NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile vs NVIDIA Tesla K80 Comparison

The comparison between the NVIDIA Tesla K80 and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile is a study in generational contrast. The K80 is a dual-chip compute relic from the Kepler era, while the RTX 3060 Mobile is a modern Ampere laptop part. The benchmark data shows a decisive shift in performance, but the story is more nuanced than a simple win/loss tally.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only shared benchmark between these two GPUs is Geekbench, where the results are lopsided. In the geekbench_opencl test, the RTX 3060 Mobile scores 79,483 against the K80's 18,620. That is a -76.6% delta from the perspective of the K80, meaning the mobile part is roughly 4.27 times faster in raw OpenCL compute. This is not a marginal improvement; it is an order-of-magnitude leap in efficiency and execution.

The geekbench_vulkan result tells a similar story. The RTX 3060 Mobile posts 80,344 points, while the Tesla K80 manages just 19,111. The delta is -76.2%, again favoring the mobile GPU. The K80's Vulkan score is only slightly higher than its OpenCL score, suggesting its older Kepler architecture struggles with the modern API's overhead. The RTX 3060 Mobile, with its Ampere architecture and proper Vulkan 1.4 support, scales far better.

Interestingly, the K80's average benchmark score across all tests is 18,866, which places it at the 63rd percentile of all GPUs. The RTX 3060 Mobile's average is 18,159, sitting at the 62nd percentile. Despite losing both head-to-head tests by a wide margin, the K80 actually has a slightly higher average score and percentile. This is because the K80's only two benchmarks are Geekbench tests, where it performs poorly, but the average pulls from a different pool. The RTX 3060 Mobile has ten benchmarks, including Passmark tests that drag its average down. This discrepancy highlights the importance of test selection: the K80's data is sparse, while the RTX 3060 Mobile's is comprehensive.

When looking at the rivals list, the K80's nearest competitor is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070, with an average score of 18,789 and a 0.4% delta. The RTX 3060 Mobile's closest rival is the AMD Radeon Pro 5700 at 18,189 with a -0.2% delta. The data suggests that in aggregate, these two GPUs are statistically tied in average performance, even though the Geekbench sub-tests show a massive gap. This is a curious paradox: one GPU dominates the modern compute benchmarks, yet the other holds its own in the broader average due to a lack of diverse testing.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher raw compute throughput in FP32?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile is significantly ahead, with 10.94 TFLOPS of FP32 performance versus the Tesla K80's 4.113 TFLOPS. This is a fundamental architectural advantage, as the Ampere GPU has more shading units and higher clocks.

Q: Does the Tesla K80 support real-time ray tracing?

A: No. The K80 has no RT cores listed in the data. The RTX 3060 Mobile, by contrast, includes 30 RT cores, which are dedicated hardware for ray tracing workloads. This makes the RTX 3060 Mobile the only one of the two capable of hardware-accelerated ray tracing.

Q: What is the difference in memory bandwidth?

A: The RTX 3060 Mobile offers 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth, while the K80 provides 240.6 GB/s. Despite having a narrower 192-bit bus, the RTX 3060 Mobile's faster GDDR6 memory (running at 14 Gbps effective) outperforms the K80's GDDR5 (at 5 Gbps effective) on a 384-bit bus.

Q: Which GPU has a higher transistor density?

A: The RTX 3060 Mobile is far more dense, with 43.5M / mm² compared to the K80's 12.7M / mm². This is due to the newer 8 nm process node from Samsung versus the older 28 nm node from TSMC.

Q: Are both GPUs still in production?

A: No. The data lists both as "End-of-life" production status. The Tesla K80 was released in November 2014, while the RTX 3060 Mobile was released in January 2021.

Q: What is the power consumption difference?

A: The Tesla K80 has a TDP of 300 W, while the RTX 3060 Mobile has a TDP of just 80 W. This means the RTX 3060 Mobile delivers vastly higher performance while consuming only a fraction of the power, making it far more efficient.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 3060 Mobile wins decisively in all modern compute and rendering workloads. Its FP32 performance of 10.94 TFLOPS is more than double the K80's, making it the obvious choice for general-purpose compute, gaming, and AI inference. The presence of 30 RT cores and 120 tensor cores gives it capabilities the K80 simply does not have, such as hardware ray tracing and accelerated deep learning operations. Its FP16 performance of 10.94 TFLOPS (1:1) also matches its FP32 rate, which is a massive advantage for mixed-precision workloads that the K80 lacks entirely.

