heavy workloads, particularly OpenCL-based tasks, the CMP 50HX is the obvious choice. Its 41.4% OpenCL lead, 11.07 TFLOPS FP32 throughput, and 560.0 GB/s memory bandwidth make it a substantially stronger compute engine. Anyone running rendering, simulation, or data-parallel workloads that leverage OpenCL should pick the CMP 50HX without hesitation.

For graphics-oriented tasks, the choice is less obvious. The Vulkan scores are effectively tied, and the Quadro M6000 offers display outputs (1x DVI, 4x DisplayPort 1.2) that the CMP 50HX lacks entirely. The Quadro also provides 12 GB of memory versus 10 GB, which could matter for large texture sets or framebuffers. If the workload is primarily graphics and requires monitor output, the Quadro M6000 is the only functional option despite its older architecture.

The CMP 50HX's PCIe 1.0 x4 interface is a severe limitation for data transfers, potentially bottlenecking workloads that move large datasets between CPU and GPU. The Quadro M6000's PCIe 3.0 x16 interface is far more capable in this regard. For professional workstations where data transfer matters, the Quadro has a hidden advantage that benchmarks alone do not capture.

The verdict is straightforward: the CMP 50HX wins on raw compute and modern feature support, the Quadro M6000 wins on practicality for display-driven workstation use. Neither is a universal recommendation, and the 2 percent percentile gap between them (86th versus 84th) reflects how close the overall performance envelope is despite the architectural divide.

Specification Differences

| Specification | NVIDIA CMP 50HX | NVIDIA Quadro M6000 |

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

| Architecture | Turing | Maxwell 2.0 |

| Process node | 12 nm | 28 nm |

| Transistors | 18,600 million | 8,000 million |

| Die size | 754 mm² | 601 mm² |

| Transistor density | 24.7M / mm² | 13.3M / mm² |

| Base clock | 1350 MHz | 988 MHz |

| Boost clock | 1545 MHz | 1114 MHz |

| Memory clock | 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective) | 1653 MHz (6.6 Gbps effective) |

| Memory size | 10 GB | 12 GB |

| Memory type | GDDR6 | GDDR5 |

| Memory bus | 320 bit | 384 bit |

| Memory bandwidth | 560.0 GB/s | 317.4 GB/s |

| Shading units | 3584 | 3072 |

| TMUs | 192 | 192 |

| ROPs | 80 | 96 |

| RT cores | 56 | None |

| Tensor cores | 448 | None |

| Pixel rate | 123.6 GPixel/s | 106.9 GPixel/s |

| Texture rate | 296.6 GTexel/s | 213.9 GTexel/s |

| FP32 performance | 11.07 TFLOPS | 6.844 TFLOPS |

| FP16 performance | 22.15 TFLOPS (2:1) | None |

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

| Bus interface | PCIe 1.0 x4 | PCIe 3.0 x16 |

| Display outputs | No outputs | 1x DVI, 4x DisplayPort 1.2 |

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

| Card width | 35 mm | Not specified |

| Card height | 116 mm | 111 mm |

| Release date | 2021-06-23 | 2015-03-20 |