NVIDIA RTX A2000 vs NVIDIA Tesla P40 Comparison

The database pits two very different NVIDIA accelerators against each other: the Tesla P40, a Pascal-era compute card with 24 GB of memory and a 250 W board rating, and the RTX A2000, a compact Ampere workstation card drawing just 70 W with no auxiliary power connector. Both are end-of-life products, both carry dual-slot coolers, and both record results in the same performance neighborhood in the Geekbench compute suites. The recorded data shows the A2000 winning both shared head-to-head tests, while the P40 counters with substantially larger raw specifications and a much higher percentile ranking against the full GPU database.

The Verdict

The data supports a clear split. The RTX A2000 sweeps the shared benchmarks: geekbench_opencl at 67,695 versus 62,017 (8.4% ahead) and geekbench_vulkan at 69,089 versus 68,172 (1.3% ahead). If the decision rests on measured compute throughput per the recorded tests, the A2000 is the stronger card, and it does so at 70 W versus 250 W, with no power connector required and a suggested PSU of only 250 W against the P40's 600 W.

The P40's case rests on capacity and classification. Its 24 GB of GDDR5 across a 384-bit bus with 347.1 GB/s of bandwidth dwarfs the A2000's 6 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus at 288.0 GB/s. It also ranks in the 89th percentile versus all GPUs in the database, ahead of the A2000's 85th percentile, and its average benchmark score of 65,095 exceeds the A2000's 46,043. Workloads that fit inside 6 GB of memory and favor modern architecture should go to the A2000. Workloads that need the memory headroom, or that fall on the P40's side of the percentile-ranked database, favor the P40.

Physical constraints matter here too. The A2000 measures 167 mm long and 69 mm tall, against the P40's 267 mm and 111 mm, and offers four mini-DisplayPort 1.4a outputs where the P40 has none. The P40 is a headless accelerator, full stop.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX A2000 wins on:

• Measured compute in the shared tests. Both geekbench_opencl and geekbench_vulkan go its way, 2-0 in the head-to-head records.
• Efficiency. Equal-or-better scores at roughly a quarter of the board power, drawing from the slot alone with no 8-pin EPS connector.
• Modern fixed-function hardware. It carries 26 RT cores and 104 tensor cores, both absent on the P40. Its fp16 throughput is 7.987 TFLOPS at a full 1:1 ratio with fp32; the P40's fp16 limps along at 183.7 GFLOPS, a punitive 1:64 ratio. That gap, roughly forty times in the A2000's favor, defines mixed-precision workloads.
• Feature level and I/O. DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) support versus 12_1, PCIe 4.0 x16 versus PCIe 3.0 x16, and actual display outputs.
• Form factor. A 167 mm card fits where a 267 mm card simply cannot.

The Tesla P40 wins on:

• Memory capacity. 24 GB versus 6 GB, a 4x advantage that no benchmark score can compensate for when a dataset exceeds the A2000's footprint.
• Bandwidth. 347.1 GB/s versus 288.0 GB/s.
• Raw raster and texturing machinery: 147.0 GPixel/s versus 57.60 GPixel/s pixel rate, 367.4 GTexel/s versus 124.8 GTexel/s, 96 ROPs versus 48, and 240 TMUs versus 104.
• fp32 compute on paper: 11.76 TFLOPS versus 7.987 TFLOPS.
• Database standing: the 89th percentile versus 85th, and the higher average benchmark score, 65,095 to 46,043.

Architecture Differences

These cards sit five years and three product generations apart in intent. The Tesla P40 uses the GP102 die on TSMC's 16 nm process, packing 11,800 million transistors into a 471 mm² die, a density of 25.1M per mm². It belongs to the Tesla Pascal generation, successor to Tesla Maxwell and predecessor to Tesla Volta, and it launched on 2016-09-12 at a launch MSRP of 5,699 USD. The RTX A2000 uses the GA106 die on Samsung's 8 nm node, with 12,000 million transistors in 276 mm², a notably higher density of 43.5M per mm². It belongs to the Workstation Ampere generation, successor to Quadro Turing and predecessor to Workstation Ada, and launched 2021-08-09 with a launch MSRP of 449 USD.

