NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile vs NVIDIA Tesla M40 24 GB Comparison

# NVIDIA Tesla M40 24 GB vs NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile

The data presents a split decision between two very different NVIDIA professional GPUs. The Tesla M40 24 GB, a Maxwell-era compute card from late 2015, wins decisively in Vulkan workloads but trails in OpenCL. The RTX A500 Mobile, a 2022 Ampere laptop part, takes the OpenCL crown while lagging behind in Vulkan. Their average benchmark scores are close—41,707 for the M40 and 39,568 for the A500—translating to a narrow 5.1% gap that masks fundamentally different performance profiles.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX A500 Mobile dominates the OpenCL benchmark, scoring 41,263 against the Tesla M40's 37,439. That is a 9.3% advantage for the Ampere mobile part, and it aligns with the A500's modern architecture. The A500's nearest rivals in that score range include the AMD Radeon Pro 575 (39,555, 0% delta) and the AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 (40,063, -1.2% delta), placing it in solid mid-range workstation territory. The M40, by contrast, sits closer to the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti (41,187, 1.3% delta) and Radeon Pro 5300 (40,870, 2% delta) in its OpenCL results, but it is clearly behind the A500 in this specific test.

The Tesla M40 24 GB strikes back hard in Vulkan. Its score of 45,975 crushes the A500's 37,873, a 21.4% margin that is the single largest performance gap in this comparison. This is a remarkable result for a GPU built on Maxwell 2.0, a 2015 architecture that predates the Vulkan API itself. The M40's Vulkan performance places it in the 83rd percentile of all GPUs, while the A500 sits at the 82nd percentile—statistically adjacent despite the lopsided head-to-head Vulkan result. The M40's nearest rivals include the Tesla M40 (41,897, -0.5%), the Radeon RX 7650 GRE (42,723, -2.4%), and the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti (41,187, 1.3%), all of which trail the M40's Vulkan output.

The wins split evenly at one benchmark each, but the magnitudes differ. The A500's OpenCL victory is moderate at 9.3%, while the M40's Vulkan victory is overwhelming at 21.4%. For users prioritizing Vulkan compute or rendering workloads, the M40 is the clear choice. For OpenCL-centric tasks, the A500 holds the edge.

The Verdict

The data tells a clear story of generational tradeoffs. The RTX A500 Mobile is the better all-rounder for modern compute APIs, winning the OpenCL test that many professional applications still rely on. Its 6.296 TFLOPS FP32 throughput and 6.296 TFLOPS FP16 (1:1) capability give it flexibility that the M40 cannot match, since the Tesla M40 has no listed FP16 performance at all. The A500 also brings hardware ray tracing (16 RT cores) and tensor cores (64), features entirely absent from the M40's spec sheet.

However, the Tesla M40 24 GB is not obsolete. Its 21.4% Vulkan advantage is substantial, and its 24 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 384-bit bus provides 288.4 GB/s of bandwidth—three times the A500's 96.00 GB/s. For workloads that fit within the A500's 4 GB GDDR6 frame buffer, the newer card is competitive, but any task requiring large memory footprints will hit the A500's ceiling quickly. The M40's 96 ROPS and 192 TMUs also give it superior pixel and texture throughput (106.8 GPixel/s and 213.5 GTexel/s, respectively) compared to the A500's 49.18 GPixel/s and 98.37 GTexel/s.

Choose the RTX A500 Mobile for OpenCL workloads, FP16 compute, ray tracing, or any task where power efficiency matters—its 30 W TDP is a fraction of the M40's 250 W. Choose the Tesla M40 for Vulkan-heavy pipelines, large memory buffers, or pixel/texture-bound rendering. The M40's 83rd overall percentile versus the A500's 82nd percentile suggests they are peers in aggregate, but the workloads that matter to you will decide the winner.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The Geekbench OpenCL test shows the RTX A500 Mobile ahead with 41,263 points versus the M40's 37,439. The 9.3% delta is meaningful but not transformative. The A500 achieves this with a much smaller GPU—2048 shading units versus 3072 on the M40—but compensates with a higher boost clock of 1537 MHz versus the M40's 1112 MHz. The A500's Ampere architecture also benefits from a newer instruction set and better driver optimization for OpenCL. In context, the A500's score puts it just above the AMD Radeon Pro 575 (39,555, 0% delta) and slightly below the AMD Radeon Pro 580 (40,318, -1.9% delta), making it a competent mid-range OpenCL performer.

