NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 vs NVIDIA Quadro M6000 24 GB Comparison

The Verdict

The data separates these two NVIDIA cards into entirely different eras of GPU design. The GeForce RTX 5080 is the clear performance leader, winning both recorded head-to-head benchmarks by massive margins. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 5080 scores 235901 against the Quadro M6000's 40098, a 488.3% advantage. In Geekbench Vulkan, the RTX 5080 posts 255450 versus 46425, a 450.2% lead. There is no benchmark category in the database where the Quadro M6000 24 GB comes out ahead.

The RTX 5080 also sits higher in the overall GPU population. Its average benchmark score is 56083, placing it in the 87th percentile of all GPUs. The Quadro M6000 averages 43262, which lands in the 83rd percentile. That 13-point percentile gap understates the raw performance difference, since the RTX 5080's nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE (57367 average, 2.2% ahead), the AMD Radeon 8060S (55757, 0.6% behind), and the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB (55698, 0.7% behind). The Quadro M6000 trades blows with the RTX 4070 SUPER (43223, 0.1% behind), the RTX 5050 Mobile (43268, 0% difference), and the RTX 4090 Mobile (43667, 0.9% ahead).

Who should pick which? The RTX 5080 is the only sensible choice for any workload involving modern APIs, ray tracing, or compute density. It delivers over five times the OpenCL throughput of the Quadro and nearly five and a half times the Vulkan throughput. The Quadro M6000 retains value only as a legacy compatibility piece: it has 24 GB of GDDR5, a 384 bit bus, and support for DirectX 12 (12_1), but its Maxwell 2.0 architecture lacks dedicated ray tracing and tensor cores entirely. For a system that must run older professional software with specific driver expectations, the M6000 works. For everything else, the RTX 5080 dominates.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 5080 wins every recorded benchmark. In Geekbench OpenCL, its 235901 score is 488.3% higher. In Geekbench Vulkan, its 255450 score is 450.2% higher. These are not close contests; the RTX 5080's compute throughput is an order of magnitude beyond the M6000 in practice.

The Quadro M6000's only advantages are structural, not performance based. It offers 24 GB of memory versus 16 GB, a 384 bit bus versus 256 bit, and a 4,999 USD launch MSRP. Its older Maxwell 2.0 architecture and 28 nm process node mean it consumes less power at 250 W versus 360 W, and it requires only a 600 W suggested PSU versus 750 W. It also uses a single 8-pin power connector instead of the 16-pin connector on the RTX 5080. For a builder constrained by power delivery or wanting more VRAM capacity for datasets that fit in 24 GB, the M6000 has a niche. But the RTX 5080's GDDR7 memory, while smaller in capacity, delivers 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth versus 317.4 GB/s, a 3x advantage that matters far more for compute and modern game workloads.

The percentile data reinforces the same story from a different angle. The RTX 5080 sits at 87th percentile, the M6000 at 83rd percentile, and its nearest rival cluster is a group of midrange and mobile GPUs like the RTX 5050 Mobile. The RTX 5080 competes with the RX 9070 GRE and RX 8060S. The performance class separation is clear.

Architecture Differences

The two cards come from different foundries, nodes, and design philosophies. The RTX 5080 uses the GB203 chip built on TSMC's 5 nm process. It packs 45,600 million transistors into a 378 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 120.6M per mm². The Quadro M6000 uses the GM200 chip on TSMC's 28 nm process, with 8,000 million transistors on a 601 mm² die, a density of 13.3M per mm². The RTX 5080 is built on Blackwell 2.0 architecture from the GeForce 50 series; the M6000 uses Maxwell 2.0 from the Quadro Maxwell generation.

The compute resources differ massively. The RTX 5080 has 10752 shading units, 336 TMUs, 112 ROPs, 84 RT cores, and 336 tensor cores. The Quadro M6000 has 3072 shading units, 192 TMUs, 96 ROPs, and no RT cores or tensor cores at all. The FP32 throughput tells the story: 56.28 TFLOPS on the RTX 5080 versus 6.844 TFLOPS on the M6000. The RTX 5080 also supports FP16 at 56.28 TFLOPS at a 1:1 ratio, while the M6000 has no recorded FP16 capability. Pixel rate is 293.1 GPixel/s versus 106.9 GPixel/s, and texture rate is 879.3 GTexel/s versus 213.9 GTexel/s.

Memory technology is another generational leap. The RTX 5080 uses GDDR7 on a 256 bit bus with 960.0 GB/s bandwidth. The M6000 uses GDDR5 on a 384 bit bus with 317.4 GB/s bandwidth. The RTX 5080 runs PCIe 5.0 x16, the M6000 PCIe 3.0 x16, a four generation gap that affects data transfer rates and CPU-GPU communication.

The RTX 5080 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.4 and Vulkan 1.4. The M6000 supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The M6000 lacks the RTX 5080's HDMI 2.1b and DisplayPort 2.1b outputs, using older 1x DVI. The RTX 5080 uses 1x 16-pin power, while the M6000 uses 1x 8-pin power.

FAQ

Q: Which card is faster in Geekbench OpenCL?

A: The RTX 5080 scores 235901, the Quadro M6000 scores 40098, a 488.3% advantage for the RTX 5080.

Q: Does the Quadro M6000 support ray tracing?

A: No, the M6000 has no RT cores listed in the database, while the RTX 5080 has 84 RT cores.

Q: Which card has more memory bandwidth?

