NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell vs NVIDIA Tesla M60 Comparison

NVIDIA’s RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell and the Tesla M60 represent two distant generations of professional GPU design, separated by nearly a decade of architectural evolution. The benchmark data available for direct comparison is sparse, but it is decisive: the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell holds a commanding lead in the one shared test, while the Tesla M60’s profile shows a card built for a different era of compute workloads.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only directly comparable benchmark between these two cards is the Geekbench Vulkan test, and the results are lopsided. The RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell scores 221,768 points, while the Tesla M60 manages 31,473 points. This translates to a 604.6% advantage for the newer Blackwell card, a margin that underscores the generational leap in graphics processing capability. In practical terms, the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell delivers over seven times the Vulkan compute performance of the Tesla M60, making the older card largely obsolete for modern graphics-accelerated workloads.

Looking beyond the head-to-head, the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell’s broader benchmark suite shows a GPU that performs at a high level across multiple APIs. Its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score is 7,025, while its Passmark G3D score reaches 33,360 and its Passmark GPU Compute score is 19,255. These figures place it in the 76th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 31,532. The Tesla M60, by contrast, only has two recorded benchmarks beyond the Vulkan test — a Geekbench OpenCL score of 29,506 and the aforementioned Vulkan result — giving it a 75th percentile ranking and an average score of 30,490. This puts the Tesla M60 within striking distance of the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell in average score, but that is misleading; the M60’s average is based on a tiny sample set, and its Vulkan showing is dramatically weaker.

The nearest rival data reinforces the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell’s position. Its average score of 31,532 places it 0.5% behind the NVIDIA TITAN RTX (31,676) and 1.1% behind the Intel Arc Pro A30M (31,894), while edging out the NVIDIA GRID M60-1Q (31,220) by 1% and the NVIDIA Quadro M5000 (31,206) by 1%. These are tight margins, suggesting the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell sits in a competitive mid-to-high tier among its contemporaries. The Tesla M60, meanwhile, trades blows with the NVIDIA CMP 70HX (30,476, 0% delta), AMD Radeon RX 6700 (30,433, 0.2% ahead), AMD Radeon RX 6800 (30,095, 1.3% ahead), and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti (29,945, 1.8% ahead). The M60’s average is actually higher than several of these rivals, but again, this is based on limited data and does not reflect its poor Vulkan performance.

The Verdict

The data paints a clear picture for buyers. The RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell is the only sensible choice for any modern workload that leverages Vulkan or DirectX 12 Ultimate. Its 604.6% lead over the Tesla M60 in the shared benchmark is not a marginal improvement; it is a categorical shift in capability. The Blackwell card’s 76th percentile ranking, combined with its top-tier scores in Passmark G3D and GPU Compute, indicates a GPU that can handle contemporary professional tasks with authority.

The Tesla M60, by contrast, is an end-of-life product. Its production status is listed as "End-of-life," and its architecture lacks the hardware features required for modern ray tracing or tensor-based workloads. Its average benchmark score of 30,490 is competitive with mid-range GPUs from its era, but its Vulkan performance is a fraction of the Blackwell card’s. For anyone considering the Tesla M60 today, the data suggests it is only viable for legacy compute tasks that do not require modern graphics APIs or the processing power of current-generation hardware.

The verdict is straightforward: the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell is the superior card by every measurable metric. The Tesla M60’s sole advantage is its lower power draw relative to its performance class, but that is a cold comfort when the performance gap is this vast.

Architecture Differences

The architectural divide between these two GPUs is vast. The RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell is built on the GB203 chip using a 5 nm process at TSMC, packing 45,600 million transistors into a 378 mm² die. This yields a transistor density of 120.6 million per square millimeter. The Tesla M60, in contrast, uses the GM204 chip on a 28 nm process, also at TSMC, with just 5,200 million transistors on a larger 398 mm² die. Its transistor density is a meager 13.1 million per square millimeter. The Blackwell chip achieves roughly nine times the transistor count in a smaller physical area, proof of the manufacturing advances.

