NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN vs NVIDIA Tesla K10 Comparison

FAQ

Q: What is the single biggest benchmark difference between the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN and the NVIDIA Tesla K10?

A: In the only shared benchmark test (Geekbench OpenCL), the GTX TITAN scores 24,873 points, while the Tesla K10 scores 14,029 points. This represents a 77.3% advantage for the GTX TITAN, making it the definitive performance gap between the two cards.

Q: How do the two cards compare in terms of their overall performance percentile?

A: The GTX TITAN sits at the 56th percentile of all GPUs, while the Tesla K10 is at the 55th percentile. Despite the massive 77.3% delta in their head-to-head OpenCL test, their overall percentile rankings are nearly identical, indicating that the K10's average score is pulled from a different benchmark set.

Q: What is the difference in average benchmark scores between the two cards?

A: The GTX TITAN has an average benchmark score of 14,373, while the Tesla K10 has an average score of 14,029. This is a 2.4% difference in favor of the GTX TITAN, a much narrower margin than the 77.3% gap seen in the direct OpenCL comparison.

Q: Which card has more memory and a wider memory bus?

A: The GTX TITAN features 6 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 384-bit bus, delivering 288.4 GB/s of bandwidth. The Tesla K10 offers 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus, resulting in 160.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GTX TITAN has both a larger memory pool and substantially higher bandwidth.

Q: Are these cards from the same architecture and manufacturing process?

A: Yes, both are built on NVIDIA's Kepler architecture using a 28 nm process at TSMC. However, they use different chips: the GTX TITAN uses the larger GK110 chip (7,080 million transistors, 561 mm²), while the Tesla K10 uses the smaller GK104 chip (3,540 million transistors, 294 mm²).

Q: What is the difference in their launch MSRP?

A: The GTX TITAN had a launch MSRP of 999 USD, while the Tesla K10 had a launch MSRP of 5,099 USD. This is a significant price gap, but the benchmark data shows the GTX TITAN is faster in the tested workload.

The Verdict

Based strictly on the benchmark data, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN is the clear performance winner. In the only head-to-head benchmark available (Geekbench OpenCL), it outperforms the Tesla K10 by 77.3%, with scores of 24,873 versus 14,029. The GTX TITAN also has a higher average benchmark score (14,373 vs. 14,029) and a slightly better percentile ranking (56th vs. 55th).

The Tesla K10's only advantage is its higher launch MSRP of 5,099 USD, which is not reflected in superior performance in the data. The GTX TITAN, at a launch MSRP of 999 USD, delivers dramatically better OpenCL performance. For any user prioritizing compute performance in the tested workload, the data unambiguously points to the GTX TITAN. The Tesla K10 might be a consideration only if its specific feature set (no display outputs, different intended use case) is required, but the raw benchmark numbers do not support choosing it for performance.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The single head-to-head benchmark result is decisive. The GTX TITAN scores 24,873 in Geekbench OpenCL, while the Tesla K10 scores 14,029. The delta of 77.3% is substantial, indicating that the GTX TITAN is not just marginally faster but delivers nearly double the performance in this specific test.

This result is particularly striking when considering the average benchmark scores. The GTX TITAN's average of 14,373 is only 2.4% higher than the Tesla K10's 14,029. This suggests that the GTX TITAN's OpenCL score is an outlier on the high end of its performance range, while the Tesla K10's OpenCL score is its only data point. The percentile rankings (56th for GTX TITAN, 55th for Tesla K10) further confirm that in a broader context, the two cards perform similarly, but in the direct OpenCL comparison, the GTX TITAN is overwhelmingly superior. The data implies that the GTX TITAN is better optimized for OpenCL workloads, or that its hardware specifications translate more effectively to this particular benchmark.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ significantly in nearly every core specification. The GTX TITAN uses the GK110 chip, which contains 7,080 million transistors on a 561 mm² die, while the Tesla K10 uses the GK104 chip with 3,540 million transistors on a 294 mm² die. This difference in chip size and transistor count is a primary driver of the performance gap.

The GTX TITAN has 2,688 shading units, 224 TMUs, and 48 ROPs, compared to the Tesla K10's 1,536 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The GTX TITAN also has higher clock speeds, with a base of 836 MHz and boost of 876 MHz, while the Tesla K10 does not have listed base or boost clocks. Memory configurations also differ: the GTX TITAN has 6 GB of GDDR5 at 1502 MHz (6 Gbps effective) on a 384-bit bus, while the Tesla K10 has 4 GB of GDDR5 at 1250 MHz (5 Gbps effective) on a 256-bit bus.

The GTX TITAN's pixel rate is 49.06 GPixel/s and texture rate is 196.2 GTexel/s, while the Tesla K10's rates are 23.84 GPixel/s and 95.36 GTexel/s, respectively. The GTX TITAN also has higher FP32 performance at 4.709 TFLOPS versus 2.289 TFLOPS. The GTX TITAN has a TDP of 250 W with a suggested PSU of 600 W, while the Tesla K10 has a TDP of 225 W with a suggested PSU of 550 W.

Architecture Differences

Both cards are based on the Kepler architecture and manufactured on a 28 nm process at TSMC, but they use different chips with distinct characteristics. The GTX TITAN's GK110 chip is a larger, more complex design with 7,080 million transistors and a die size of 561 mm², resulting in a transistor density of 12.6M / mm². The Tesla K10's GK104 chip is smaller, with 3,540 million transistors and a die size of 294 mm², giving it a transistor density of 12.0M / mm².

The GK110 chip in the GTX TITAN provides significantly more compute resources, including higher shading unit, TMU, and ROP counts. This translates to higher pixel and texture rates, as well as higher FP32 throughput. The memory subsystem is also more robust on the GTX TITAN, with a wider 384-bit bus and higher effective memory speed.

The Tesla K10, despite having no display outputs and being designed for compute workloads, has a less capable chip in terms of raw specifications. Both cards support the same API levels (DirectX 12 (11_0), OpenGL 4.6, Vulkan 1.2.175), so there is no difference in API feature support. The GTX TITAN includes display outputs (2x DVI, 1x HDMI 1.4a, 1x DisplayPort 1.2), while the Tesla K10 has no outputs, making it unsuitable for any display use case.

Where Each One Wins

The GTX TITAN wins decisively in the compute performance category, as evidenced by its 77.3% lead in Geekbench OpenCL. It also wins in terms of memory capacity (6 GB vs. 4 GB), memory bandwidth (288.4 GB/s vs. 160.0 GB/s), and all core compute metrics including shading units, TMUs, ROPs, pixel rate, texture rate, and FP32 throughput. The GTX TITAN is the winner for any workload that leverages these specifications, particularly OpenCL compute tasks.

The Tesla K10's only advantages are its lower TDP (225 W vs. 250 W) and lower suggested PSU (550 W vs. 600 W). It also has a longer physical length (272 mm vs. 267 mm), but this is not a meaningful performance advantage. The Tesla K10 has a higher launch MSRP of 5,099 USD, which could be seen as an indication of its intended enterprise positioning, but this is not supported by superior benchmark performance.

In terms of use-case split, the GTX TITAN is the clear choice for any application requiring high compute throughput, such as OpenCL-based rendering or scientific computing. The Tesla K10, with its lack of display outputs, is strictly a compute card, but its lower specifications and significantly lower benchmark score make it a less attractive option for the tested workload. The data suggests that the GTX TITAN offers better performance for both consumer and compute applications, while the Tesla K10's only potential niche would be scenarios where its lower power draw is critical and its lower performance is acceptable.