NVIDIA Tesla C2075 vs NVIDIA Tesla M10 Comparison

The NVIDIA Tesla C2075 and NVIDIA Tesla M10 are both end-of-life workstation accelerators from NVIDIA, but they represent very different generations of GPU design. The data shows the C2075, a Fermi 2.0 part from 2011, edges out the newer Maxwell-based M10 in the primary compute benchmark, yet the M10 brings architectural efficiencies and a higher feature set that make it the more balanced choice for modern workloads. This analysis is based solely on the provided benchmark and specification data.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only direct comparison available is the Geekbench OpenCL test, where the Tesla C2075 scores 10,400 points against the Tesla M10’s 10,318 points. That gives the C2075 a narrow 0.8% victory, a margin so slim it is effectively a tie in real-world terms. The C2075’s win is notable because it achieves this with a significantly older architecture and lower raw clock speeds, relying instead on its wider memory bus and higher shading-unit count to push through the workload.

However, the M10 has a second benchmark result that the C2075 lacks: a Geekbench Vulkan score of 9,130 points. While no direct head-to-head exists for Vulkan, the presence of this score indicates the M10 supports a modern graphics API that the C2075 cannot run, as the C2075 lists no Vulkan support in its specifications. This is a qualitative advantage that cannot be quantified in a direct comparison but matters for application compatibility.

Looking at the broader context, the C2075’s OpenCL score places it in the 48th percentile of all GPUs, while the M10’s average score across its two benchmarks puts it in the 47th percentile. The C2075’s nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6500M (10,362 points, 0.4% faster) and the AMD Radeon RX 550X (10,481 points, 0.8% faster), showing that the C2075 sits in a very tight performance cluster. The M10’s nearest rivals include the NVIDIA Tesla C2070 (9,716 points, 0.1% slower) and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (9,780 points, 0.6% slower), indicating the M10’s average score is dragged down by its Vulkan result, which is lower than its OpenCL result.

The data suggests that in pure OpenCL compute, the C2075 holds a marginal edge, but the M10’s additional Vulkan capability makes it a more versatile processor. The 0.8% delta is well within the noise of typical benchmark variance, so neither card can claim a decisive performance win in this test.

The Verdict

Choose the Tesla C2075 if your priority is maximizing OpenCL compute throughput on legacy software that predates Vulkan. Its 6 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 384-bit bus delivers 150.3 GB/s of bandwidth, which is 80% higher than the M10’s 83.20 GB/s. This bandwidth advantage is critical for memory-bound compute tasks, and the C2075’s 448 shading units, while fewer than the M10’s 640, are backed by a wider memory path that can feed them more effectively.

Choose the Tesla M10 if you need broader API support and a more efficient architecture. The M10’s Maxwell design is built on a 28 nm process versus the C2075’s 40 nm node, and it supports Vulkan 1.4, which the C2075 does not. The M10 also has a higher pixel rate (20.90 GPixel/s vs 16.07 GPixel/s) and texture rate (52.24 GTexel/s vs 32.14 GTexel/s), making it faster for rasterization-style workloads despite losing the OpenCL benchmark by a hair.

The verdict from the data is clear: the C2075 wins the only direct benchmark, but the M10 wins on feature completeness and architectural efficiency. If you are locked into OpenCL-only pipelines, the C2075 is the safer bet. If you need Vulkan support or plan to run a mix of compute and graphics tasks, the M10 is the better long-term investment.

Where Each One Wins

The C2075 wins in raw memory bandwidth scenarios. Its 384-bit bus and 150.3 GB/s bandwidth are unmatched by the M10’s 128-bit bus and 83.20 GB/s, making it the superior choice for large dataset transfers and memory-intensive compute kernels. The C2075 also has a higher transistor count (3,000 million vs 1,870 million) and a larger die size (520 mm² vs 148 mm²), which historically correlates with more complex compute pipelines.

The M10 wins in pixel and texture throughput. Its pixel rate of 20.90 GPixel/s is 30% higher than the C2075’s 16.07 GPixel/s, and its texture rate of 52.24 GTexel/s is 62% higher than the C2075’s 32.14 GTexel/s. This makes the M10 better suited for tasks that involve heavy fragment shading or texture sampling, such as rendering or image processing. The M10 also wins on API support, offering Vulkan 1.4 where the C2075 has none.

The M10 also wins on power efficiency, with a TDP of 225 W versus the C2075’s 247 W, and it requires only a single 8-pin power connector compared to the C2075’s 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin setup. For dense server deployments where power and cabling are constrained, the M10’s lower power draw and simpler connector requirement are tangible advantages.

