NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q vs NVIDIA Tesla M10 Comparison

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q and the NVIDIA Tesla M10 occupy entirely different corners of the GPU landscape, and the benchmark data reflects that split. The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q is recorded with a single benchmark entry: 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, scoring 11088. That places it at the 50th percentile among all GPUs in the database, with its closest rival, the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000D Blackwell Max-Q, matching its score exactly at a 0% delta. The Tesla M10, by contrast, has no entry in that same DirectX 12 test. Its recorded results come from Geekbench OpenCL (10318) and Geekbench Vulkan (9130), with an average benchmark score of 9724 and a 47th percentile ranking.

The use-case split is stark. The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q is built for modern, graphics-heavy workloads that stress the latest DirectX 12 feature set. The Steel Nomad test is a demanding, compute-oriented benchmark that targets advanced rendering pipelines, and this card delivers a strong showing there. The Tesla M10, meanwhile, appears in the database primarily through compute and API-agnostic tests like OpenCL and Vulkan. Its design philosophy is different: it is a server-oriented accelerator with no display outputs, which means it was never intended for interactive rendering or workstation visualization. The data implies that the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q wins where real-time graphics and high-end visualization matter, while the Tesla M10 holds its own in raw compute throughput contexts, even if its absolute scores are far lower.

Another way to read the wins is through the percentile ranks. The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q sits at the 50th percentile, meaning half of all GPUs in the database score lower, while the Tesla M10 sits at the 47th percentile. That is a narrow gap in percentile terms, but the benchmark types differ so much that a direct comparison is misleading. The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q is clearly the winner in any scenario that involves modern graphics APIs, given its Steel Nomad result and its massive architectural resources. The Tesla M10 wins in legacy or compute-oriented deployments where its lower power draw and server form factor may be more relevant, though its scores are not competitive in absolute terms.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from different eras and different design philosophies. The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q uses the GB202 chip, built on a 5 nm process at TSMC, with 92,200 million transistors on a 750 mm² die. That works out to a transistor density of 122.9 million per square millimeter. The Tesla M10 uses the GM107 chip, built on a 28 nm process, also at TSMC, with 1,870 million transistors on a 148 mm² die, for a density of just 12.6 million per square millimeter. The generational leap is enormous: the Blackwell chip packs roughly 49 times more transistors into a die that is five times larger, and the process node shrink is the primary enabler.

Architecturally, the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q is based on Blackwell 2.0, part of the Blackwell PRO W (x000) generation. It includes 188 ray tracing cores and 752 tensor cores, features that the Tesla M10 completely lacks. The Tesla M10 is based on Maxwell, a much older architecture from the Tesla Maxwell (Mxx) generation. It has no ray tracing cores and no tensor cores. This is a fundamental capability gap: the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q can accelerate ray-traced rendering and AI workloads directly on hardware, while the Tesla M10 cannot.

The memory architectures also differ drastically. The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q uses 96 GB of GDDR7 on a 512-bit bus, with a bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s. The Tesla M10 uses 8 GB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus, with a bandwidth of 83.20 GB/s. That is a 21.5-fold difference in bandwidth, which directly impacts any memory-intensive workload. The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q also supports PCIe 5.0 x16, whereas the Tesla M10 uses PCIe 3.0 x16, halving the potential host interface bandwidth.

Power and cooling also differ. The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q has a 300 W TDP and uses a single 16-pin power connector, with a suggested 700 W PSU. The Tesla M10 has a 225 W TDP and uses a single 8-pin connector, with a suggested 550 W PSU. Both are dual-slot cards, and both share the same 267 mm length. The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q has 4 DisplayPort 2.1b outputs, while the Tesla M10 has no display outputs at all. That alone tells you the Tesla M10 is meant for headless compute servers, not workstations.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database records no direct head-to-head benchmark results between these two cards. The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q has a single 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 11088. The Tesla M10 has two Geekbench scores: 10318 in OpenCL and 9130 in Vulkan. There is no overlap in test types, so a direct numerical comparison is impossible. However, the nearest rival data provides context for each card individually.

For the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q, the nearest rival is the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000D Blackwell Max-Q, which scores exactly 11088, a 0% delta. That suggests the two cards are functionally identical in this test. The AMD Radeon RX 550 scores 11075, a 0.1% delta, meaning the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q is effectively tied with that entry-level card in Steel Nomad, which is surprising given the massive architectural differences. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER scores 11047, a 0.4% delta, so the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q is 0.4% faster. The AMD FirePro W4300 scores 11225, which is 1.2% higher, making it the only rival that beats the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q in this test.

For the Tesla M10, the nearest rival is the NVIDIA Tesla C2070, which scores 9716, a 0.1% delta, meaning the Tesla M10 is 0.1% faster. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 scores 9780, which is 0.6% higher, so the GTX 1070 beats the Tesla M10 by that margin. The NVIDIA Quadro P4000 scores 9665, a 0.6% delta, meaning the Tesla M10 is 0.6% faster. The AMD Radeon Pro WX 2100 scores 9653, a 0.7% delta, so the Tesla M10 is 0.7% faster there.

