NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 72 GB Blackwell vs NVIDIA T600 Comparison

The NVIDIA T600 and NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 72 GB Blackwell represent two extremes of the professional GPU spectrum. The T600 is a low-profile Turing-era workhorse, while the RTX PRO 5000 is a massive Blackwell compute monster. Benchmark data reveals a stark performance hierarchy, with the RTX PRO 5000 winning all seven head-to-head tests, yet the aggregate scores and percentile ranks tell a more complex story about their respective positions in the market.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The most decisive victory for the RTX PRO 5000 comes in the compute-heavy Passmark GPU Compute test, where it scores 15,667 against the T600's 2,402. This represents an 84.7% lead, the largest margin of any test in the comparison. This result underscores the massive FP32 throughput advantage of the Blackwell card, which delivers 66.94 TFLOPS compared to the T600's 1.709 TFLOPS.

In DirectX 12 performance, the gap narrows but remains significant. The RTX PRO 5000 scores 78 versus the T600's 25, a 67.9% deficit for the older card. This test shows that while the Blackwell card is dominant, the T600's Turing architecture still provides functional DirectX 12 support, albeit at a much lower performance tier. The DirectX 11 results follow a similar pattern, with the RTX PRO 5000 hitting 219 points compared to the T600's 49, a 77.6% difference.

The Passmark G3D score is perhaps the most telling aggregate metric for gaming-adjacent workloads. Here, the RTX PRO 5000 achieves 24,310 points against the T600's 6,479, a 73.3% advantage. This massive gap reflects the 14080 shading units and 440 texture mapping units of the Blackwell card versus the T600's 640 shading units and 40 TMUs. The T600's best relative performance comes in the DirectX 9 test, where it scores 114 against the RTX PRO 5000's 311, a 63.3% deficit — still a decisive loss, but the closest margin of any benchmark.

In 2D graphics, the RTX PRO 5000 leads with 914 points versus 756 for the T600, a 17.3% advantage. This is the smallest delta in the entire comparison, suggesting that 2D workloads are far less dependent on the raw compute resources that separate these two cards. The RTX PRO 5000 also dominates in the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test, achieving 9,579.5 points, though no comparable score exists for the T600 in the data.

The Verdict

The data unequivocally favors the RTX PRO 5000 72 GB Blackwell for any compute-intensive or modern graphics workload. Its 66.94 TFLOPS FP32 performance, 72 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 384-bit bus delivering 1.34 TB/s bandwidth, and support for DirectX 12 Ultimate make it the clear choice for professionals working with large datasets, ray tracing, or AI inference. The card's 110 RT cores and 440 tensor cores further cement its position for specialized workloads that the T600 cannot handle at all.

The T600, with its 4 GB of GDDR6 memory and 160.0 GB/s bandwidth, remains relevant only for basic display output, legacy software, or environments with extreme power constraints. Its 40 W TDP and single-slot form factor allow deployment in systems where the RTX PRO 5000's 300 W TDP and dual-slot footprint are impossible. The T600 also supports PCIe 3.0, which is sufficient for its modest bandwidth needs, while the RTX PRO 5000 requires PCIe 5.0 to fully utilize its capabilities.

The percentile rankings are counterintuitive: the T600 sits at the 39th percentile while the RTX PRO 5000 ranks lower at the 37th percentile. This reflects the average benchmark score calculation, where the T600's 7,035 average (driven by its strong Geekbench OpenCL score of 27,875) exceeds the RTX PRO 5000's 6,407 average. This anomaly occurs because the RTX PRO 5000's Passmark scores, while high in absolute terms, are weighed against a broader and more demanding test suite in the aggregate calculation.

Architecture Differences

The T600 is built on the Turing architecture using the TU117 chip, fabricated on a 12 nm process at TSMC. This chip contains 4,700 million transistors on a 200 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 23.5 million per square millimeter. Turing introduced hardware-accelerated ray tracing and mesh shading, though the T600 lacks dedicated RT cores and tensor cores entirely.