The Tesla K80's only conceivable advantage lies in memory capacity. It offers 12 GB of VRAM versus the RTX 3060 Mobile's 6 GB. For certain compute tasks that require large datasets to reside entirely in VRAM, the K80's larger frame buffer could be a deciding factor. However, this comes with severe caveats: the K80 has no display outputs, making it useless for any interactive graphics work. It also relies on a slower PCIe 3.0 x16 interface, whereas the RTX 3060 Mobile uses PCIe 4.0 x16, which doubles the theoretical transfer speed to the host system.

Specification Differences

The two GPUs diverge significantly on nearly every specification. The K80 is built on a 28 nm process, while the RTX 3060 Mobile uses 8 nm. The K80 has 7,100 million transistors on a 561 mm² die, whereas the RTX 3060 Mobile packs 12,000 million transistors into a much smaller 276 mm² die. Clock speeds favor the mobile part: the K80's base is 562 MHz with a boost of 824 MHz, while the RTX 3060 Mobile runs at 900 MHz base and 1425 MHz boost.

Memory configurations are radically different. The K80 has 12 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus, achieving 240.6 GB/s. The RTX 3060 Mobile has 6 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus, achieving 336.0 GB/s. The shading unit count favors the RTX 3060 Mobile at 3840 units versus the K80's 2496. TMUs are also higher on the mobile part (120 vs 208), while ROPs are identical at 48. The K80's pixel rate is 42.85 GPixel/s and texture rate is 171.4 GTexel/s, while the RTX 3060 Mobile's are 68.40 GPixel/s and 171.0 GTexel/s, respectively.

Power and physical requirements are starkly different. The K80 is a 300 W dual-slot card requiring a 700 W PSU and a single 8-pin power connector. The RTX 3060 Mobile is an 80 W chip with no dedicated power connectors, as it is designed for laptops. The K80 is 267 mm long, while the RTX 3060 Mobile has no listed dimensions, being a mobile BGA package.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gulf between these two GPUs is immense. The Tesla K80 uses the Kepler 2.0 architecture built on the GK210 chip. It is a dual-GPU board, which explains its massive size and power draw. Kepler lacks dedicated hardware for ray tracing and tensor operations, which is why those fields are null. Its DirectX support is limited to 12 (11_1), while the RTX 3060 Mobile supports 12 Ultimate (12_2), enabling features like mesh shaders and DXR.

The RTX 3060 Mobile is based on Ampere architecture using the GA106 chip. This is a monolithic design that includes 30 RT cores and 120 tensor cores, marking a fundamental shift in GPU capabilities. Ampere also supports FP16 at a 1:1 ratio with FP32, allowing for doubled throughput on half-precision workloads. The process node difference is critical: 28 nm TSMC versus 8 nm Samsung. This allows the RTX 3060 Mobile to achieve a 43.5M / mm² transistor density, a 3.4x improvement over the K80's 12.7M / mm². The API support also reflects this, with the RTX 3060 Mobile offering Vulkan 1.4 and the K80 stuck at 1.2.175.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile is the superior GPU for virtually all workloads. It is over 4x faster in Geekbench OpenCL and Vulkan tests, offers 2.6x more FP32 throughput, and adds features like ray tracing and tensor cores that the Tesla K80 cannot match. Its 80 W TDP makes it wildly more efficient than the K80's 300 W draw, and its modern PCIe 4.0 interface and smaller footprint make it suitable for portable devices.

The Tesla K80's only saving grace is its 12 GB VRAM capacity. For a niche set of compute tasks where memory size trumps raw speed, the K80 might still find a use. However, its lack of display outputs, older architecture, and massive power requirements make it a poor choice for any modern system. The K80 was a product of its time, and the benchmark data shows that time has passed. The RTX 3060 Mobile is the clear winner for anyone needing performance, efficiency, and modern feature support. The K80's higher average benchmark percentile is an artifact of sparse testing, not a sign of competitive strength.