NVIDIA Quadro P6000 vs NVIDIA RTX 5880 Ada Generation Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded data contains one direct head-to-head comparison between these two workstation cards: Geekbench OpenCL. The results are decisive. The NVIDIA RTX 5880 Ada Generation scores 326,898, while the NVIDIA Quadro P6000 scores 66,382. That is a delta of 79.7% in favor of the newer card, meaning the RTX 5880 Ada is roughly five times faster in this compute-oriented test. For OpenCL workloads, which often scale with raw shading power and memory bandwidth, this is a generational leap rather than an incremental step.

The Quadro P6000's own benchmark results place it at an average score of 69,986 across its recorded tests, with a Geekbench Vulkan score of 73,590. Its percentile ranking sits at 90, meaning it outperforms 90% of all GPUs in the database. The RTX 5880 Ada, by contrast, has an average score of 45,972, which is dragged down by its Passmark legacy DirectX tests. Its percentile is 85. This apparent contradiction, where the newer card wins the OpenCL head-to-head but has a lower overall percentile, stems from the different test suites recorded for each card. The RTX 5880 Ada's Passmark scores include older DirectX 9, 10, and 12 tests that are not representative of modern workstation loads, and these pull its average down significantly.

Looking at the nearest rivals in the database, the Quadro P6000 sits within 0.2% of the AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 (69,870) and within 0.2% of the NVIDIA RTX A3000 Mobile (70,140). The RTX 5880 Ada, meanwhile, is within 0.2% of the NVIDIA RTX A2000 (46,043). This puts the two cards in very different competitive brackets. The Quadro P6000 competes with high-end workstation cards from its era, while the RTX 5880 Ada, despite its massive OpenCL advantage, is bracketed with mid-range and mobile parts in the database's average scoring system.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap here is enormous and explains the benchmark results. The Quadro P6000 uses the GP102 chip built on TSMC's 16 nm process, packing 11,800 million transistors on a 471 mm² die. The RTX 5880 Ada uses the AD102 chip on TSMC's 5 nm process, with 76,300 million transistors on a 609 mm² die. That is a transistor density increase from 25.1 million per mm² to 125.3 million per mm², a fivefold jump in density on a process node three generations newer.

Memory configurations also differ substantially. The Quadro P6000 has 24 GB of GDDR5X on a 384-bit bus, delivering 432.8 GB/s of bandwidth. The RTX 5880 Ada doubles the capacity to 48 GB of GDDR6 on the same 384-bit bus, but doubles the bandwidth to 864.0 GB/s. Memory clock speeds reflect the newer memory type: 9 Gbps effective on the P6000 versus 18 Gbps effective on the Ada card.

The compute core counts tell the story of the performance gap. The Quadro P6000 has 3,840 shading units, 240 texture mapping units, and 96 raster operation units. The RTX 5880 Ada has 14,080 shading units, 440 TMUs, and 176 ROPs. That is 3.7 times the shader count and 1.8 times the ROP count. The Ada card also adds dedicated hardware the Pascal card lacks entirely: 110 RT cores and 440 tensor cores. These enable hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI-accelerated workloads, neither of which the P6000 can handle through dedicated silicon.

Clock behavior differs as well. The P6000 runs at a base of 1506 MHz with a boost of 1645 MHz, a narrow range typical of Pascal. The RTX 5880 Ada has a much lower base clock of 975 MHz but boosts aggressively to 2460 MHz. This wider boost range reflects modern power management and the higher thermal headroom of the 5 nm process. The practical result is that the Ada card sustains far higher clocks under load.

FP32 and FP16 throughput illustrate the architectural philosophy shift. The P6000 delivers 12.63 TFLOPS of FP32 and only 197.4 GFLOPS of FP16, a 1:64 ratio that makes FP16 nearly useless on that card. The RTX 5880 Ada delivers 69.27 TFLOPS of FP32 and 69.27 TFLOPS of FP16, a 1:1 ratio. For any workload that uses reduced precision, the Ada card is not just faster, it is in a different category entirely. Pixel rate scales similarly: 157.9 GPixel/s on the P6000 versus 433.0 GPixel/s on the Ada card. Texture rate jumps from 394.8 GTexel/s to 1,082.4 GTexel/s.

The interface and power delivery also differ. The P6000 uses PCIe 3.0 x16, while the Ada card uses PCIe 4.0 x16. Both are dual-slot cards of similar physical dimensions, 267 mm in length and roughly 111 to 112 mm in height. The P6000 draws its power from a single 8-pin connector with a 250 W TDP, while the RTX 5880 Ada uses a single 16-pin connector with a 285 W TDP. Both cards recommend a 600 W power supply.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 5880 Ada Generation wins the only direct benchmark comparison recorded: Geekbench OpenCL, by a margin of 79.7%. This is the headline result and it reflects the Ada card's overwhelming advantages in shading units, memory bandwidth, and FP32 throughput. Any OpenCL-based compute workload, whether it is physics simulation, image processing, or general GPU compute, will favor the Ada card by a wide margin.

The Ada card also wins on every architectural metric that matters for modern workloads. Its 48 GB of memory versus 24 GB means it can hold larger datasets and models in VRAM without spilling to system memory. Its 1:1 FP16 ratio opens up AI and machine learning workloads that the P6000 cannot meaningfully accelerate. Its RT and tensor cores enable ray-traced rendering and DLSS-style AI features that are simply unavailable on the Pascal card. Its PCIe 4.0 interface doubles the bandwidth to the host system for data transfer-heavy tasks.