The Vulkan test flips the script entirely. The Tesla M40 scores 45,975, a 21.4% improvement over the A500's 37,873. This is a striking result because the M40's architecture predates Vulkan by a wide margin, yet it outperforms a modern Ampere part by a wide margin. The M40's Vulkan score exceeds its own nearest rival, the Radeon RX 7650 GRE (42,723, -2.4% delta), and even the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti (41,187, 1.3% delta). The A500, meanwhile, falls behind its OpenCL rivals in Vulkan, with a score that would place it below the AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 (40,063, -1.2% delta) if that comparison were made.

The delta between the two benchmarks is telling. The M40 improves by 22.8% from OpenCL to Vulkan (37,439 to 45,975), while the A500 drops by 8.2% (41,263 to 37,873). This suggests the M40's Maxwell architecture has exceptional Vulkan driver support or that its raw geometry and rasterization strengths translate well to Vulkan's lower-level API. The A500's Ampere design may prioritize compute-heavy APIs like OpenCL or CUDA, leaving Vulkan performance as a secondary concern.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA Tesla M40 24 GB has an average benchmark score of 41,707, compared to the RTX A500 Mobile's 39,568. That is a 5.1% advantage for the M40.

Q: How do the memory configurations differ?

A: The Tesla M40 has 24 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus with 288.4 GB/s bandwidth. The RTX A500 Mobile has 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 64-bit bus with 96.00 GB/s bandwidth. The M40 has six times the memory capacity and three times the bandwidth.

Q: Does the RTX A500 Mobile support ray tracing or tensor operations?

A: Yes. The A500 includes 16 RT cores and 64 tensor cores, which are part of the Ampere architecture. The Tesla M40, based on Maxwell 2.0, has no RT cores or tensor cores listed.

Q: What is the power consumption difference?

A: The Tesla M40 has a TDP of 250 W and requires an 8-pin EPS power connector with a suggested 600 W PSU. The RTX A500 Mobile has a TDP of 30 W, uses no power connectors, and is classified as an IGP (integrated GPU) form factor.

Q: Which GPU performs better in Vulkan?

A: The Tesla M40 wins Vulkan decisively with a score of 45,975 versus the A500's 37,873, a 21.4% margin. The M40's Vulkan performance places it in the 83rd percentile of all GPUs.

Q: Are these GPUs still in production?

A: No. Both are marked as end-of-life. The Tesla M40 was released on 2015-11-09 and the RTX A500 Mobile on 2022-03-21.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from entirely different eras of NVIDIA design. The Tesla M40 uses the GM200 chip built on TSMC's 28 nm process, while the RTX A500 Mobile uses the GA107S chip on Samsung's 8 nm node. The M40's die is massive at 601 mm² with 8,000 million transistors, yielding a transistor density of 13.3M per mm². The A500's die is just 200 mm² but packs 8,700 million transistors, giving it a density of 43.5M per mm²—over three times higher. This density advantage reflects the seven years of process improvement between the two releases.

The Maxwell 2.0 architecture in the M40 is a pure rasterization design. It has 3072 shading units, 192 TMUs, and 96 ROPS. The Ampere architecture in the A500 has fewer shading units (2048), TMUs (64), and ROPS (32), but adds 16 RT cores and 64 tensor cores for hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI inference. The M40 has no RT or tensor core support. The A500 also supports FP16 compute at a 1:1 ratio with FP32 (6.296 TFLOPS each), while the M40 has no listed FP16 performance.

Memory technology differs as well. The M40 uses GDDR5 at 6 Gbps effective across a 384-bit bus, achieving 288.4 GB/s. The A500 uses GDDR6 at 12 Gbps effective across a 64-bit bus, achieving only 96.00 GB/s. Clock speeds favor the A500, with a boost of 1537 MHz versus the M40's 1112 MHz, but the M40's wider memory bus and higher ROPS count give it superior pixel and texture rates: 106.8 GPixel/s and 213.5 GTexel/s versus the A500's 49.18 GPixel/s and 98.37 GTexel/s.

The interface and form factor differences are stark. The M40 is a dual-slot PCIe 3.0 x16 card, 267 mm long, with no display outputs—a true compute accelerator. The A500 is an IGP (integrated GPU) with PCIe 4.0 x8 and "Portable Device Dependent" display outputs, meaning it connects to displays through the host laptop. The M40 supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The A500 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), which includes features like mesh shaders and variable rate shading, plus the same OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4. Both are end-of-life products, with the M40 succeeding Tesla Kepler and preceding Tesla Pascal, while the A500 succeeds Quadro Turing-M and precedes Ada-MW.