GPU Comparison

The data places the NVIDIA RTX 5880 Ada Generation and the NVIDIA Quadro M6000 in adjacent performance percentiles, with the newer card at the 85th percentile and the older one at the 84th. Despite this near-parity in overall standing, the single head-to-head benchmark available reveals a dramatic generational gulf, while the average scores tell a story of a closer contest than the specifications suggest.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only direct benchmark comparison in the data is the Geekbench OpenCL test, and the result is a landslide. The RTX 5880 Ada Generation scores 326,898, while the Quadro M6000 manages 39,688. This translates to a delta of 723.7%, meaning the RTX 5880 delivers over seven times the raw compute performance of the M6000 in this workload. This is not an incremental improvement; it is a complete redefinition of the performance tier.

The average benchmark scores, however, offer a different perspective. The RTX 5880 Ada Generation has an average score of 45,972, which is only 6.2% higher than the Quadro M6000’s 43,301. This discrepancy between the OpenCL result and the average suggests that the head-to-head test is heavily weighted toward a specific capability where the Ada card excels, while the average pulls in data from other tests that may not be as favorable to the newer architecture. The M6000’s nearest rivals include the GeForce RTX 5050 Mobile, Quadro M6000 24 GB, and GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER, all within a 0.2% delta, indicating that its average score is firmly in a competitive mid-range bracket for its era.

The RTX 5880 Ada Generation’s average score is bracketed by rivals like the RTX A2000 (-0.2%), Intel Arc A730M (+0.8%), and AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT (+1.3%). This positioning suggests that while the Ada card is a dominant force in specific compute tests like OpenCL, its overall benchmark profile is influenced by other tests where it does not maintain the same astronomical lead. The data implies that the head-to-head result is a best-case scenario for the RTX 5880, not a representative sample of its entire performance envelope.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 5880 Ada Generation wins the only direct head-to-head benchmark, the Geekbench OpenCL test, with a 723.7% advantage. This points to a clear victory in general-purpose GPU compute tasks that leverage OpenCL, such as scientific simulation, financial modeling, and certain rendering workloads. The architecture’s massive shading unit count and memory bandwidth are the likely drivers of this dominance, though the data does not explicitly break down the cause.

The Quadro M6000, despite losing the head-to-head, does not have a single benchmark win in the provided data. However, its presence in the benchmark database with a non-zero average score and a high percentile ranking (84th) indicates that it remains functional in a variety of workloads, just not at the level of the RTX 5880. The M6000’s only listed benchmarks are Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Vulkan, with the Vulkan score of 46,913 being notably higher than its OpenCL score. This suggests a relative strength in Vulkan-based applications, though no direct comparison to the RTX 5880 is available for that test. The RTX 5880 does not have a Vulkan benchmark listed, so a direct comparison in that API is not possible from this data.

FAQ

Q: How much faster is the RTX 5880 Ada Generation in OpenCL?

A: The RTX 5880 scores 326,898 in Geekbench OpenCL, which is 723.7% higher than the Quadro M6000’s 39,688.

Q: Which card has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The RTX 5880 Ada Generation has an average score of 45,972, compared to the Quadro M6000’s 43,301, a difference of roughly 6%.

Q: Are these cards in the same performance percentile?

A: Yes, they are very close. The RTX 5880 is at the 85th percentile of all GPUs, while the Quadro M6000 is at the 84th percentile.

Q: What is the memory capacity difference?

A: The RTX 5880 Ada Generation has 48 GB of GDDR6 memory, while the Quadro M6000 has 12 GB of GDDR5 memory.

Q: Is the Quadro M6000 still in production?

A: No, its production status is listed as "End-of-life," while the RTX 5880 is "Active."

Q: Which card has a higher boost clock?

A: The RTX 5880 Ada Generation has a boost clock of 2460 MHz, while the Quadro M6000’s boost clock is 1114 MHz.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ in nearly every measurable specification. The RTX 5880 uses a 5 nm process node, while the Quadro M6000 uses a 28 nm process. The RTX 5880’s base clock is 975 MHz, which is slightly lower than the M6000’s 988 MHz, but its boost clock is significantly higher at 2460 MHz versus 1114 MHz. Memory clocks also diverge sharply: the RTX 5880 runs at 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective), while the M6000 runs at 1653 MHz (6.6 Gbps effective).

