AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT vs NVIDIA Tesla M40 Comparison

AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT vs NVIDIA Tesla M40

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database records only two shared benchmark tests between the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT and the NVIDIA Tesla M40, and the results are decisively one-sided. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RX 6900 XT scores 187,673 against the Tesla M40's 39,192, translating to a 378.9% advantage. That is not a marginal lead; it is a generational gap expressed in raw compute throughput. The Vulkan test tells the same story, with the RX 6900 XT posting 148,525 points versus 44,602 for the Tesla M40, a 233% delta. Every recorded head-to-head benchmark favors the AMD card, and the win count stands at 2 for the RX 6900 XT and 0 for the Tesla M40.

What makes these numbers striking is not just the magnitude but the context. The RX 6900 XT's OpenCL score is roughly 4.8 times higher than the Tesla M40's, meaning the AMD card completes the same compute workload in a fraction of the time. In Vulkan, the RX 6900 XT is about 3.3 times faster. These are not subtle improvements; they represent a fundamental shift in performance capability.

The average benchmark score for the RX 6900 XT is 50,951, placing it in the 86th percentile of all GPUs in the database. The Tesla M40 averages 41,897, which lands in the 83rd percentile. While both cards sit in the upper range of the database, the RX 6900 XT's average is 21.6% higher. That gap is consistent with the head-to-head results, even though the averages include different test suites. The RX 6900 XT also benefits from a much larger set of recorded benchmarks, covering DirectX 9 through 12, OpenCL, Vulkan, and Metal, whereas the Tesla M40 only has OpenCL and Vulkan entries.

Looking at the nearest rivals for each card confirms the positioning. The RX 6900 XT sits within 2.4% of the NVIDIA CMP 50HX, AMD Radeon RX Vega 64, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, and Intel Arc A550M, with an average score of 50,951 versus their 49,737 to 51,790 range. The Tesla M40's nearest rivals include the Tesla M40 24 GB, GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, Radeon RX 7650 GRE, and Radeon Pro 5300, with deltas between -1.9% and 2.5%. This shows the Tesla M40 is competitive within its own era, but that era is far behind the RX 6900 XT.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous: the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT outperforms the NVIDIA Tesla M40 in every shared benchmark by a massive margin. If the workload involves OpenCL or Vulkan compute, the RX 6900 XT delivers roughly 3 to 5 times the performance. For any modern gaming, rendering, or general-purpose GPU compute task, the RX 6900 XT is the only sensible choice from these two.

The Tesla M40, however, should not be dismissed outright. It was designed for a specific purpose: datacenter compute in 2015, with no display outputs and a Maxwell architecture optimized for FP32 throughput. Its 83rd percentile ranking shows it still holds its own against many newer cards, but it is not a gaming card and cannot output video. The RX 6900 XT, by contrast, is a full-featured consumer card with display outputs, ray tracing cores, and DirectX 12 Ultimate support.

Who should pick the Tesla M40? Only someone with a legacy compute workload that specifically requires Maxwell-era NVIDIA hardware, or a system constrained to PCIe 3.0 and a dual-slot, 250 W card with an 8-pin EPS connector. For everyone else, the RX 6900 XT is the clear winner. The 86th percentile ranking, the 23.04 TFLOPS FP32 throughput, and the 16 GB GDDR6 memory make it a far more versatile and future-proof option.

The verdict from the database is simple: the RX 6900 XT wins 2 out of 2 head-to-head benchmarks, and the performance delta is so large that no workload where both cards are viable would favor the Tesla M40. The only reason to choose the Tesla M40 is hardware compatibility or a specific legacy requirement, not performance.

Architecture Differences

The two cards come from entirely different architectural generations. The AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT uses RDNA 2.0, built on a 7 nm process at TSMC, with 26,800 million transistors on a 520 mm² die. The NVIDIA Tesla M40 uses Maxwell 2.0, built on a 28 nm process, also at TSMC, with 8,000 million transistors on a larger 601 mm² die. The transistor density tells the story: the RX 6900 XT packs 51.5 million transistors per square millimeter, while the Tesla M40 manages only 13.3 million.

The clock speeds reflect the process advantage. The RX 6900 XT runs a base clock of 1825 MHz, a game clock of 2015 MHz, and a boost clock of 2250 MHz. The Tesla M40 has a base clock of 948 MHz and a boost of 1112 MHz. Even the memory clocks differ significantly: the RX 6900 XT runs at 2000 MHz with 16 Gbps effective, while the Tesla M40 runs at 1502 MHz with 6 Gbps effective.

Shader configuration is another major divergence. The RX 6900 XT has 5120 shading units, 320 texture mapping units, and 128 ROPs, plus 80 dedicated ray tracing cores. The Tesla M40 has 3072 shading units, 192 TMUs, and 96 ROPs, with no ray tracing cores and no tensor cores. The pixel and texture rates follow: the RX 6900 XT achieves 288.0 GPixel/s and 720.0 GTexel/s, versus the Tesla M40's 106.8 GPixel/s and 213.5 GTexel/s.

FP32 compute also shows the generational leap. The RX 6900 XT delivers 23.04 TFLOPS, while the Tesla M40 delivers 6.832 TFLOPS. The RX 6900 XT also supports FP16 at 46.08 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio), while the Tesla M40 has no recorded FP16 capability. The API support differs as well: the RX 6900 XT supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the Tesla M40 only supports DirectX 12 (12_1). Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4.