A: The RTX 5080 has 960.0 GB/s on a 256 bit GDDR7, the M6000 has 317.4 GB/s on a 384 bit GDDR5 bus, so the RTX 5080 wins by a 3x margin.

Q: What is the power draw difference?

A: The RTX 5080 is 360 W and the M6000 is 250 W, so the M6000 is lower power but at a massive performance cost.

Q: Which card has more VRAM capacity?

A: The M6000 has 24 GB versus 16 GB on the RTX 5080, a 8 GB capacity advantage.

Q: Can the Quadro M6000 handle modern DirectX titles?

A: It supports DirectX 12 (12_1) but lacks the RTX 5080's DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) feature level, limiting modern ray tracing and mesh shader workloads.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database records two direct benchmark comparisons between these cards. Both are so lopsided that the performance gap is best described in multiples, not percentages.

Geekbench OpenCL: the RTX 5080 scores 235901, the M6000 scores 40098. That is a 488.3% delta for the RTX 5080. In practical terms, the RTX 5080 delivers roughly 5.9 times the OpenCL compute throughput. This benchmark stresses raw compute parallelism, where the RTX 5080's 10752 shading units at 2295 MHz base and 2617 MHz boost simply overwhelm the M6000's 3072 shading units at 988 MHz base and 1114 MHz boost. The combination of more than three times the shading units and more than double the clock speed produces the enormous delta.

Geekbench Vulkan: the RTX 5080 scores 255450, the M6000 scores 46425. That is a 450.2% delta. Vulkan performance depends on driver efficiency, hardware feature support, and raw throughput. The RTX 5080's Blackwell 2.0 architecture with modern async compute and its large FP32 throughput (56.28 TFLOPS) pulls far ahead of the Maxwell 2.0 design. The M6000's 6.844 TFLOPS FP32 figure is less than one eighth of the RTX 5080's.

The average benchmark scores put the gap in context. The RTX 5080 averages 56083 across its recorded tests, while the M6000 averages 43262. That is a 29.7% average advantage, but the head-to-head tests show a much wider gulf because the M6000's recorded benchmarks are limited to OpenCL and Vulkan, where its aged architecture is weakest. The RTX 5080's recorded tests also include 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 at 8637, Passmark G3D at 36565, and Passmark GPU Compute at 21789, all of which would further separate the two if the M6000 had comparable results recorded.

The RTX 5080's nearest rival data confirms its position: it sits 2.2% behind the RX 9070 GRE, 0.6% ahead of the RX 8060S, and 0.7% ahead of the RX 6750 GRE 12 GB. The M6000, by contrast, trades 0% deltas with the RTX 5050 Mobile, and 0.1% with the RTX 4070 SUPER. In a direct comparison, the RTX 5080 wins both tests by 450-488%, which places it in an entirely different performance tier.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ across nearly every major specification field in the database.

Process node and die: the RTX 5080 uses TSMC 5 nm, the M6000, the M6000 uses 28 nm. Transistors: the RTX 5080 has 45,600 million on a smaller die of 378 mm² at 120.6M per mm², versus the M6000's 8,000 million on 601 mm² at 13.3M per mm². Clock speeds: the RTX 5080 runs 2295 MHz base and 2617 MHz boost, the M6000 runs 988 MHz base and 1114 MHz boost. Memory clock: the RTX 5080 runs 1875 MHz with 30 Gbps effective, the M6000 runs 1653 MHz with 6.6 Gbps effective.

Memory configuration: the RTX 5080 has 16 GB of GDDR7 on a 256 bit bus at 960.0 GB/s, the M6000 has 24 GB of GDDR5 on a 384 bit bus at 317.4 GB/s. Compute units: the RTX 5080 has 10752 shading units, 336 TMUs, 112 ROPs, 84 RT cores, and 336 tensor cores. The M6000 has 3072 shading units, 192 TMUs, 96 ROPs, and no RT or tensor cores. The RTX 5080's pixel rate is 293.1 GPixel/s and texture rate 879.3 GTexel/s, versus 106.9 GPixel/s and 213.9 GTexel/s for the M6000. FP32 is 56.28 TFLOPS for the RTX 5080, 6.844 TFLOPS for the M6000. FP16 is 56.28 TFLOPS for the RTX 5080, and the M6000 has no FP16 recorded.

Power and board: the RTX 5080 has a 360 W TDP, a dual slot cooler, a single 16-pin connector, and recommends a 750 W PSU. The M6000 has a 250 W TDP, a dual slot cooler, a single 8-pin connector, and recommends a 600 W PSU. Bus interface: PCIe 5.0 x16 versus PCIe 3.0 x16. Display outputs: the RTX 5080 offers 1x HDMI 2.1b and 3x DisplayPort 2.1b, the M6000 offers 1x DVI and 4x DisplayPort 1.2. Dimensions: the RTX 5080 is 304 mm long, 137 mm tall, 40 mm wide; the M6000 is 267 mm long, 111 mm tall, with no width recorded.

APIs: the RTX 5080 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4; the M6000 supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. Production status: the RTX 5080 is active, the M6000 is end-of-life. Release date: the RTX 5080 launched 2025-01-29, the M6000 launched 2016-03-04. The RTX 5080's predecessor is GeForce 40, its successor GeForce 60; the M6000's predecessor is Quadro Kepler, its successor Quadro Pascal. The RTX 5080 has a launch MSRP of 999 USD; the M6000 launches at 4,999 USD.