NVIDIA RTX A2000 vs NVIDIA Tesla M40 24 GB Comparison

The NVIDIA RTX A2000 and NVIDIA Tesla M40 24 GB represent two very different generations of professional GPU design, separated by roughly six years of architectural evolution. The benchmark data places the RTX A2000 in the 85th percentile of all GPUs, while the Tesla M40 24 GB sits just behind at the 83rd percentile, but the performance gap between them is far from marginal. The RTX A2000 achieves an average benchmark score of 46,043, which is approximately 10.4% higher than the Tesla M40 24 GB’s 41,707, and the head-to-head results show a decisive sweep in favor of the newer card.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The head-to-head comparison consists of two compute-oriented tests, and the NVIDIA RTX A2000 wins both outright. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX A2000 posts a score of 67,695 against the Tesla M40 24 GB’s 37,439, creating a substantial 80.8% delta. This is not a marginal improvement; it is a near-doubling of raw compute throughput in a general-purpose workload. The result suggests that the architectural leap from Maxwell 2.0 to Ampere delivers far more than clock-speed gains—the RTX A2000’s FP32 rating of 7.987 TFLOPS versus the Tesla M40’s 6.832 TFLOPS only partially explains the gap, implying that efficiency per clock and feature-specific acceleration play a major role.

The second test, Geekbench Vulkan, shows a narrower but still decisive margin. The RTX A2000 scores 69,089, while the Tesla M40 24 GB manages 45,975, yielding a 50.3% advantage. Vulkan is a lower-level API that often exposes raw hardware capabilities more directly, so this result indicates that the RTX A2000’s newer architecture handles modern compute paradigms with significantly greater efficiency. The Tesla M40 24 GB does support Vulkan 1.4, matching the RTX A2000’s API version, but the underlying hardware clearly cannot keep pace. Across both benchmarks, the RTX A2000 wins 2–0, and the average delta of approximately 65.5% underscores that the Tesla M40 24 GB is outclassed in compute-heavy tasks.

Interestingly, the RTX A2000’s nearest rivals in the overall database—the NVIDIA RTX 5880 Ada Generation and Intel Arc A730M—have average scores within 1% of it, showing that the A2000 sits in a competitive mid-range compute tier. The Tesla M40 24 GB’s rivals, including the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and Radeon RX 7650 GRE, are also within roughly 2.4% of its average score, but this proximity does not change the fact that the two cards occupy different performance strata. The data implies that while both cards are in the 83rd–85th percentile range, the RTX A2000 does so with far less power and far more modern features.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX A2000 is the clear winner in every measured benchmark, but the real question is what each card is best suited for based on its strengths. The RTX A2000’s 80.8% lead in OpenCL suggests it excels at general-purpose compute tasks like physics simulations, data processing, and scientific workloads that rely on parallel floating-point operations. Its 7.987 TFLOPS FP32 throughput, combined with 3,328 shading units and 104 tensor cores, positions it for modern AI-adjacent tasks, even though tensor core performance is not directly benchmarked here. The 50.3% Vulkan win reinforces its capability in graphics-heavy applications that use modern APIs, where the RTX A2000’s support for DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and RT cores—26 of them—provides hardware acceleration that the Tesla M40 24 GB simply lacks.

The Tesla M40 24 GB, despite losing both benchmarks, has one overwhelming advantage: memory capacity. Its 24 GB of GDDR5 memory is four times the RTX A2000’s 6 GB, and both cards have nearly identical memory bandwidth (288.4 GB/s versus 288.0 GB/s). For workloads that require loading massive datasets into VRAM—such as large-scale rendering scenes, big-data analytics, or certain scientific visualizations—the Tesla M40 24 GB can hold far more data locally, avoiding PCIe transfers. The RTX A2000’s 6 GB is a severe constraint for such tasks, even if its compute speed is superior. Additionally, the Tesla M40 24 GB’s higher pixel rate (106.8 GPixel/s versus 57.60 GPixel/s) and texture rate (213.5 GTexel/s versus 124.8 GTexel/s) suggest it may still hold an edge in pure rasterization throughput, though no head-to-head benchmark directly tests this. The Tesla M40 24 GB’s 96 ROPs and 192 TMUs are double the RTX A2000’s counts, hinting at fill-rate dominance that could matter in specific legacy graphics pipelines.

Architecture Differences

The architectural divide between these two cards is fundamental. The RTX A2000 is built on the GA106 chip using Ampere architecture, fabricated on an 8 nm process by Samsung, while the Tesla M40 24 GB uses the GM200 chip with Maxwell 2.0 architecture on TSMC’s 28 nm node. The process node difference alone explains much of the efficiency gap: the RTX A2000 packs 12,000 million transistors into a 276 mm² die, achieving a transistor density of 43.5M per mm², whereas the Tesla M40 24 GB has 8,000 million transistors spread across a massive 601 mm² die, yielding just 13.3M per mm². This is a 3.3x density advantage for the RTX A2000, which directly translates to its 70 W TDP versus the Tesla M40 24 GB’s 250 W—a 72% reduction in power draw.

