AMD Radeon RX 6600 vs NVIDIA Tesla K40m Comparison

Where Each One Wins

The benchmark data paints a remarkably clear picture of specialization between these two cards. The AMD Radeon RX 6600 claims the only head-to-head benchmark victory, and it does so decisively. In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the RX 6600 scores 28,850 against the Tesla K40m’s 19,885, a margin of 31.1% in AMD’s favor. This is not a marginal win; it is a substantial generational leap in compute throughput that reflects the fundamental differences in their design philosophies.

The NVIDIA Tesla K40m, despite being the older product, still holds its own in certain contexts. Its average benchmark score of 19,885 places it in the 65th percentile of all GPUs, which is slightly higher than the RX 6600’s 63rd percentile. This seemingly paradoxical result—the older card ranking higher in overall percentile despite losing the direct comparison—suggests that the Tesla’s strengths lie in specific workloads that the Geekbench OpenCL test does not fully capture. The K40m’s nearest rival is the AMD FirePro W7000 at a delta of -0.1%, meaning the two are effectively tied, while the RX 6600’s closest competitor is the NVIDIA Quadro K6000 at a 0% delta. These near-identical matchups indicate that both cards sit in a performance tier where small architectural advantages determine the winner.

For compute-heavy professional workloads, the RX 6600’s raw FP32 performance of 8.928 TFLOPS versus the Tesla’s 5.046 TFLOPS gives it a 77% advantage in theoretical peak throughput. However, the Tesla’s 12 GB of GDDR5 memory with a 384-bit bus offers 288.4 GB/s of bandwidth, which is 28.7% higher than the RX 6600’s 224.0 GB/s from its 128-bit GDDR6 bus. This suggests the K40m may still excel in memory-bandwidth-bound tasks where large datasets exceed the RX 6600’s 8 GB capacity. The data implies a use-case split: the RX 6600 wins on raw compute density and modern API support, while the Tesla retains advantages in memory capacity and bandwidth for specific professional rendering or scientific workloads.

FAQ

Q: Which card has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA Tesla K40m has an average benchmark score of 19,885, placing it in the 65th percentile of all GPUs. The AMD Radeon RX 6600 has a lower average of 19,036, placing it in the 63rd percentile. Despite this, the RX 6600 wins the direct Geekbench OpenCL comparison.

Q: How significant is the RX 6600’s head-to-head victory?

A: The RX 6600 scores 28,850 in Geekbench OpenCL versus the Tesla K40m’s 19,885, a delta of -31.1% from the Tesla’s perspective. This means the RX 6600 is roughly 45% faster in this specific test—a substantial margin that highlights the architectural advantage of RDNA 2.0 over Kepler.

Q: What do the nearest rival comparisons reveal about each card?

A: The Tesla K40m’s nearest rival is the AMD FirePro W7000 with a delta of -0.1%, indicating they perform nearly identically. The RX 6600’s nearest rival is the NVIDIA Quadro K6000 at a 0% delta. Both cards are clustered in a performance tier where competitors are within 1.4% of their scores.

Q: Does the Tesla K40m have any memory advantage?

A: Yes, the Tesla K40m offers 12 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 384-bit bus, providing 288.4 GB/s of bandwidth. The RX 6600 has 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, yielding 224.0 GB/s. The Tesla’s bandwidth advantage is 28.7%, and its memory capacity is 50% larger.

Q: How do their compute capabilities compare?

A: The RX 6600 delivers 8.928 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, which is 77% higher than the Tesla K40m’s 5.046 TFLOPS. The RX 6600 also supports FP16 with 17.86 TFLOPS using a 2:1 ratio, while the Tesla has no FP16 capability listed. This makes the RX 6600 significantly more capable for modern compute workloads.

Q: What API support differences matter for modern applications?

A: The RX 6600 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, while the Tesla K40m supports DirectX 12 (11_1) and Vulkan 1.2.175. Both support OpenGL 4.6. The RX 6600’s newer API versions provide access to modern features like ray tracing, which the Tesla lacks entirely.

