NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile vs NVIDIA Tesla K20m Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded data includes two shared benchmark tests, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile wins both decisively. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 4060 Mobile scores 89,420 against the Tesla K20m's 16,241, a delta of 450.6% in favor of the mobile part. That is not a marginal improvement; it is a generational leap expressed in raw compute throughput. The Vulkan result tells a similar story: the RTX 4060 Mobile posts 89,569, while the Tesla K20m manages 21,936, yielding a 308.3% advantage for the Ada Lovelace chip.

These deltas dwarf the differences seen in the nearest-rival comparisons for either card. The RTX 4060 Mobile's closest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile, trails by just 1.3% in average benchmark score, and the Intel Arc B580 is only 1.3% ahead. Against the Tesla K20m, however, the RTX 4060 Mobile is not competing in the same performance class; it is outrunning the older compute card by multiples. The Tesla K20m's own nearest rivals, such as the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Mobile at 0.2% ahead and the AMD Radeon RX 6600 at 0.3% ahead, show that the K20m sits in a modern midrange laptop GPU bracket. Yet even that bracket cannot touch the RTX 4060 Mobile's absolute scores.

The passmark suite was not run on the Tesla K20m, so the comparison is limited to the two Geekbench tests. Still, the pattern is unambiguous: the RTX 4060 Mobile leads in every measurable shared workload. There is no single metric where the Tesla K20m pulls ahead, and the wins tally reflects that, with 2 wins for the RTX 4060 Mobile and 0 for the Tesla K20m.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 4060 Mobile wins in every benchmark that both cards took. That includes OpenCL, which is a compute-oriented API, and Vulkan, which is a graphics and compute API. The 450.6% OpenCL delta indicates that the Ada Lovelace architecture's FP32 throughput, rated at 11.61 TFLOPS, is vastly higher than the Kepler chip's 3.524 TFLOPS. The RTX 4060 Mobile also benefits from a much higher pixel rate, 90.72 GPixel/s versus 36.71 GPixel/s, and a texture rate of 181.4 GTexel/s versus 146.8 GTexel/s. These raw throughput figures explain why the RTX 4060 Mobile dominates in synthetic compute tests.

The Tesla K20m does not win any shared test, but its profile suggests where it might have been competitive in its era. Its memory bus is wider, 320 bit versus 128 bit, and its bandwidth is 208.0 GB/s against 256.0 GB/s for the RTX 4060 Mobile. The K20m actually trails in bandwidth despite the wider bus, because its GDDR5 memory runs at 1300 MHz (5.2 Gbps effective) versus the RTX 4060 Mobile's 2000 MHz (16 Gbps effective) GDDR6. The Kepler chip also has more texture mapping units, 208 versus 96, but the RTX 4060 Mobile's higher clock rates and newer architecture still deliver a higher texture rate.

For use cases, the data suggests that the RTX 4060 Mobile is the stronger choice for any modern workload, including gaming, ray tracing, and general compute. The Tesla K20m, with no display outputs and a dual-slot form factor, was designed as a compute accelerator, not a graphics card. Its 5 GB memory capacity is smaller than the RTX 4060 Mobile's 8 GB, and its lack of RT cores and tensor cores means it cannot accelerate ray tracing or AI inference tasks that the RTX 4060 Mobile handles natively. The K20m's 2496 shading units are fewer than the RTX 4060 Mobile's 3072, and its FP32 output is roughly one-third.

Architecture Differences

The two chips come from different architectural eras and fabrication processes. The RTX 4060 Mobile uses the AD107 chip built on a 5 nm process at TSMC, with 18,900 million transistors packed into a 159 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 118.9 million per square millimeter. The Tesla K20m uses the GK110 chip on a 28 nm process, also from TSMC, with 7,080 million transistors on a 561 mm² die, giving a density of just 12.6 million per square millimeter. The process node difference alone explains much of the performance gap: the RTX 4060 Mobile fits nearly three times the transistors into a much smaller area.

