NVIDIA GeForce 945M vs NVIDIA Tesla C2070 Comparison

The database tells an unusual story here: a data-center compute card from 2011 and a thin-and-light laptop GPU from 2015 end up surprisingly close on paper, yet the recorded benchmark still favors the older, bigger chip by a clear margin. The NVIDIA Tesla C2070 beats the GeForce 945M by 20% in Geekbench OpenCL, 9716 to 8099, and that single result is the whole competitive picture between them. What makes the comparison interesting is how differently each card gets there: brute-force Fermi silicon versus an efficient Maxwell mobile part that never quite catches up.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

Only one head-to-head test exists in the database for this pairing, but it is decisive. The Tesla C2070 scores 9716 in Geekbench OpenCL against 8099 for the GeForce 945M, a 20% victory for the Fermi card. The 945M wins nothing.

Context from each card's rival cluster sharpens the picture. The C2070's 9716 sits within a tight professional band: it trails the Tesla M10 (9724) by 0.1%, edges the Quadro P4000 (9665) by 0.5%, leads the Radeon Pro WX 2100 (9653) by 0.7%, and sits 0.7% behind the GeForce GTX 1070 (9780). That is competitive company, and it places the C2070 in the 47th percentile of all GPUs in the database.

The 945M's 8099 is similarly embedded in its own neighborhood, but a lower one: it beats the GRID K2 (8080) by 0.2%, trails the Radeon R9 M360 (8129) and GeForce GTX 950M (8135) by 0.4% each, and leads the GTX 650 Ti Boost (8067) by 0.4%. The 945M lands in the 42nd percentile. So the gap between the two cards is modest in percentile terms, five points, but in direct measurement it is a one-sided 20% rout for the Tesla.

Where Each One Wins

The C2070 wins the only measured contest, and its theoretical profile explains why. It carries 6 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus delivering 143.4 GB/s of bandwidth, roughly five times the 28.80 GB/s the 945M musters from 2 GB of DDR3 on a 128-bit bus. Any workload that streams large datasets, and OpenCL compute is exactly that, heavily favors the Tesla. Its 48 ROPs triple the 945M's 16, and its 1,027.7 GFLOPS of FP32 comes from a much wider, bandwidth-fed design.

The 945M's wins are structural rather than scoreboard-based. Its FP32 throughput of 1,305.6 GFLOPS is actually higher than the C2070's, and its texture rate of 40.80 GTexel/s beats the Tesla's 32.14 GTexel/s. Pixel rates are nearly identical, 16.32 versus 16.07 GPixel/s, a statistical dead heat. In other words, on paper the mobile Maxwell part can shade and texture faster; it simply cannot feed itself, because DDR3 bandwidth becomes the bottleneck, and the recorded OpenCL result reflects that. The 945M also wins on every practicality axis: 75 W TDP versus 238 W, no auxiliary power connectors versus one 6-pin plus one 8-pin, and an MXM module form factor versus a dual-slot 248 mm full-length card requiring a suggested 550 W PSU.

Architecture Differences

These are two different philosophies of NVIDIA silicon separated by one architecture generation. The C2070 is Fermi: the GF100 chip on TSMC's 40 nm process, with 3,100 million transistors packed into a 529 mm² die, a density of 5.9M transistors per mm². It offers 448 shading units, 56 TMUs, and 48 ROPs. Memory runs at 747 MHz, 3 Gbps effective, over that wide 384-bit interface.

The 945M is Maxwell: the GM107 chip on TSMC's 28 nm process, with 1,870 million transistors in a 148 mm² die, more than twice the density at 12.6M per mm². It actually has more shading units, 640 versus 448, but fewer TMUs (40) and far fewer ROPs (16). Clocks are defined where the Tesla's are not recorded: a 928 MHz base and 1020 MHz boost, with memory at 900 MHz, 1800 Mbps effective, on DDR3.

Feature support diverges in the 945M's favor at the API level: it reports Vulkan 1.4 alongside DirectX 12 (11_0) and OpenGL 4.6, while the C2070 lists only DirectX 12 (11_0) and OpenGL 4.6 with no Vulkan entry. Bus interfaces differ fundamentally, PCIe 2.0 x16 for the Tesla versus MXM-B (3.0) for the mobile part. Display output is a single DVI on the C2070 and portable-device-dependent on the 945M. Both are end-of-life. Lineage differs too: the C2070 descends from the Tesla line and was succeeded by Tesla Kepler, while the 945M follows the GeForce 800M and precedes the GeForce 10 Mobile generation. Release dates were 2011 for the Tesla and 2015 for the GeForce.

