NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti vs NVIDIA Tesla M40 24 GB Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded data includes two directly comparable cross-generation tests, and both are decisive. In Geekbench OpenCL, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti scores 212,363 points against 37,439 points for the NVIDIA Tesla M40 24 GB. That is a 467.2% advantage, meaning the newer card delivers roughly 5.7 times the compute throughput in this workload. The margin is so large that it does not represent a close contest; it reflects a fundamental generational gap in raw execution resources and memory subsystem performance.

The Vulkan result follows the same pattern. The RTX 5070 Ti posts 225,122 points, while the Tesla M40 manages 45,975 points. The delta here is 389.7% in favor of the RTX 5070 Ti, or about 4.9 times the score of the older accelerator. Vulkan is a modern API that can stress both geometry throughput and asynchronous compute, and the RTX 5070 Ti handles it with far greater headroom. The Tesla M40 supports Vulkan 1.4 according to the database, so the comparison is valid on a feature-level basis, but the execution resources are simply not comparable.

Looking at overall averages, the RTX 5070 Ti has an average benchmark score of 49,957 across all recorded tests, which places it at the 86th percentile of all GPUs in the database. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 with an average score of 50,001 and a delta of -0.1%, the Intel Arc A550M at 49,737 with a delta of 0.4%, the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT at 50,951 with a delta of -2%, and the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT at 48,477 with a delta of 3.1%. This places the RTX 5070 Ti in a tight cluster with high-end enthusiast cards from the previous generation, essentially matching them in aggregate performance while offering newer feature support.

The Tesla M40 24 GB, by contrast, has an average benchmark score of 41,707 and sits at the 83rd percentile. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA Tesla M40 (a variant with a slightly different average of 41,897, delta -0.5%), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti at 41,187 with a delta of 1.3%, the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 at 40,870 with a delta of 2%, and the AMD Radeon RX 7650 GRE at 42,723 with a delta of -2.4%. The Tesla M40 is therefore still competitive with mid-range and older high-end parts, but it operates in a different performance tier entirely from the RTX 5070 Ti.

The RTX 5070 Ti also records strong scores in DirectX-oriented tests that the Tesla M40 does not have entries for, including Passmark G3D at 32,974, Passmark GPU Compute at 20,203, and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6,604. The absence of comparable Tesla M40 entries in these workloads means the head-to-head comparison relies primarily on the Geekbench results, but those two data points are unambiguous: the RTX 5070 Ti wins both recorded head-to-head tests, with wins tallying 2 for the RTX 5070 Ti and 0 for the Tesla M40.

Architecture Differences

The two cards are separated by roughly a decade of silicon evolution. The RTX 5070 Ti uses the GB203 chip built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture, fabricated on a 5 nm process at TSMC. It integrates 45,600 million transistors on a 378 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 120.6 million per square millimeter. The Tesla M40 uses the GM200 chip on the Maxwell 2.0 architecture, built on a 28 nm process at TSMC. It contains 8,000 million transistors on a larger 601 mm² die, resulting in a much lower density of 13.3 million transistors per square millimeter. This density gap is the core architectural story: the newer part packs over five times more transistors into a smaller physical area.

The compute resources differ dramatically. The RTX 5070 Ti has 8,960 shading units, 280 texture mapping units, and 96 ROPs. It also includes 70 RT cores and 280 tensor cores. The Tesla M40 has 3,072 shading units, 192 TMUs, and 96 ROPs, with no RT cores and no tensor cores at all. That means the RTX 5070 Ti carries nearly three times the shader count, 1.46 times the texture units, and adds dedicated hardware for ray tracing and AI workloads that the Tesla M40 simply cannot accelerate. The FP32 throughput tells the same story: the RTX 5070 Ti delivers 43.94 TFLOPS, while the Tesla M40 delivers 6.832 TFLOPS. The newer card also lists FP16 at 43.94 TFLOPS with a 1:1 ratio, whereas the Tesla M40 has no recorded FP16 capability.

Clock speeds have also risen substantially. The RTX 5070 Ti has a base clock of 2295 MHz and a boost clock of 2452 MHz. The Tesla M40 runs at 948 MHz base and 1112 MHz boost. Even accounting for the older architecture's different instruction pipeline, the raw frequency advantage of more than double contributes heavily to the performance gap. Pixel rate for the RTX 5070 Ti is 235.4 GPixel/s versus 106.8 GPixel/s for the Tesla M40, and texture rate is 686.6 GTexel/s versus 213.5 GTexel/s.

Memory architecture is another clear dividing line. The RTX 5070 Ti uses 16 GB of GDDR7 on a 256-bit bus, with memory clocked at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective) and bandwidth of 896.0 GB/s. The Tesla M40 has 24 GB of GDDR5 on a wider 384-bit bus, but memory runs at 1502 MHz (6 Gbps effective), yielding only 288.4 GB/s of bandwidth. So the Tesla M40 offers 50% more capacity, but the RTX 5070 Ti delivers over three times the bandwidth. For bandwidth-hungry workloads, the newer memory technology is the decisive factor.