The memory subsystems differ significantly. The RTX 4060 Mobile has 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128 bit bus, with 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth and an effective memory speed of 16 Gbps. The Tesla K20m has 5 GB of GDDR5 on a 320 bit bus, with 208.0 GB/s of bandwidth and an effective speed of 5.2 Gbps. The RTX 4060 Mobile achieves higher bandwidth with a narrower bus because its memory runs much faster. The K20m's wider bus is a legacy of Kepler's design, which relied on bus width to compensate for slower memory clocks.

Feature support is another major divider. The RTX 4060 Mobile includes 24 RT cores and 96 tensor cores, enabling hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI workloads. The Tesla K20m has no RT cores and no tensor cores, as Kepler predates those technologies. The RTX 4060 Mobile supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, while the K20m supports DirectX 12 (11_0) and Vulkan 1.2.175. The RTX 4060 Mobile also has a PCIe 4.0 x8 interface, whereas the K20m uses PCIe 2.0 x16, which limits data transfer rates for the older card.

Power and physical design differ as well. The RTX 4060 Mobile has a TDP of 115 W and is an integrated graphics package (IGP) with no power connectors, designed for laptops. The Tesla K20m has a 225 W TDP, requires a dual-slot cooler, and draws power through a 1x 6-pin plus 1x 8-pin connector setup. The K20m is 267 mm long, while the RTX 4060 Mobile's dimensions are not recorded because it is a mobile part. The K20m also has no display outputs, confirming its role as a headless compute accelerator. The RTX 4060 Mobile's display outputs are portable-device dependent, meaning it drives laptop screens.

FAQ

Q: Which card has higher FP32 compute performance?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile, with 11.61 TFLOPS, versus 3.524 TFLOPS for the NVIDIA Tesla K20m.

Q: What is the memory capacity difference?

A: The RTX 4060 Mobile has 8 GB of GDDR6, while the Tesla K20m has 5 GB of GDDR5.

Q: Does the Tesla K20m support ray tracing hardware?

A: No, the Tesla K20m has no RT cores, whereas the RTX 4060 Mobile includes 24 RT cores.

Q: Which card has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The RTX 4060 Mobile records an average benchmark score of 22,729, compared to 19,089 for the Tesla K20m.

Q: What is the production status of each card?

A: The RTX 4060 Mobile is marked as active, while the Tesla K20m is end-of-life.

Q: How do the cards compare in Vulkan performance?

A: The RTX 4060 Mobile scores 89,569 in Geekbench Vulkan, a 308.3% advantage over the Tesla K20m's 21,936.

The Verdict

The data is clear: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile outperforms the NVIDIA Tesla K20m in every shared benchmark by a wide margin. Any user choosing between these two for a modern workload should select the RTX 4060 Mobile, provided the workload fits within a laptop form factor. The RTX 4060 Mobile offers more memory, higher bandwidth, superior compute throughput, and hardware features like RT and tensor cores that the K20m simply lacks.

The Tesla K20m, however, still holds a place in the database as a historical compute card. Its average benchmark score of 19,089 places it near the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Mobile and AMD Radeon RX 6600, meaning it is not obsolete in relative terms. But its 225 W power draw, dual-slot size, and lack of display outputs make it impractical for most current systems. The RTX 4060 Mobile achieves roughly 19% higher average score (22,729 versus 19,089) while using nearly half the power, 115 W versus 225 W.

The verdict from the recorded data is that the RTX 4060 Mobile is the superior product on every axis that was measured. The Tesla K20m's only remaining relevance is as a legacy compute accelerator for software that requires its specific Kepler feature set, but even then, its 5 GB memory and 3.524 TFLOPS FP32 are limiting factors. For any new deployment, the RTX 4060 Mobile is the rational choice, and the benchmark deltas of 450.6% in OpenCL and 308.3% in Vulkan are the strongest evidence available.