The Verdict

For compute, the data is unambiguous: the Tesla C2070 is the pick. It wins the only benchmark by 20%, and its 143.4 GB/s of GDDR5 bandwidth and 6 GB capacity make it the only one of the two suited to memory-hungry OpenCL workloads. Against its own peer group it trades blows within a percentage point of the Tesla M10, Quadro P4000, Radeon Pro WX 2100, and GTX 1070.

For anything mobile or power-constrained, the 945M is the only option of the two, full stop. It draws 75 W, needs no power connectors, and lives on an MXM module; the C2070 demands a dual-slot, 248 mm chassis with a 550 W PSU and both 6-pin and 8-pin connectors. The 945M also carries higher theoretical FP32 (1,305.6 versus 1,027.7 GFLOPS) and a higher texture rate, which its bandwidth-starved memory prevents from translating into wins. The verdict, strictly from the measurements: the C2070 performs better, the 945M exists in a class the Tesla cannot enter at all.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster in benchmarks?

A: The Tesla C2070. It scores 9716 in Geekbench OpenCL versus 8099 for the GeForce 945M, a 20% lead, and it is the only winner in the recorded head-to-head data.

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

A: The C2070 sits within about a percentage point of the Tesla M10 (-0.1%), Quadro P4000 (+0.5%), Radeon Pro WX 2100 (+0.7%), and GTX 1070 (-0.7%). The 945M is similarly bunched with the GRID K2 (+0.2%), Radeon R9 M360 (-0.4%), GTX 650 Ti Boost (+0.4%), and GTX 950M (-0.4%).

Q: The 945M has higher FP32 GFLOPS. Why does it lose the benchmark?

A: The 945M's 1,305.6 GFLOPS beats the C2070's 1,027.7 GFLOPS on paper, but it is bottlenecked by 28.80 GB/s of DDR3 bandwidth against the Tesla's 143.4 GB/s of GDDR5, so the recorded OpenCL result still goes to the C2070 by 20%.

Q: What are the memory differences?

A: The C2070 has 6 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus at 143.4 GB/s. The 945M has 2 GB of DDR3 on a 128-bit bus at 28.80 GB/s.

Q: How much power does each card need?

A: The C2070 is rated at 238 W TDP, needs one 6-pin and one 8-pin connector, and carries a suggested 550 W PSU. The 945M is a 75 W MXM module with no power connectors.

Q: Are both cards still in production?

A: No. Both the Tesla C2070 (released in 2011) and the GeForce 945M (released in 2015) are listed as end-of-life.

Specification Differences

| Field | NVIDIA Tesla C2070 | NVIDIA GeForce 945M |

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

| Chip | GF100 | GM107 |

| Architecture | Fermi | Maxwell |

| Generation | Tesla Fermi (x20xx) | GeForce 900M |

| Process node | 40 nm | 28 nm |

| Transistors | 3,100 million | 1,870 million |

| Die size | 529 mm² | 148 mm² |

| Transistor density | 5.9M / mm² | 12.6M / mm² |

| Base clock | Not recorded | 928 MHz |

| Boost clock | Not recorded | 1020 MHz |

| Memory size | 6 GB | 2 GB |

| Memory type | GDDR5 | DDR3 |

| Bus width | 384 bit | 128 bit |

| Bandwidth | 143.4 GB/s | 28.80 GB/s |

| Memory speed | 747 MHz (3 Gbps effective) | 900 MHz (1800 Mbps effective) |

| Shading units | 448 | 640 |

| TMUs | 56 | 40 |

| ROPs | 48 | 16 |

| Texture rate | 32.14 GTexel/s | 40.80 GTexel/s |

| FP32 | 1,027.7 GFLOPS | 1,305.6 GFLOPS |

| TDP | 238 W | 75 W |

| Slot width | Dual-slot | MXM Module |

| Power connectors | 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin | None |

| Suggested PSU | 550 W | Not listed |

| Bus interface | PCIe 2.0 x16 | MXM-B (3.0) |

| Display outputs | 1x DVI | Portable Device Dependent |

| Vulkan | Not listed | 1.4 |

| Length | 248 mm | Not listed |

| Release date | 2011 | 2015 |

| Predecessor | Tesla | GeForce 800M |

| Successor | Tesla Kepler | GeForce 10 Mobile |

| Geekbench OpenCL | 9716 | 8099 |

| Percentile vs all GPUs | 47th | 42nd |

Pixel rate is the one spec where they are effectively tied: 16.07 GPixel/s for the C2070 against 16.32 GPixel/s for the 945M.