Power and connectivity also differ. The RTX 5070 Ti has a TDP of 300 W, uses a single 16-pin power connector, and recommends a 700 W power supply. It connects via PCIe 5.0 x16 and offers display outputs including 1x HDMI 2.1b and 3x DisplayPort 2.1b. The Tesla M40 has a TDP of 250 W, uses an 8-pin EPS connector, recommends a 600 W PSU, and runs on PCIe 3.0 x16. It has no display outputs, which makes it unsuitable as a primary graphics output device. The RTX 5070 Ti supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the Tesla M40 only reaches DirectX 12 (12_1). Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 5070 Ti wins in every directly comparable workload in the database. Its OpenCL score is 467.2% higher, and its Vulkan score is 389.7% higher. It also has a much broader benchmark footprint, with recorded scores in DirectX 9, 10, 11, and 12 tests, plus 3DMark Steel Nomad, Passmark G2D, G3D, and GPU Compute. The Tesla M40 only has entries for Geekbench OpenCL and Vulkan, so there is no recorded data for it in any DirectX or compute-specific benchmark. For gaming, rendering, AI inference, and general compute tasks that use modern APIs, the RTX 5070 Ti is the clear choice based on the available measurements.

The Tesla M40 does have one advantage: memory capacity. It carries 24 GB of GDDR5, compared to 16 GB of GDDR7 on the RTX 5070 Ti. In workloads where capacity matters more than bandwidth, such as holding very large datasets or models entirely in VRAM, the Tesla M40 can fit more data. However, the bandwidth deficit is severe: 288.4 GB/s versus 896.0 GB/s. The database does not include a benchmark that isolates capacity-limited scenarios, so this remains a theoretical advantage rather than a measured one.

The Tesla M40 also has a lower TDP at 250 W versus 300 W, and it recommends a 600 W power supply rather than 700 W. For systems with strict power budgets, the older card draws less. But the performance per watt is overwhelmingly in favor of the RTX 5070 Ti, given the magnitude of the score differences.

The Verdict

The data supports a straightforward conclusion. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti outperforms the NVIDIA Tesla M40 24 GB in every recorded head-to-head benchmark, with deltas of 467.2% in OpenCL and 389.7% in Vulkan. It also offers modern features that the Tesla M40 lacks entirely, including RT cores, tensor cores, DirectX 12 Ultimate support, and display outputs. The RTX 5070 Ti sits at the 86th percentile of all GPUs, while the Tesla M40 sits at the 83rd, but that percentile ranking is misleading because the Tesla M40 has fewer benchmark entries and competes in a lower absolute score range.

For gaming, content creation, AI development, or any workload that can use modern APIs or dedicated ray tracing and tensor hardware, the RTX 5070 Ti is the only rational pick from these two. The Tesla M40 is end-of-life, uses a 28 nm process, has no display outputs, and its only measurable advantage is 8 GB of additional memory capacity. That capacity advantage does not translate into any recorded performance win.

For users who need a compute accelerator with 24 GB of VRAM in a low-power, headless configuration, and who are constrained to older software stacks that do not benefit from Blackwell architecture features, the Tesla M40 could still serve a niche role. But the benchmark data shows it is outclassed by the RTX 5070 Ti in raw compute, bandwidth, and modern API performance. The verdict is clear: the RTX 5070 Ti wins on performance, features, and efficiency, while the Tesla M40 retains only a capacity and power draw niche.

FAQ

Q: How much faster is the RTX 5070 Ti than the Tesla M40 in OpenCL?

A: The RTX 5070 Ti scores 212,363 in Geekbench OpenCL, while the Tesla M40 scores 37,439. That is a 467.2% advantage for the RTX 5070 Ti.

Q: Does the Tesla M40 have any benchmark where it wins?

A: No. In the two recorded head-to-head tests (Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Vulkan), the RTX 5070 Ti wins both. The wins tally is 2 for the RTX 5070 Ti and 0 for the Tesla M40.

Q: Which card has more memory bandwidth?

A: The RTX 5070 Ti has 896.0 GB/s of bandwidth from 16 GB of GDDR7 on a 256-bit bus. The Tesla M40 has 288.4 GB/s from 24 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus.

Q: Does the Tesla M40 support ray tracing?

A: No. The Tesla M40 has no RT cores and no tensor cores. The RTX 5070 Ti has 70 RT cores and 280 tensor cores.

Q: What is the transistor density difference?

A: The RTX 5070 Ti has a density of 120.6 million transistors per mm² on a 5 nm process. The Tesla M40 has 13.3 million transistors per mm² on a 28 nm process.

Q: Can the Tesla M40 be used as a display output device?

A: No. The Tesla M40 has no display outputs. The RTX 5070 Ti offers 1x HDMI 2.1b and 3x DisplayPort 2.1b.