Core configurations differ enormously. The RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell features 10,496 shading units, 328 texture mapping units, and 112 render output units. It also includes 82 ray tracing cores and 328 tensor cores, enabling hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI inference. The Tesla M60 has 2,048 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, with no ray tracing or tensor cores present. The Blackwell card’s compute throughput is rated at 50.53 TFLOPS for FP32, while the Tesla M60 manages 4.825 TFLOPS — a tenfold difference in raw floating-point performance.

Memory subsystems are equally divergent. The RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell comes with 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 896.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The Tesla M60 offers 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on the same 256-bit bus, but bandwidth is just 160.4 GB/s. Clock speeds also favor the newer card: the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell boosts to 2407 MHz, while the Tesla M60 boosts to 1178 MHz. The Blackwell card’s memory runs at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective), versus 1253 MHz (5 Gbps effective) on the M60.

Feature support highlights the generational leap. The RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, and includes four DisplayPort 2.1b outputs. The Tesla M60 maxes out at DirectX 12 (12_1), with the same OpenGL and Vulkan versions, but has no display outputs whatsoever — it is a compute-only accelerator. The Blackwell card also uses a PCIe 5.0 x16 interface, while the M60 is limited to PCIe 3.0 x16. Power requirements differ too: the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell has a 200 W TDP with a single 16-pin connector and a suggested 550 W PSU, whereas the Tesla M60 draws 300 W via an 8-pin connector and requires a 700 W PSU.

FAQ

Q: Is the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell faster than the Tesla M60 in Vulkan?

A: Yes. In the Geekbench Vulkan test, the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell scores 221,768 versus the Tesla M60’s 31,473, a 604.6% advantage.

Q: Can the Tesla M60 handle ray tracing workloads?

A: No. The Tesla M60 has no ray tracing cores, while the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell includes 82 dedicated ray tracing cores.

Q: Which card has more memory bandwidth?

A: The RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell, with 896.0 GB/s from 32 GB of GDDR7 memory. The Tesla M60 offers 160.4 GB/s from 8 GB of GDDR5.

Q: Is the Tesla M60 still in production?

A: No. The Tesla M60 is listed as "End-of-life," while the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell has an "Active" production status.

Q: Do both cards support the same DirectX version?

A: No. The RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the Tesla M60 is limited to DirectX 12 (12_1).

Q: Which card has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell has an average benchmark score of 31,532, versus 30,490 for the Tesla M60. The RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell also ranks in the 76th percentile of all GPUs, compared to the M60’s 75th percentile.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell wins in every measurable performance category. It dominates in Vulkan compute, with a 604.6% lead in the shared benchmark. Its 50.53 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 789.5 GTexel/s texture rate dwarf the Tesla M60’s 4.825 TFLOPS and 150.8 GTexel/s. The Blackwell card also offers 32 GB of memory versus 8 GB, higher bandwidth, and support for modern APIs like DirectX 12 Ultimate. Its 82 ray tracing cores and 328 tensor cores open up workloads that the Tesla M60 cannot physically execute. For display purposes, the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell’s four DisplayPort 2.1b outputs make it suitable for visualization, whereas the Tesla M60 has no outputs.

The Tesla M60’s only wins are narrow and practical. It has a lower TDP than the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell? No — actually, the M60 has a higher TDP at 300 W versus 200 W. Its single 8-pin power connector may be more compatible with older power supplies, but its suggested 700 W PSU requirement exceeds the Blackwell card’s 550 W suggestion. The M60’s transistor density is far lower, which historically may have implied simpler cooling requirements, but its 300 W TDP negates that. The only true advantage the Tesla M60 holds is its 75th percentile ranking, which is practically tied with the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell’s 76th percentile, and its average score is only 3.3% lower — but this is based on a far smaller benchmark sample. In essence, the Tesla M60 is a legacy compute card that retains some relevance for older, non-graphics workloads, but the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell is the superior choice for everything modern.