NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada Generation vs NVIDIA Tesla V100 SXM2 16 GB Comparison

FAQ

Q: How does the NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada Generation compare to the Tesla V100 SXM2 16 GB in average benchmark score?

A: The RTX 4000 Ada posts an average benchmark score of 135,218, while the Tesla V100 SXM2 16 GB averages 114,395. That puts the RTX 4000 Ada roughly 18.2% higher overall, though both cards sit at the 95th percentile among all GPUs in the database.

Q: Which card wins in Geekbench OpenCL, and by how much?

A: The RTX 4000 Ada dominates OpenCL with a score of 146,593 versus the Tesla V100's 87,454. That is a 67.6% advantage for the Ada card, one of the largest single-test gaps in this comparison.

Q: Does the Tesla V100 win any benchmark?

A: Yes — the Tesla V100 SXM2 16 GB takes Geekbench Vulkan with a score of 141,336, beating the RTX 4000 Ada's 123,842 by 12.4%. This means each card claims exactly one head-to-head win.

Q: What are the key memory differences between the two cards?

A: The RTX 4000 Ada has 20 GB of GDDR6 on a 160-bit bus, delivering 360.0 GB/s bandwidth. The Tesla V100 SXM2 16 GB has 16 GB of HBM2 on a 4096-bit bus, delivering 897.0 GB/s bandwidth — nearly 2.5 times the bandwidth despite the smaller capacity.

Q: Which card is more power-efficient according to the data?

A: The RTX 4000 Ada has a TDP of 130 W and a suggested PSU of 300 W. The Tesla V100 SXM2 16 GB has a TDP of 250 W and a suggested PSU of 600 W. Despite the Tesla V100's higher power draw, it delivers lower FP32 throughput (15.67 TFLOPS vs. 26.73 TFLOPS).

Q: What are the production statuses of these two GPUs?

A: The RTX 4000 Ada Generation is listed as "Active" with a release date of 2023-08-08. The Tesla V100 SXM2 16 GB is "End-of-life" with a release date of 2017-06-20. The RTX 4000 Ada also has a successor (Blackwell PRO W), while the Tesla V100's successor is Tesla Turing.

The Verdict

The data paints a clear split: the RTX 4000 Ada Generation is the stronger all-around workstation card for modern compute tasks, while the Tesla V100 SXM2 16 GB retains a niche advantage in Vulkan workloads. The RTX 4000 Ada's 67.6% OpenCL lead is decisive, and its average benchmark score of 135,218 versus 114,395 confirms that it is the more capable card in mixed workloads. Its 26.73 TFLOPS FP32 performance is 70.6% higher than the Tesla V100's 15.67 TFLOPS, and it does so at nearly half the TDP (130 W vs. 250 W).

For users running OpenCL-heavy applications, the RTX 4000 Ada is the obvious pick — it wins the biggest benchmark by a wide margin and offers modern features like 48 RT cores, 192 tensor cores, and DirectX 12 Ultimate support. The Tesla V100 SXM2 16 GB, however, is not obsolete: its Vulkan score of 141,336 exceeds the RTX 4000 Ada's by 12.4%, and its 897.0 GB/s memory bandwidth is unmatched here. But given its end-of-life status, 12 nm node, and lower FP32 throughput, the Tesla V100 is a legacy part that only makes sense for Vulkan-specific pipelines or existing deployments where its HBM2 bandwidth is critical.

Ultimately: Choose the RTX 4000 Ada Generation for general workstation compute, OpenCL acceleration, or ray-tracing workloads. Choose the Tesla V100 SXM2 16 GB only if your software stack is Vulkan-bound and relies on the massive 4096-bit memory bus.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The head-to-head results are starkly polarized. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 4000 Ada Generation scores 146,593 against the Tesla V100's 87,454 — a 67.6% blowout. This is the largest performance gap in the entire comparison, and it aligns with the Ada card's architectural advantages: 6,144 shading units, 192 texture mapping units, and FP32 throughput of 26.73 TFLOPS. The Tesla V100's 5,120 shading units and 15.67 TFLOPS FP32 simply cannot keep pace in this API.

The tables turn in Geekbench Vulkan. The Tesla V100 SXM2 16 GB posts 141,336, while the RTX 4000 Ada manages only 123,842 — a 12.4% deficit for the newer card. This result is surprising given the RTX 4000 Ada's higher clock speeds (boost 2175 MHz vs. 1530 MHz) and newer architecture. The likely explanation lies in the Tesla V100's memory subsystem: 897.0 GB/s of HBM2 bandwidth dwarfs the RTX 4000 Ada's 360.0 GB/s, and Vulkan workloads often scale with memory throughput. The Tesla V100 also has 640 tensor cores versus 192 on the RTX 4000 Ada, which may help in certain compute-heavy Vulkan paths.