The biggest wins each way, based on the recorded data, are the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q's 0.4% margin over the GTX 1650 SUPER and its 0.1% margin over the Radeon RX 550, while the Tesla M10's biggest win is its 0.7% margin over the Radeon Pro WX 2100. These are narrow margins, and they suggest that in the specific tests recorded, both cards are clustered tightly with their immediate rivals. The real story is not the delta between these two cards, but the fact that they never meet in the same benchmark arena.

Specification Differences

The following fields differ between the two cards:

• Chip: GB202 (RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q) versus GM107 (Tesla M10)
• Architecture: Blackwell 2.0 versus Maxwell
• Generation: Blackwell PRO W (x000) versus Tesla Maxwell (Mxx)
• Process node: 5 nm versus 28 nm
• Transistors: 92,200 million versus 1,870 million
• Die size: 750 mm² versus 148 mm²
• Transistor density: 122.9M / mm² versus 12.6M / mm²
• Base clock: 1035 MHz versus 1033 MHz
• Boost clock: 2280 MHz versus 1306 MHz
• Memory clock: 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective) versus 1300 MHz (5.2 Gbps effective)
• Memory size: 96 GB versus 8 GB
• Memory type: GDDR7 versus GDDR5
• Memory bus width: 512 bit versus 128 bit
• Memory bandwidth: 1.79 TB/s versus 83.20 GB/s
• Shading units: 24064 versus 640
• TMUs: 752 versus 40
• ROPs: 192 versus 16
• RT cores: 188 versus null (none)
• Tensor cores: 752 versus null (none)
• Pixel rate: 437.8 GPixel/s versus 20.90 GPixel/s
• Texture rate: 1,714.6 GTexel/s versus 52.24 GTexel/s
• FP32: 109.7 TFLOPS versus 1.672 TFLOPS
• FP16: 109.7 TFLOPS (1:1) versus null (not supported)
• TDP: 300 W versus 225 W
• Power connectors: 1x 16-pin versus 1x 8-pin
• Suggested PSU: 700 W versus 550 W
• Bus interface: PCIe 5.0 x16 versus PCIe 3.0 x16
• Display outputs: 4x DisplayPort 2.1b versus No outputs
• DirectX version: 12 Ultimate (12_2) versus 12 (11_0)
• Dimensions height: 111 mm versus null (not recorded)
• Dimensions width: 40 mm versus null (not recorded)
• Production status: Active versus End-of-life
• Release date: 2025-03-17 versus 2016-05-17
• Predecessor: Workstation Ada versus Tesla Kepler
• Successor: null versus Tesla Pascal
• Launch MSRP: 8,565 USD versus null

FAQ

Q: Which card supports ray tracing?

A: Only the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q. It has 188 ray tracing cores. The Tesla M10 has no ray tracing cores listed in the database.

Q: Which card has more memory bandwidth?

A: The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q has 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth, while the Tesla M10 has 83.20 GB/s. That is a 21.5-fold difference.

Q: Can the Tesla M10 output to a display?

A: No. The Tesla M10 has no display outputs, while the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q has 4x DisplayPort 2.1b outputs.

Q: What is the FP32 performance difference?

A: The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q delivers 109.7 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, while the Tesla M10 delivers 1.672 TFLOPS. The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q is roughly 65 times faster in raw FP32.

Q: Which card is newer?

A: The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q was released on 2025-03-17 and is marked as Active. The Tesla M10 was released on 2016-05-17 and is marked as End-of-life.

Q: Do both cards support Vulkan?

A: Yes, both list Vulkan 1.4 support in the database. However, the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the Tesla M10 only supports DirectX 12 (11_0).

The Verdict

The data points to a clear conclusion: the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q is the superior GPU by nearly every measurable specification. It has more shading units, more memory, faster memory, higher clock speeds, ray tracing, tensor cores, and a more modern process node. Its FP32 throughput of 109.7 TFLOPS dwarfs the Tesla M10's 1.672 TFLOPS. Its memory bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s is over 21 times higher. Its pixel rate is 437.8 GPixel/s versus 20.90 GPixel/s. There is no benchmark overlap in the database, but the architectural advantages are so large that the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q would be expected to win any shared test by a wide margin.

The Tesla M10, however, is not without a purpose. It is an end-of-life, headless server accelerator from 2016, built for compute tasks that do not require display output. Its lower TDP of 225 W and its 8-pin power connector may fit into older server infrastructure with limited power budgets. Its nearest rivals in the database, such as the Tesla C2070 and the Quadro P4000, are all within a 0.7% delta, which suggests it remains competitive within its own generation. But it cannot run modern ray-traced workloads, it lacks tensor cores, and its DirectX support is limited to 12 (11_0), not 12 Ultimate.

Who should pick which? The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q is the obvious choice for anyone building a high-end workstation or visualization system in 2025. It is active in production, supports the latest APIs, and has the compute resources to handle AI, ray tracing, and massive memory requirements. The Tesla M10 is only relevant for legacy server deployments where the hardware is already in place and the workloads are fixed to older compute patterns. For any new purchase, the recorded data strongly favors the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q.