NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti vs NVIDIA Quadro P5000 Comparison

The GeForce GTX 650 Ti and Quadro P5000 represent two vastly different eras of NVIDIA’s GPU design, yet their average benchmark scores land within 0.2% of each other. The GTX 650 Ti, a 2012 Kepler part, averages 8,053 points, while the 2016 Pascal-based Quadro P5000 averages 8,039 points. This near-parity in overall score, however, masks a dramatic divergence in workload-specific performance, as the two cards win one head-to-head benchmark each with very different margins.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The most striking result in the data is the Geekbench OpenCL test, where the Quadro P5000 delivers a score of 52,509 against the GTX 650 Ti’s 7,877. That is a delta of -85% from the perspective of the older card, meaning the Quadro is roughly 6.7 times faster in this compute-oriented workload. The OpenCL benchmark stresses raw shader throughput and memory bandwidth, two areas where the P5000’s architectural advantages are overwhelming. With 2,560 shading units versus 768, and a memory bandwidth of 288.5 GB/s against 86.40 GB/s, the Quadro simply has more resources to throw at parallel compute tasks. This single result accounts for nearly all of the performance gap between the two cards’ average scores.

Conversely, the Geekbench Vulkan test tells a completely different story. Here, the GTX 650 Ti wins with a score of 8,229, beating the Quadro P5000’s 6,342 by 29.8%. This is a surprising outcome, as Vulkan is a modern low-level API that typically favors newer architectures. The data suggests the Kepler-based GTX 650 Ti, despite its age and lower raw specs, handles this particular Vulkan workload more efficiently. The delta of 29.8% is substantial — it is not a marginal victory but a clear, decisive win for the older card. This result highlights that synthetic average scores can obscure real, workload-specific reversals.

When looking at the nearest rivals for context, the GTX 650 Ti’s average of 8,053 places it 0.2% above the Quadro P5000 (8,039) and 0.2% above the GTX 880M (8,040), while sitting 0.2% below the GTX 650 Ti Boost (8,067). The Quadro P5000, for its part, is 0.2% below the GTX 650 Ti and 0.3% below the GTX 650 Ti Boost, with a 0.5% gap to the GRID K2 (8,080). These tiny deltas underscore that in aggregate, the two cards are effectively peers, even though their component-level scores could not be more different. The wins are split exactly one apiece, but the magnitude of the Quadro’s OpenCL victory dwarfs the GTX 650 Ti’s Vulkan win in absolute terms.

FAQ

Q: Which card has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti has an average benchmark score of 8,053, which is 0.2% higher than the NVIDIA Quadro P5000’s 8,039.

Q: How large is the Quadro P5000’s lead in Geekbench OpenCL?

A: The Quadro P5000 scores 52,509 in Geekbench OpenCL, while the GTX 650 Ti scores 7,877. The delta is -85%, meaning the Quadro is approximately 6.7 times faster in this test.

Q: Does the GTX 650 Ti win any benchmark against the Quadro P5000?

A: Yes, the GTX 650 Ti wins the Geekbench Vulkan test with a score of 8,229, beating the Quadro P5000’s 6,342 by 29.8%.

Q: What is the memory configuration difference between the two cards?

A: The GTX 650 Ti has 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus with 86.40 GB/s bandwidth, while the Quadro P5000 has 16 GB of GDDR5X memory on a 256-bit bus with 288.5 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: How do the two cards compare in terms of shading units?

A: The GTX 650 Ti has 768 shading units, whereas the Quadro P5000 has 2,560 shading units — more than three times as many.

Q: What are the production statuses of these GPUs?

A: Both the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti and the NVIDIA Quadro P5000 are listed as end-of-life products.

Architecture Differences

The GTX 650 Ti is built on the GK106S chip using NVIDIA’s Kepler architecture, manufactured on a 28 nm process at TSMC. The chip contains 2,540 million transistors on a 221 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 11.5M per mm². Kepler was designed for the GeForce 600 generation, and the GTX 650 Ti supports DirectX 12 (11_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.175.

The Quadro P5000, by contrast, uses the GP104 chip with the Pascal architecture, fabricated on a 16 nm process, also at TSMC. This newer node allows for 7,200 million transistors on a 314 mm² die, producing a transistor density of 22.9M per mm² — nearly double that of the Kepler chip. The Pascal architecture belongs to the Quadro Pascal (Px000) generation and supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and a newer Vulkan 1.4.