The Quadro P6000's wins are narrower but still real. Its percentile ranking of 90 versus the Ada card's 85 indicates that its average benchmark score relative to the entire GPU database is higher. This is because the P6000's recorded benchmarks, Geekbench OpenCL and Vulkan, are both modern compute tests where it scores respectably. The Ada card's Passmark suite includes legacy DirectX tests, DirectX 9 at 335, DirectX 10 at 167, and DirectX 12 at 70, which are not comparable to the P6000's test set and artificially depress its average.

In terms of the database's nearest rival comparisons, the P6000 holds its own against the AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 (0.2% ahead) and the NVIDIA RTX A3000 Mobile (0.2% behind). The RTX 5880 Ada is similarly close to the NVIDIA RTX A2000 (0.2% ahead) and the Intel Arc A730M (0.8% ahead). This suggests that in the database's overall scoring, the P6000 is a stronger performer relative to its peers than the Ada card is relative to its peers. That said, the head-to-head OpenCL result is unambiguous: the Ada card dominates the P6000 in compute.

The Verdict

The data points to one clear conclusion for compute-heavy workstation workloads: the NVIDIA RTX 5880 Ada Generation is the superior card. Its 79.7% OpenCL advantage over the Quadro P6000 is not a marginal improvement, it is a generational leap. Combined with 48 GB of memory, 69.27 TFLOPS of FP32, dedicated RT and tensor cores, and PCIe 4.0, the Ada card is the choice for anyone running modern compute, AI, or rendering workloads.

The Quadro P6000 remains competitive only in the narrow sense of its percentile ranking. At 90, it sits above the Ada card's 85, and its average benchmark score of 69,986 is higher than the Ada card's 45,972. But this is a artifact of test suite composition, not a reflection of real-world performance. The P6000's two recorded tests, both Geekbench compute tests, reward its raw compute capabilities. The Ada card's Passmark scores, which include legacy DirectX tests, dilute its average. Any buyer choosing between these two cards today should weigh the OpenCL head-to-head result and the architectural advantages of the Ada card far more heavily than the average score percentile.

For legacy workstation tasks that rely on OpenGL or Vulkan, the P6000 is not obsolete. Its Vulkan score of 73,590 is respectable, and its 12.63 TFLOPS of FP32 is still useful for older simulation and rendering pipelines. But its 16 nm process, GDDR5X memory, and absence of RT and tensor cores place a hard ceiling on its useful lifespan. The RTX 5880 Ada is not just faster, it is future-proofed for workloads that did not exist when the P6000 launched. The P6000 remains a viable card for specific legacy use cases, but the RTX 5880 Ada is the correct choice for new deployments and compute-intensive work.

FAQ

Q: Which card is faster in OpenCL compute?

A: The NVIDIA RTX 5880 Ada Generation, scoring 326,898 versus 66,382 for the Quadro P6000, a 79.7% difference.

Q: How much memory does each card have?

A: The Quadro P6000 has 24 GB of GDDR5X, while the RTX 5880 Ada has 48 GB of GDDR6.

Q: Does the Quadro P6000 support ray tracing?

A: No. The P6000 has no RT cores. The RTX 5880 Ada has 110 RT cores.

Q: What is the FP16 performance difference?

A: The P6000 delivers 197.4 GFLOPS of FP16 (1:64 ratio), while the RTX 5880 Ada delivers 69.27 TFLOPS of FP16 (1:1 ratio).

Q: Which card has a higher percentile ranking in the database?

A: The Quadro P6000 ranks at the 90th percentile, while the RTX 5880 Ada ranks at the 85th percentile.

Q: What power connectors do the cards use?

A: The Quadro P6000 uses a single 8-pin connector with a 250 W TDP. The RTX 5880 Ada uses a single 16-pin connector with a 285 W TDP. Both recommend a 600 W power supply.

Specification Differences

| Specification | NVIDIA Quadro P6000 | NVIDIA RTX 5880 Ada Generation |

|---|---|---|

| Architecture | Pascal | Ada Lovelace |

| Process node | 16 nm | 5 nm |

| Transistors | 11,800 million | 76,300 million |

| Die size | 471 mm² | 609 mm² |

| Transistor density | 25.1M / mm² | 125.3M / mm² |

| Base clock | 1506 MHz | 975 MHz |

| Boost clock | 1645 MHz | 2460 MHz |

| Memory size | 24 GB | 48 GB |

| Memory type | GDDR5X | GDDR6 |

| Memory bandwidth | 432.8 GB/s | 864.0 GB/s |

| Effective memory clock | 9 Gbps | 18 Gbps |

| Shading units | 3840 | 14080 |

| TMUs | 240 | 440 |

| ROPs | 96 | 176 |

| RT cores | 0 | 110 |

| Tensor cores | 0 | 440 |

| FP32 performance | 12.63 TFLOPS | 69.27 TFLOPS |

| FP16 performance | 197.4 GFLOPS (1:64) | 69.27 TFLOPS (1:1) |

| Pixel rate | 157.9 GPixel/s | 433.0 GPixel/s |

| Texture rate | 394.8 GTexel/s | 1,082.4 GTexel/s |

| TDP | 250 W | 285 W |

| Power connector | 1x 8-pin | 1x 16-pin |

| Bus interface | PCIe 3.0 x16 | PCIe 4.0 x16 |

| DirectX support | 12 (12_1) | 12 Ultimate (12_2) |

| Production status | End-of-life | Active |

| Release date | 2016-09-30 | 2024-01-04 |