The RTX A2000 introduces hardware features that do not exist on the Tesla M40 24 GB. It has 26 RT cores for real-time ray tracing and 104 tensor cores for AI acceleration, both of which are entirely absent from the Maxwell-based card. The RTX A2000 also supports FP16 at a 1:1 ratio with FP32, delivering 7.987 TFLOPS in both precisions, while the Tesla M40 24 GB has no FP16 capability listed. The memory technologies differ as well: GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus for the RTX A2000 versus GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus for the Tesla M40 24 GB, yet both converge on approximately 288 GB/s bandwidth—a coincidence that highlights how newer memory standards achieve the same throughput with a narrower interface. The RTX A2000 also uses PCIe 4.0 x16, doubling the bandwidth of the Tesla M40 24 GB’s PCIe 3.0 x16, which matters for data transfer-bound workloads.

Specification Differences

The two cards diverge sharply on several key specifications beyond their architectures. The RTX A2000 has 3,328 shading units, 104 TMUs, and 48 ROPs, compared to the Tesla M40 24 GB’s 3,072 shading units, 192 TMUs, and 96 ROPs. While the RTX A2000 has more shading units, it has half the TMUs and ROPs, which explains its lower pixel and texture rates. The RTX A2000’s base clock is 562 MHz with a boost of 1200 MHz, whereas the Tesla M40 24 GB runs at 948 MHz base and 1112 MHz boost—the older card has a higher base clock but a lower boost ceiling. Memory capacity is the starkest difference: 6 GB on the RTX A2000 versus 24 GB on the Tesla M40 24 GB, with GDDR6 versus GDDR5 types. The RTX A2000 requires no power connectors and only a 250 W suggested PSU, while the Tesla M40 24 GB needs an 8-pin EPS connector and a 600 W PSU. Physically, the RTX A2000 is 167 mm long, while the Tesla M40 24 GB stretches to 267 mm. The RTX A2000 offers 4x mini-DisplayPort 1.4a outputs, whereas the Tesla M40 24 GB has no display outputs at all, making it strictly a compute-only accelerator. The RTX A2000 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, while the Tesla M40 24 GB is limited to DirectX 12 (12_1) but also supports Vulkan 1.4 and OpenGL 4.6 on both.

FAQ

Q: Which card has higher raw compute performance in FP32?

A: The NVIDIA RTX A2000 delivers 7.987 TFLOPS FP32, which is approximately 16.9% higher than the Tesla M40 24 GB’s 6.832 TFLOPS.

Q: Does the Tesla M40 24 GB support ray tracing or tensor cores?

A: No, the Tesla M40 24 GB has no RT cores or tensor cores listed. The RTX A2000 includes 26 RT cores and 104 tensor cores.

Q: How do the memory capacities compare, and does that affect performance?

A: The Tesla M40 24 GB has 24 GB of GDDR5, four times the RTX A2000’s 6 GB of GDDR6, but both have nearly identical bandwidth at approximately 288 GB/s.

Q: Which card is more power-efficient based on the data?

A: The RTX A2000 has a 70 W TDP and requires no power connectors, while the Tesla M40 24 GB has a 250 W TDP and needs an 8-pin EPS connector. The RTX A2000 also suggests a 250 W PSU versus 600 W for the Tesla M40 24 GB.

Q: Can the Tesla M40 24 GB output to displays?

A: No, it has no display outputs. The RTX A2000 provides 4x mini-DisplayPort 1.4a connections.

Q: What is the average benchmark score difference between the two?

A: The RTX A2000 averages 46,043, which is about 10.4% higher than the Tesla M40 24 GB’s 41,707, despite the Tesla M40’s larger memory.

The Verdict

The data leads to a clear split recommendation. For compute-heavy workloads that fit within 6 GB of memory, the NVIDIA RTX A2000 is overwhelmingly superior, offering an 80.8% lead in OpenCL and a 50.3% lead in Vulkan, while consuming 72% less power and adding modern features like RT and tensor cores. Its 85th percentile ranking versus the Tesla M40 24 GB’s 83rd percentile confirms its overall standing. The RTX A2000 also has a launch MSRP of 449 USD, making it a plausible choice for a professional workstation needing display outputs and PCIe 4.0 connectivity.

However, the Tesla M40 24 GB retains a singular advantage: its 24 GB memory capacity. For workloads that require holding massive datasets in VRAM—beyond 6 GB—the Tesla M40 24 GB is the only option here, despite its slower compute and lack of display outputs. Its higher pixel and texture rates (106.8 GPixel/s and 213.5 GTexel/s versus the RTX A2000’s 57.60 GPixel/s and 124.8 GTexel/s) also suggest it could excel in fill-rate-limited scenarios, though no head-to-head test confirms this. The Tesla M40 24 GB’s 83rd percentile ranking, while lower, is respectable, and its 8,000 million transistors on a 601 mm² die show it was a high-end part in its era. Ultimately, the RTX A2000 is the better all-around card for nearly every measured task, but the Tesla M40 24 GB is the pragmatic pick for memory-hungry applications where 6 GB is a hard bottleneck. There is no universal winner—the choice hinges on whether compute speed or memory capacity is the binding constraint.