The core-count contrast is stark and, in the A2000's favor at the silicon level, misleading in the P40's favor on paper. The P40 fields 3840 shading units, 240 TMUs, and 96 ROPs, but no RT or tensor cores. The A2000 fields 3328 shading units, 104 TMUs, 48 ROPs, 26 RT cores, and 104 tensor cores. Clocking reflects the era gap: the P40 runs a 1303 MHz base and 1531 MHz boost, while the A2000 runs a low 562 MHz base with a 1200 MHz boost. Memory differs in kind as well: GDDR5 at 1808 MHz (7.2 Gbps effective) for the P40, GDDR6 at 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective) for the A2000.

The precision story is the sharpest architectural divide. Both peak at their stated fp32 figures, 11.76 TFLOPS for the P40 and 7.987 TFLOPS for the A2000, but fp16 collapses the P40 to 183.7 GFLOPS while the A2000 holds its full 7.987 TFLOPS. For any workload using half precision, the A2000's silicon is in a different class. API support otherwise overlaps: both report OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4, with the DirectX split noted above.

FAQ

**Q: Which card is faster in the recorded benchmarks?

** A: The RTX A2000, by a sweep. It wins geekbench_opencl 67,695 to 62,017 (8.4%) and geekbench_vulkan 69,089 to 68,172 (1.3%). The head-to-head record is 2-0 in its favor.

**Q: Which card has more memory?

** A: The Tesla P40, by a wide margin: 24 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus with 347.1 GB/s bandwidth, versus 6 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus at 288.0 GB/s.

**Q: How do their power requirements differ?

** A: The P40 is rated at 250 W, requires an 8-pin EPS connector, and carries a 600 W suggested PSU. The A2000 is rated at 70 W, needs no power connector, and pairs with a 250 W suggested PSU.

**Q: Which card ranks higher against the full GPU database?

** A: The P40, at the 89th percentile versus the A2000's 85th, with an average benchmark score of 65,095 versus 46,043. Notably, the A2000's average is dragged down by its 3DMark Steel Nomad result of 1345, a test in which the P40 has no recorded entry.

**Q: Can either card drive displays?

** A: Only the RTX A2000. It offers four mini-DisplayPort 1.4a outputs. The Tesla P40 has no display outputs at all.

**Q: How do they compare to their nearest rivals in the database?

** A: The P40 sits essentially level with the AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100 (64212, 1.4% apart), AMD Radeon VII (66004, -1.4%), NVIDIA CMP 30HX (63842, 2%), and AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT LP (63830, 2%). The A2000 is similarly bracketed by the RTX 5880 Ada (45972, 0.2%), Arc A730M (45592, 1%), Radeon RX 5600M (46601, -1.2%), and Arc A530M (46614, -1.2%). Both occupy tight clusters.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

Only two tests appear in both cards' records, and both go to the A2000.

Geekbench OpenCL: 67,695 vs 62,017. The A2000 takes this by 8.4%. The margin is meaningful given the P40's on-paper advantages in shading units, fp32 TFLOPS, and bandwidth. The recorded data indicates that the Ampere architecture's per-unit throughput and the A2000's tensor cores more than offset the P40's raw hardware counts in this compute test. An 8.4% gap at one-quarter the power draw is the single most telling result in the comparison.

Geekbench Vulkan: 69,089 vs 68,172. A 1.3% win for the A2000, effectively a tie. Here the P40's larger memory subsystem and shading resources nearly erase the architectural gap. For Vulkan-based compute, the data shows these two as equals within measurement noise.

The broader database context sharpens the picture. The P40's average score of 65,095 places it within 2% of the Radeon Pro WX 9100, Radeon VII, CMP 30HX, and RX 9060 XT LP, a crowded cluster of mid-range performers. The A2000's 46,043 average places it within 1.2% of the RTX 5880 Ada, Arc A730M, Radeon RX 5600M, and Arc A530M. That the A2000's average sits well below the P40's despite winning both shared tests traces directly to its 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 1345, a graphics workload where its 48 ROPs, 124.8 GTexel/s texture rate, and 6 GB framebuffer limit it against the P40's 96 ROPs, 367.4 GTexel/s, and 24 GB.

The synthesis is straightforward. In the measured compute tests, the A2000 wins at both precision-rich and general OpenCL/Vulkan workloads while consuming 70 W to the P40's 250 W. In rasterization throughput, memory capacity, and database percentile standing, the P40 leads on every recorded specification. Choose the A2000 for efficient modern compute in a compact chassis with display output. Choose the P40 when the dataset needs 24 GB and the chassis, cooling, and 600 W PSU are already in place.