Architecture Differences

The architectural divide between these two GPUs is stark and explains nearly every performance differential in the data. The Tesla K40m uses the GK110B chip built on NVIDIA’s Kepler architecture, manufactured on a 28 nm process at TSMC. This older node allows for 7,080 million transistors on a 561 mm² die, resulting in a transistor density of 12.6 million per square millimeter. In contrast, the RX 6600 uses the Navi 23 chip with AMD’s RDNA 2.0 architecture, also fabricated by TSMC but on a 7 nm process. This modern node packs 11,060 million transistors into just 237 mm², achieving a transistor density of 46.7 million per square millimeter—nearly four times higher than the Tesla.

These density differences translate directly to clock speeds. The Tesla’s Kepler architecture is conservative, with a base clock of 745 MHz and a boost of 876 MHz. The RX 6600 operates at a base clock of 1626 MHz with a boost of 2491 MHz and a game clock of 2044 MHz. The RX 6600’s boost clock is 2.84 times higher than the Tesla’s, which explains how a card with fewer shading units (1,792 versus 2,880) can deliver 77% more FP32 throughput.

The RX 6600 also introduces hardware features that did not exist in the Kepler era. It includes 28 ray tracing cores, a capability entirely absent from the Tesla K40m. The RX 6600 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the Tesla is limited to DirectX 12 (11_1). Vulkan support differs as well: the RX 6600 offers Vulkan 1.4 versus the Tesla’s 1.2.175. The RX 6600’s FP16 capability at 17.86 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio) is a feature the Tesla lacks entirely, as its FP16 field is null. These are not incremental improvements; they represent fundamentally different design eras.

The memory subsystems also diverge in architecture. The Tesla uses GDDR5 with a 384-bit bus, while the RX 6600 uses GDDR6 with a 128-bit bus. The Tesla’s wider bus compensates for its slower memory clock (1502 MHz versus 1750 MHz), giving it higher bandwidth despite the older memory type. Power efficiency strongly favors the RX 6600, which has a TDP of 132 W and a suggested PSU of 300 W, versus the Tesla’s 245 W TDP and 550 W suggested PSU. The RX 6600 delivers higher performance while consuming 46% less power.

The Verdict

The data directs a clear verdict for most users: the AMD Radeon RX 6600 is the superior all-around graphics card. Its 31.1% head-to-head victory in Geekbench OpenCL is backed by a 77% advantage in FP32 throughput, double the transistor density, and access to modern APIs including DirectX 12 Ultimate and Vulkan 1.4. The RX 6600 also includes ray tracing hardware and FP16 support, features that are simply absent from the Tesla K40m. For any workload that leverages contemporary graphics APIs or compute standards, the RX 6600 is the only sensible choice.

The NVIDIA Tesla K40m retains a narrow niche for specific professional applications. Its 12 GB memory capacity and 288.4 GB/s bandwidth are superior to the RX 6600’s 8 GB and 224.0 GB/s. In memory-bound tasks that fit within its capacity limits, the Tesla’s wider 384-bit bus could provide an advantage. Its 65th percentile ranking versus the RX 6600’s 63rd also suggests that in some unmeasured workloads, the Tesla holds its ground. However, this advantage comes with severe trade-offs: no display outputs, a 245 W TDP, and a launch MSRP of 7,699 USD. The RX 6600’s 329 USD launch MSRP is stated for reference, but the data cannot justify the Tesla’s position for most users.

The verdict hinges on workload type. For gaming, modern content creation, or any task using DirectX 12 Ultimate or Vulkan 1.4, the RX 6600 wins decisively. For legacy compute kernels that rely on massive memory bandwidth and 12 GB capacity, where the application does not use modern APIs, the Tesla K40m may still serve. The data shows that the RX 6600 is the more capable, efficient, and future-proof option.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only direct benchmark comparison in the data is Geekbench OpenCL, and the results are unambiguous. The AMD Radeon RX 6600 scores 28,850, while the NVIDIA Tesla K40m scores 19,885. The delta percentage is -31.1% from the Tesla’s perspective, meaning the RX 6600 is approximately 45% faster in this test. This is a massive gap that reflects the architectural generational leap from Kepler to RDNA 2.0.