The architectural leap from Kepler to Pascal is evident in the feature set. Pascal introduces a 1:64 FP16 ratio, delivering 138.6 GFLOPS of half-precision performance, while Kepler has no listed FP16 capability. The Pascal card also carries a base clock of 1607 MHz and a boost clock of 1733 MHz, whereas the GTX 650 Ti has no listed base or boost clocks — only a memory clock of 1350 MHz (5.4 Gbps effective). Both cards lack ray tracing and tensor cores, but the Pascal part’s newer design enables higher pixel and texture rates: the Quadro achieves 110.9 GPixel/s and 277.3 GTexel/s, while the GTX 650 Ti manages 14.85 GPixel/s and 59.39 GTexel/s.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ across nearly every major specification field. The Quadro P5000 has 2,560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 64 raster operation pipelines, compared to the GTX 650 Ti’s 768 shading units, 64 TMUs, and 16 ROPs. Memory is another clear separator: the Quadro packs 16 GB of GDDR5X on a 256-bit bus with 288.5 GB/s bandwidth, while the GTX 650 Ti has only 1024 MB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus with 86.40 GB/s.

Clock speeds show the Pascal card’s advantage, with a 1607 MHz base and 1733 MHz boost, versus the GTX 650 Ti’s unspecified base and boost clocks. The memory clock also differs: 1127 MHz (9 Gbps effective) for the Quadro versus 1350 MHz (5.4 Gbps effective) for the GTX 650 Ti. Floating-point performance follows suit, with the Quadro delivering 8.873 TFLOPS FP32 and 138.6 GFLOPS FP16, while the GTX 650 Ti provides 1,425.4 GFLOPS FP32 and no listed FP16.

Power and physical specifications diverge as well. The GTX 650 Ti has a 110 W TDP, requires a 300 W suggested PSU, uses a single 6-pin power connector, and is a single-slot card measuring 145 mm (5.7 inches) in length. The Quadro P5000 has a 180 W TDP, a 450 W suggested PSU, a single 8-pin connector, and is a dual-slot card measuring 267 mm (10.5 inches) long and 111 mm (4.4 inches) high. Display outputs also differ: the GTX 650 Ti offers 2x DVI and 1x mini-HDMI 1.4a, while the Quadro P5000 provides 1x DVI and 4x DisplayPort 1.4a. The GTX 650 Ti has a launch MSRP of 149 USD, while the Quadro P5000 has a launch MSRP of 2,499 USD.

Where Each One Wins

The Quadro P5000 is the clear winner in compute-heavy and bandwidth-intensive tasks. Its Geekbench OpenCL score of 52,509 is a decisive 85% ahead of the GTX 650 Ti, and this advantage stems from its superior shader count (2,560 vs 768), higher memory bandwidth (288.5 GB/s vs 86.40 GB/s), and larger frame buffer (16 GB vs 1024 MB). For workloads that rely on raw FP32 throughput, the Quadro’s 8.873 TFLOPS dwarfs the GTX 650 Ti’s 1,425.4 GFLOPS. This makes the P5000 the appropriate choice for GPU compute, rendering, or any task that scales with parallel processing power and memory capacity.

The GTX 650 Ti wins in the Geekbench Vulkan test, posting 8,229 points against the Quadro’s 6,342, a 29.8% margin. This result indicates that the older Kepler card handles this specific low-level API workload more efficiently, despite its smaller die and older architecture. The GTX 650 Ti’s win here is notable because Vulkan is a modern API, and the card’s superior performance suggests that driver optimization or architectural quirks favor it in this particular scenario. For users running Vulkan-based applications that resemble this benchmark, the GTX 650 Ti may deliver better frame pacing or lower latency, even if its overall compute capabilities are far behind.

In terms of overall standing, the GTX 650 Ti holds a 42nd percentile ranking among all GPUs, while the Quadro P5000 sits at the 41st percentile. The GTX 650 Ti’s average score of 8,053 places it 0.2% above the Quadro, which averages 8,039. This means that for a user with a mixed workload, the two cards would perform nearly identically on average, but the extremes are stark: the Quadro excels at OpenCL-style compute, while the GTX 650 Ti unexpectedly takes the Vulkan crown. The data does not support a universal winner; instead, it shows two cards with complementary strengths, each dominating in a different benchmark category.