The RTX PRO 5000 employs the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with the GB202 chip, manufactured on a 5 nm process also at TSMC. This chip packs 92,200 million transistors onto a 750 mm² die, achieving a density of 122.9 million per square millimeter. Blackwell 2.0 is a major architectural leap, featuring 110 RT cores and 440 tensor cores, enabling hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI processing that the T600 cannot perform. The RTX PRO 5000 also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the T600 is limited to DirectX 12 (12_1).

The memory subsystems differ fundamentally. The T600 uses 4 GB of GDDR6 with a 128-bit bus, providing 160.0 GB/s bandwidth. The RTX PRO 5000 uses 72 GB of GDDR7 on a 384-bit bus, delivering 1.34 TB/s — an 8.4x increase in capacity and an 8.4x increase in bandwidth. The Blackwell card's memory clock runs at 1750 MHz with 28 Gbps effective speed, while the T600's memory runs at 1250 MHz with 10 Gbps effective speed.

Specification Differences

The two cards diverge across nearly every specification field. The T600 has a base clock of 735 MHz and a boost clock of 1335 MHz, while the RTX PRO 5000 operates at 1740 MHz base and 2377 MHz boost. The shading unit count jumps from 640 on the T600 to 14,080 on the RTX PRO 5000. Texture mapping units increase from 40 to 440, and ROPs from 32 to 160.

Pixel fill rate scales from 42.72 GPixel/s on the T600 to 380.3 GPixel/s on the RTX PRO 5000. Texture fill rate rises from 53.40 GTexel/s to 1,045.9 GTexel/s. FP16 performance on the T600 is 3.418 TFLOPS with a 2:1 ratio, while the RTX PRO 5000 achieves 66.94 TFLOPS with a 1:1 ratio, meaning it does not sacrifice FP32 throughput for half-precision work.

Power requirements differ dramatically: the T600 draws 40 W with no power connectors and a suggested 200 W PSU, while the RTX PRO 5000 draws 300 W via a single 16-pin connector and recommends a 700 W PSU. The T600 is single-slot, the RTX PRO 5000 dual-slot. Display outputs are 4x mini-DisplayPort 1.4a on the T600 versus 4x DisplayPort 2.1b on the RTX PRO 5000. The T600 uses PCIe 3.0 x16, the RTX PRO 5000 uses PCIe 5.0 x16. The T600 measures no listed dimensions, while the RTX PRO 5000 is 267 mm long, 111 mm high, and 40 mm wide. The T600 is end-of-life with a release date of April 2021; the RTX PRO 5000 is active with an October 2025 release.

FAQ

Q: Which card has better raw compute performance?

A: The NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 72 GB Blackwell dominates compute workloads, scoring 15,667 in Passmark GPU Compute versus 2,402 for the NVIDIA T600, an 84.7% lead. Its FP32 throughput of 66.94 TFLOPS versus 1.709 TFLOPS confirms this gap.

Q: How do the memory capacities compare?

A: The RTX PRO 5000 offers 72 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 384-bit bus with 1.34 TB/s bandwidth. The T600 provides 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus with 160.0 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: Which card supports ray tracing?

A: Only the RTX PRO 5000 has dedicated hardware for ray tracing, featuring 110 RT cores. The T600 has no RT cores or tensor cores, relying entirely on its 640 shading units for all rendering.

Q: What is the performance difference in DirectX 12?

A: The RTX PRO 5000 scores 78 in the Passmark DirectX 12 test, while the T600 scores 25, representing a 67.9% advantage for the Blackwell card. The RTX PRO 5000 also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) versus the T600's DirectX 12 (12_1).

Q: How do power requirements differ?

A: The T600 draws 40 W with no power connectors and requires a 200 W PSU. The RTX PRO 5000 draws 300 W, uses a single 16-pin connector, and recommends a 700 W PSU. This makes the T600 suitable for compact systems.

Q: Which card has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The T600 has a higher average benchmark score of 7,035 compared to the RTX PRO 5000's 6,407. This is driven by the T600's strong Geekbench OpenCL score of 27,875, despite the RTX PRO 5000 winning every head-to-head test.