The bus interface also differs. The RX 6900 XT uses PCIe 4.0 x16, while the Tesla M40 uses PCIe 3.0 x16. This affects bandwidth available to the card, though the memory subsystem differences are more significant. The RX 6900 XT has 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, yielding 512.0 GB/s bandwidth. The Tesla M40 has 12 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus, yielding 288.4 GB/s. The wider bus on the Tesla M40 cannot compensate for the slower memory type and lower clock.

FAQ

Q: Which card has higher FP32 compute performance?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT delivers 23.04 TFLOPS, while the NVIDIA Tesla M40 delivers 6.832 TFLOPS. The RX 6900 XT is 3.4 times higher in raw FP32 throughput.

Q: Do both cards support ray tracing?

A: No. The RX 6900 XT has 80 ray tracing cores, while the Tesla M40 has none. The RX 6900 XT is built on RDNA 2.0 with hardware ray tracing support.

Q: What are the memory specifications of each card?

A: The RX 6900 XT has 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus with 512.0 GB/s bandwidth. The Tesla M40 has 12 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus with 288.4 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: Which card can output video?

A: The RX 6900 XT has display outputs: 1x HDMI 2.1, 2x DisplayPort 1.4a, and 1x USB Type-C. The Tesla M40 has no display outputs, making it compute-only.

Q: What process nodes are used?

A: The RX 6900 XT uses a 7 nm process at TSMC, while the Tesla M40 uses a 28 nm process at TSMC. The RX 6900 XT has a transistor density of 51.5M per mm² versus 13.3M per mm².

Q: How do the power requirements compare?

A: The RX 6900 XT has a TDP of 300 W with a suggested PSU of 700 W and uses 2x 8-pin connectors. The Tesla M40 has a TDP of 250 W with a suggested PSU of 600 W and uses a single 8-pin EPS connector.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT wins in every category where data exists. In OpenCL compute, it scores 187,673 versus 39,192, a 378.9% lead. In Vulkan, it scores 148,525 versus 44,602, a 233% lead. It also wins on raw specifications: FP32 throughput, memory bandwidth, shading units, texture units, ROPs, pixel rate, and texture rate are all higher. The RX 6900 XT has 16 GB of memory versus 12 GB, a newer process node, higher clocks, and support for ray tracing. It supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, while the Tesla M40 only supports DirectX 12 (12_1).

The NVIDIA Tesla M40 wins only in a few narrow hardware aspects. It has a larger die size at 601 mm² versus 520 mm², but that is due to the older 28 nm process, not an advantage. It has a wider memory bus at 384-bit versus 256-bit, though the effective bandwidth is lower. It also has a lower TDP at 250 W versus 300 W, and a dual-slot design versus the RX 6900 XT's triple-slot. For a system with power or space constraints, the Tesla M40 is easier to fit, but that is the only practical win.

For gaming, the RX 6900 XT is the only option with display outputs and DirectX 12 Ultimate. For general compute, the RX 6900 XT is 3 to 5 times faster. For legacy Maxwell-specific compute tasks, the Tesla M40 may be required, but the database shows no benchmark where it outperforms the RX 6900 XT. The use-case split is clear: the RX 6900 XT for anything modern, the Tesla M40 only for niche legacy deployments.

Specification Differences

| Specification | AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT | NVIDIA Tesla M40 |

|----------------|------------------------|------------------|

| Architecture | RDNA 2.0 | Maxwell 2.0 |

| Process Node | 7 nm | 28 nm |

| Transistors | 26,800 million | 8,000 million |

| Die Size | 520 mm² | 601 mm² |

| Base Clock | 1825 MHz | 948 MHz |

| Boost Clock | 2250 MHz | 1112 MHz |

| Game Clock | 2015 MHz | None recorded |

| Memory Clock | 2000 MHz, 16 Gbps effective | 1502 MHz, 6 Gbps effective |

| Memory Size | 16 GB | 12 GB |

| Memory Type | GDDR6 | GDDR5 |

| Memory Bus | 256 bit | 384 bit |

| Memory Bandwidth | 512.0 GB/s | 288.4 GB/s |

| Shading Units | 5120 | 3072 |

| TMUs | 320 | 192 |

| ROPs | 128 | 96 |

| RT Cores | 80 | None |

| Pixel Rate | 288.0 GPixel/s | 106.8 GPixel/s |

| Texture Rate | 720.0 GTexel/s | 213.5 GTexel/s |

| FP32 | 23.04 TFLOPS | 6.832 TFLOPS |

| FP16 | 46.08 TFLOPS (2:1) | None recorded |

| TDP | 300 W | 250 W |

| Slot Width | Triple-slot | Dual-slot |

| Power Connectors | 2x 8-pin | 8-pin EPS |

| Suggested PSU | 700 W | 600 W |

| Bus Interface | PCIe 4.0 x16 | PCIe 3.0 x16 |

| Display Outputs | 1x HDMI 2.1, 2x DisplayPort 1.4a, 1x USB Type-C | No outputs |

| DirectX | 12 Ultimate (12_2) | 12 (12_1) |

| Length | 267 mm (10.5 inches) | 267 mm (10.5 inches) |

| Release Date | 2020-10-27 | 2015-11-09 |