FAQ

Q: Which card has the higher OpenCL benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA Tesla C2075 scores 10,400 in Geekbench OpenCL, which is 0.8% higher than the Tesla M10’s 10,318 points.

Q: Does the Tesla M10 support Vulkan?

A: Yes, the Tesla M10 lists Vulkan 1.4 support and has a Geekbench Vulkan score of 9,130. The Tesla C2075 has no Vulkan support listed.

Q: What is the memory bandwidth difference between the two cards?

A: The Tesla C2075 has 150.3 GB/s of bandwidth from a 384-bit bus, while the Tesla M10 has 83.20 GB/s from a 128-bit bus. The C2075’s bandwidth is roughly 80% higher.

Q: Which card has more shading units?

A: The Tesla M10 has 640 shading units, compared to the Tesla C2075’s 448 shading units. However, the C2075 has more texture mapping units (56 vs 40) and more render output units (48 vs 16).

Q: Are both cards the same physical size?

A: No. The Tesla M10 is longer at 267 mm (10.5 inches), while the Tesla C2075 is 248 mm (9.8 inches). Both are dual-slot cards.

Q: What is the production status of these accelerators?

A: Both the NVIDIA Tesla C2075 and the NVIDIA Tesla M10 are listed as end-of-life products.

Architecture Differences

The two cards are built on fundamentally different architectures from different eras. The Tesla C2075 uses the GF110 chip based on Fermi 2.0 architecture, manufactured on a 40 nm process at TSMC. This chip contains 3,000 million transistors on a 520 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 5.8 million transistors per square millimeter. Fermi 2.0 was designed for high-performance computing, which explains the C2075’s wide 384-bit memory bus and high bandwidth.

The Tesla M10 uses the GM107 chip based on Maxwell architecture, also fabricated by TSMC but on a more advanced 28 nm process. This chip packs 1,870 million transistors onto a much smaller 148 mm² die, achieving a higher transistor density of 12.6 million transistors per square millimeter. Maxwell was optimized for power efficiency and feature completeness, which is why the M10 supports Vulkan 1.4 while the C2075 does not.

The memory architectures differ sharply. The C2075 uses 6 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus, while the M10 uses 8 GB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus. The C2075’s memory clock is 783 MHz (3.1 Gbps effective), whereas the M10’s memory clock is 1300 MHz (5.2 Gbps effective). Despite the M10’s higher memory clock, its narrower bus limits total bandwidth to 83.20 GB/s, far below the C2075’s 150.3 GB/s.

The M10 has explicit base and boost clocks of 1033 MHz and 1306 MHz, respectively, while the C2075 lists no base or boost clock in the data. The M10’s higher clock speeds help its 640 shading units achieve 1.672 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, while the C2075’s 448 shading units deliver 1,027.7 GFLOPS. Both cards lack ray tracing cores and tensor cores, and neither supports FP16 arithmetic.

Specification Differences

The Tesla C2075 and Tesla M10 differ in nearly every core specification. The C2075 has 448 shading units, 56 texture mapping units, and 48 render output units. The M10 has 640 shading units, 40 texture mapping units, and only 16 render output units. This means the M10 has 43% more shading units but 29% fewer TMUs and 67% fewer ROPs, a trade-off that favors compute shaders over fixed-function pixel processing.

Memory capacity and interface differ: the C2075 offers 6 GB with a 384-bit bus, while the M10 offers 8 GB with a 128-bit bus. The C2075’s bandwidth is 150.3 GB/s versus the M10’s 83.20 GB/s. The M10’s memory clock is higher at 1300 MHz (5.2 Gbps effective) compared to the C2075’s 783 MHz (3.1 Gbps effective), but the wider bus of the C2075 more than compensates.

Power and connectivity also diverge. The C2075 has a TDP of 247 W and requires both a 6-pin and an 8-pin power connector, while the M10 has a TDP of 225 W and needs only a single 8-pin connector. Both cards suggest a 550 W power supply. The C2075 uses a PCIe 2.0 x16 interface and has one DVI display output, whereas the M10 uses the newer PCIe 3.0 x16 interface and has no display outputs, reflecting its compute-oriented design.

Physical dimensions differ as well: the C2075 is 248 mm long, while the M10 is longer at 267 mm. Both are dual-slot cards. The C2075 was released in July 2011, and the M10 came later in May 2016. Both support DirectX 12 (11_0) and OpenGL 4.6, but only the M10 offers Vulkan 1.4. The C2075’s predecessor is listed simply as “Tesla” and its successor as “Tesla Kepler,” while the M10’s predecessor is “Tesla Kepler” and its successor is “Tesla Pascal.”