Looking at both wins, the RTX 4000 Ada's OpenCL victory is more substantial in absolute terms (59,139 points difference) than the Tesla V100's Vulkan win (17,494 points). The average benchmark scores reflect this: 135,218 for the RTX 4000 Ada versus 114,395 for the Tesla V100, a gap of 20,823 points. When comparing to nearest rivals, the RTX 4000 Ada sits nearly level with the NVIDIA A10M (135,230, delta 0%) and AMD Radeon PRO W6800 (135,396, delta -0.1%), while the Tesla V100 trails the RTX 4000 SFF Ada (117,088, delta -2.3%) and only beats the AMD Radeon PRO W7900 (110,725, delta 3.3%).

Specification Differences

The two cards diverge sharply on nearly every major specification. The RTX 4000 Ada Generation uses 20 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 160-bit bus, yielding 360.0 GB/s bandwidth. The Tesla V100 SXM2 16 GB uses 16 GB of HBM2 on a 4096-bit bus, yielding 897.0 GB/s bandwidth — 2.5 times the throughput of the Ada card. This is the single biggest hardware advantage for the Tesla V100.

Clock speeds favor the RTX 4000 Ada: base 1500 MHz and boost 2175 MHz, versus 1312 MHz base and 1530 MHz boost on the Tesla V100. The Ada card also has more shading units (6,144 vs. 5,120) and more RT cores (48 vs. none on the Tesla V100). However, the Tesla V100 counters with more TMUs (320 vs. 192), more ROPs (128 vs. 64), and more tensor cores (640 vs. 192). The pixel rate goes to the Tesla V100 (195.8 GPixel/s vs. 139.2 GPixel/s), and the texture rate also favors it (489.6 GTexel/s vs. 417.6 GTexel/s).

Power and physical specs differ dramatically. The RTX 4000 Ada is a single-slot card at 130 W with a 300 W suggested PSU and a 16-pin power connector, measuring 245 mm (9.6 inches) long and 112 mm (4.4 inches) tall. The Tesla V100 is an SXM Module with no power connector, rated at 250 W with a 600 W suggested PSU, and has no listed dimensions. The RTX 4000 Ada offers 4x DisplayPort 1.4a outputs, while the Tesla V100 has no display outputs at all — a clear sign of its compute-only heritage.

Bus interfaces also differ: PCIe 4.0 x16 on the RTX 4000 Ada versus PCIe 3.0 x16 on the Tesla V100. The RTX 4000 Ada supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the Tesla V100 tops out at DirectX 12 (12_1). Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two GPUs spans nearly a decade of NVIDIA design philosophy. The RTX 4000 Ada Generation is built on TSMC's 5 nm process with the AD104 chip, packing 35,800 million transistors into a 294 mm² die. That yields a transistor density of 121.8 million per mm². The Tesla V100 SXM2 16 GB uses TSMC's 12 nm process with the GV100 chip, containing 21,100 million transistors on a massive 815 mm² die — a density of just 25.9 million per mm². The RTX 4000 Ada is 4.7 times denser per square millimeter.

The RTX 4000 Ada uses the Ada Lovelace architecture, which brings dedicated RT cores (48 of them) for hardware-accelerated ray tracing. The Tesla V100 uses the older Volta architecture and has no RT cores at all. Tensor core counts differ too: 192 on the Ada card versus 640 on the Volta card, though the Ada tensor cores are newer generations with different capabilities. FP16 performance highlights the architectural shift: the RTX 4000 Ada delivers 26.73 TFLOPS FP16 at a 1:1 ratio with FP32, while the Tesla V100 delivers 31.33 TFLOPS FP16 at a 2:1 ratio — meaning it halves FP32 throughput to double FP16.

Memory architecture is fundamentally different. The RTX 4000 Ada relies on GDDR6 with a narrow 160-bit bus, favoring simplicity and lower power. The Tesla V100 uses HBM2 with a 4096-bit bus, an exotic solution that provides enormous bandwidth at higher cost and complexity. The Tesla V100's 897.0 GB/s bandwidth is the clear architectural win for Volta, but the Ada Lovelace architecture counters with much higher clock speeds (boost 2175 MHz vs. 1530 MHz) and a newer instruction set.

The RTX 4000 Ada Generation is part of NVIDIA's workstation Ada family, following Workstation Ampere and preceding Blackwell PRO W. The Tesla V100 belongs to the Tesla Volta line, succeeding Tesla Pascal and preceding Tesla Turing. Both are manufactured by TSMC, but the 5 nm node gives the Ada card a massive efficiency edge: 26.73 TFLOPS FP32 at 130 W, versus 15.67 TFLOPS FP32 at 250 W for the Tesla V100. That is a 70.6% performance increase with a 48% power reduction, proof of how far process technology advanced between 2017 and 2023.