The memory subsystem is a major differentiator. The RTX 5880 offers 48 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 384-bit bus, yielding 864.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The M6000 offers 12 GB of GDDR5 on the same 384-bit bus, but only achieves 317.4 GB/s. The RTX 5880 has 14,080 shading units, 440 TMUs, and 176 ROPs, whereas the M6000 has 3,072 shading units, 192 TMUs, and 96 ROPs. The RTX 5880 also features 110 RT cores and 440 tensor cores, which the M6000 lacks entirely. Pixel rate is 433.0 GPixel/s for the RTX 5880 versus 106.9 GPixel/s for the M6000, and texture rate is 1,082.4 GTexel/s versus 213.9 GTexel/s. FP32 performance is 69.27 TFLOPS for the RTX 5880 and 6.844 TFLOPS for the M6000.

The bus interface differs as well: the RTX 5880 uses PCIe 4.0 x16, while the M6000 uses PCIe 3.0 x16. Display outputs are also different, with the RTX 5880 featuring 4x DisplayPort 1.4a, and the M6000 featuring 1x DVI and 4x DisplayPort 1.2. The RTX 5880 has a TDP of 285 W and uses a 1x 16-pin power connector, while the M6000 has a 250 W TDP and uses a 1x 8-pin connector. Both are dual-slot cards with identical lengths (267 mm) and near-identical heights (112 mm vs 111 mm). The RTX 5880 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the M6000 supports DirectX 12 (12_1). Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap is fundamental. The RTX 5880 Ada Generation is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture, using the AD102 chip, while the Quadro M6000 uses the Maxwell 2.0 architecture with the GM200 chip. The RTX 5880’s transistor count is 76,300 million, compared to the M6000’s 8,000 million, despite similar die sizes (609 mm² vs 601 mm²). This results in a transistor density of 125.3M per mm² for the RTX 5880 versus 13.3M per mm² for the M6000, a direct consequence of the 5 nm versus 28 nm process nodes.

The RTX 5880’s feature set includes dedicated RT cores for ray tracing and tensor cores for AI acceleration, both absent from the M6000. The RTX 5880 also supports FP16 compute at a 1:1 ratio with FP32, while the M6000 has no FP16 data listed. The RTX 5880 is part of the "Workstation Ada (x000A)" generation, while the M6000 is from "Quadro Maxwell (Mx000)." The M6000’s predecessor is Quadro Kepler, and its successor is Quadro Pascal, while the RTX 5880’s predecessor is Workstation Ampere and its successor is Blackwell PRO W. The release dates are 2024-01-04 for the RTX 5880 and 2015-03-20 for the M6000, placing nearly nine years between their launches.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous for raw compute performance: the NVIDIA RTX 5880 Ada Generation is the superior card by a massive margin in the tested OpenCL workload, with a 723.7% lead. Its 48 GB of memory, 69.27 TFLOPS FP32 performance, and 864.0 GB/s bandwidth make it the only choice for compute-heavy tasks that can leverage these specifications. The presence of RT and tensor cores also positions it for modern workloads like ray-traced rendering and AI inference, which the M6000 cannot handle. Anyone requiring maximum performance in OpenCL-based applications should select the RTX 5880.

The Quadro M6000, while vastly slower, is not without a niche. Its average benchmark score is only 6% lower than the RTX 5880, and both cards sit in the 84th-85th percentile of all GPUs. This suggests that for a broader set of legacy workloads or applications that do not utilize the RTX 5880’s advanced features, the M6000 can still hold its own in terms of overall benchmark standing. Its lower TDP of 250 W (versus 285 W) and use of a standard 8-pin power connector may also be simpler to integrate into older systems. For users with a limited power budget or a need for a drop-in replacement in a legacy PCIe 3.0 system, the M6000 remains a viable, albeit dated, option. However, the data strongly favors the RTX 5880 for any task where raw performance is the primary criterion.