Breaking down why this margin exists, the RX 6600’s FP32 throughput of 8.928 TFLOPS versus the Tesla’s 5.046 TFLOPS provides a 77% theoretical advantage. In practice, the RX 6600 achieves a 45% real-world advantage in OpenCL, indicating that memory bandwidth constraints on the RX 6600 (224.0 GB/s versus 288.4 GB/s) partially offset its compute advantage. The Tesla’s 384-bit memory bus is its strongest asset, and it shows in the smaller-than-theoretical performance gap.

The RX 6600’s other benchmark scores provide context for its capabilities. In Geekbench Vulkan, it scores 67,623, and in Geekbench Metal, it scores 88,398. The PassMark suite shows scores of 15,096 for G3D and 6,554 for GPU compute. However, there are no corresponding scores for the Tesla K40m in these tests, so direct comparisons are limited. The Tesla’s only benchmark is the Geekbench OpenCL score, which places it in the 65th percentile. The RX 6600’s average score of 19,036 across all its benchmarks places it in the 63rd percentile, despite its higher peak score in the head-to-head test.

This discrepancy between peak and average scores suggests that the RX 6600’s performance is more variable across different workloads, while the Tesla K40m may be more consistent in the specific compute tasks where it was designed to excel. The head-to-head data, however, is unambiguous: in a straight OpenCL compute comparison, the RX 6600 wins by a substantial margin.

Specification Differences

The specifications of these two cards diverge in nearly every measurable field. The process node differs fundamentally: the Tesla K40m uses 28 nm technology, while the RX 6600 uses 7 nm. This drives the transistor counts (7,080 million versus 11,060 million) and die sizes (561 mm² versus 237 mm²). The transistor density tells the story: 12.6 million per mm² for the Tesla versus 46.7 million per mm² for the RX 6600.

Clock speeds show the greatest relative difference. The Tesla’s base clock is 745 MHz with a boost of 876 MHz, while the RX 6600’s base is 1626 MHz, its boost is 2491 MHz, and its game clock is 2044 MHz. Memory clocks also differ: 1502 MHz for the Tesla versus 1750 MHz for the RX 6600. The Tesla’s memory is GDDR5 with 12 GB capacity on a 384-bit bus, while the RX 6600 uses GDDR6 with 8 GB on a 128-bit bus. Bandwidth favors the Tesla at 288.4 GB/s versus the RX 6600’s 224.0 GB/s.

Compute resources are distributed differently. The Tesla has more shading units (2,880 versus 1,792) and TMUs (240 versus 112), but fewer ROPs (48 versus 64). The RX 6600 includes 28 ray tracing cores, while the Tesla has none. FP32 performance favors the RX 6600 at 8.928 TFLOPS versus 5.046 TFLOPS. The RX 6600 also lists FP16 at 17.86 TFLOPS, while the Tesla has no FP16 figure.

Power requirements differ substantially. The Tesla’s TDP is 245 W with a suggested PSU of 550 W, while the RX 6600’s TDP is 132 W with a suggested PSU of 300 W. The RX 6600 uses a single 8-pin power connector, while the Tesla’s connectors are not listed. Physical dimensions vary: the Tesla is 267 mm (10.5 inches) long, while the RX 6600 is 190 mm (7.5 inches) with specified height of 110 mm and width of 40 mm. Both are dual-slot cards.

Interface support differs: the Tesla uses PCIe 3.0 x16, while the RX 6600 uses PCIe 4.0 x8. Display outputs are a major distinction—the Tesla has none, while the RX 6600 offers 1x HDMI 2.1 and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a. API support shows the RX 6600’s modernity: DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) versus DirectX 12 (11_1), and Vulkan 1.4 versus 1.2.175. Both support OpenGL 4.6. Release dates are separated by nearly eight years, with the Tesla launching on 2013-11-21 and the RX 6600 on 2021-10-12.