AMD Radeon RX 6800M vs NVIDIA Tesla M60 Comparison

# NVIDIA Tesla M60 vs AMD Radeon RX 6800M

The NVIDIA Tesla M60 and AMD Radeon RX 6800M represent two very different generations and design philosophies in the GPU landscape. The Tesla M60 is a dual-slot, 300 W datacenter accelerator built on 28 nm Maxwell architecture, while the RX 6800M is a 145 W mobile IGP built on 7 nm RDNA 2.0. Benchmark data shows the AMD part dominating in every shared test, but the story is more nuanced than raw scores alone.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA Tesla M60 scores 30,490 on average, which places it in the 75th percentile of all GPUs. The AMD Radeon RX 6800M averages 28,874, sitting in the 74th percentile. Despite the M60's higher average, the RX 6800M wins both head-to-head tests decisively.

Q: How do the two GPUs compare in Geekbench OpenCL performance?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6800M scores 87,621 in Geekbench OpenCL, while the NVIDIA Tesla M60 manages 29,506. That is a 66.3% advantage for the AMD part, making it nearly three times faster in this compute workload.

Q: What is the memory configuration difference?

A: The Tesla M60 uses 8 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus, delivering 160.4 GB/s bandwidth. The RX 6800M steps up to 12 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus, achieving 384.0 GB/s — more than double the bandwidth despite the narrower interface.

Q: Which GPU has higher transistor density?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6800M packs 51.3 million transistors per square millimeter on its 335 mm² die, totaling 17,200 million transistors. The NVIDIA Tesla M60 has a much lower density of 13.1M/mm² across a larger 398 mm² die, with 5,200 million transistors total.

Q: What are the power requirements for each card?

A: The Tesla M60 has a 300 W TDP and requires a 700 W suggested power supply with a single 8-pin connector. The RX 6800M has a 145 W TDP, uses no external power connectors, and has no suggested PSU rating since it is an integrated graphics processor for laptops.

Q: Which GPU supports hardware ray tracing?

A: Only the AMD Radeon RX 6800M includes dedicated ray tracing cores — 40 of them. The NVIDIA Tesla M60 has no RT cores listed, as its Maxwell architecture predates NVIDIA's ray tracing hardware.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Radeon RX 6800M wins outright in every benchmark where both cards were tested. In Geekbench OpenCL, it delivers 87,621 points versus the Tesla M60's 29,506, a 66.3% lead. The gap is nearly identical in Geekbench Vulkan: the RX 6800M scores 94,766 compared to 31,473 for the M60, a 66.8% advantage. These are not marginal wins — the AMD part is consistently around three times faster in API-level compute workloads.

However, the NVIDIA Tesla M60 wins on aggregate statistics. Its average benchmark score of 30,490 exceeds the RX 6800M's 28,874, and its 75th percentile ranking edges out the AMD card's 74th percentile. This suggests the M60 has broader consistency across a wider range of tests, even if it loses the direct comparisons. The M60 also ties or beats the RX 6800M in nearest-rival positioning: its closest competitor, the NVIDIA CMP 70HX, scores 30,476 (0% delta), while the RX 6800M's nearest rival, the Intel Arc A370M, scores 29,175 (-1%).

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from completely different architectural eras. The Tesla M60 uses NVIDIA's Maxwell 2.0 architecture on a 28 nm TSMC process, while the RX 6800M employs AMD's RDNA 2.0 on a 7 nm TSMC node. This process shrink is dramatic — 7 nm versus 28 nm — and explains much of the efficiency gap. The M60's die measures 398 mm², larger than the RX 6800M's 335 mm², yet the NVIDIA chip packs only 5,200 million transistors versus AMD's 17,200 million. The density difference is stark: 51.3M/mm² on RDNA 2.0 versus 13.1M/mm² on Maxwell.

Clock speeds tell a similar story. The Tesla M60 runs at a 557 MHz base and 1178 MHz boost, while the RX 6800M starts at 2116 MHz base and boosts to 2390 MHz, with a game clock of 2300 MHz. The AMD part's clocks are nearly double the NVIDIA card's boost speed, enabled by the more advanced process node. Memory technology also differs: the M60 uses GDDR5 at 5 Gbps effective, while the RX 6800M uses GDDR6 at 16 Gbps effective.

Feature support diverges significantly. The RX 6800M offers DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), which includes hardware ray tracing via its 40 RT cores. The Tesla M60 only supports DirectX 12 (12_1) and has no RT cores. Both cards support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4, but the AMD part adds flexible FP16 throughput at 24.47 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio) versus no listed FP16 capability for the M60. The RX 6800M also uses PCIe 4.0 x16, while the M60 is limited to PCIe 3.0 x16.

Specification Differences

The most fundamental difference is form factor: the Tesla M60 is a dual-slot, 267 mm (10.5 inches) add-in card requiring one 8-pin power connector, while the RX 6800M is an integrated graphics processor (IGP) with no power connectors and no physical dimensions listed. This reflects their intended deployments — the M60 for servers and workstations, the RX 6800M for laptops.

Performance specifications heavily favor the AMD part. The RX 6800M has 2,560 shading units and 160 texture mapping units, versus 2,048 and 128 respectively on the M60. Both have 64 ROPs. The RX 6800M achieves 12.24 TFLOPS FP32, 153.0 GPixel/s pixel rate, and 382.4 GTexel/s texture rate. The Tesla M60 manages 4.825 TFLOPS FP32, 75.39 GPixel/s, and 150.8 GTexel/s. The AMD card is roughly 2.5x faster in raw compute and doubles the pixel throughput.

Memory capacity favors AMD at 12 GB versus 8 GB, though the bus width is narrower at 192-bit versus 256-bit. The 384.0 GB/s bandwidth of the RX 6800M still crushes the M60's 160.4 GB/s. Power consumption tells the opposite story: the M60 draws 300 W TDP versus 145 W for the RX 6800M, yet the AMD part is far faster. The M60 has no display outputs, while the RX 6800M's outputs are portable-device dependent.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The head-to-head data is unambiguous: the AMD Radeon RX 6800M wins both shared tests with massive margins. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RX 6800M scores 87,621 against the Tesla M60's 29,506. The delta of -66.3% from the AMD card's perspective means the M60 delivers only about one-third the performance. This is a compute-heavy workload that stresses raw FP32 throughput, where the RX 6800M's 12.24 TFLOPS dwarfs the M60's 4.825 TFLOPS.

Geekbench Vulkan shows an even wider relative gap. The RX 6800M posts 94,766 points versus 31,473 for the M60, a 66.8% difference. Vulkan is a lower-level API that benefits from modern architecture features and higher memory bandwidth, both of which favor the RDNA 2.0 part. The RX 6800M's 384.0 GB/s bandwidth and 2,560 shading units provide a clear advantage over the M60's 160.4 GB/s and 2,048 units.

These results align with the theoretical specifications. The RX 6800M has 2.54x the FP32 throughput, 2.39x the texture rate, 2.03x the pixel rate, and 2.39x the memory bandwidth. The benchmark deltas of roughly 66% in both tests are consistent with these hardware advantages. The Tesla M60's higher average benchmark score (30,490 vs 28,874) comes from its participation in a different benchmark suite — it only has Geekbench OpenCL and Vulkan scores listed, while the RX 6800M includes PassMark and 3DMark results that may pull its average down.

The Verdict

The data points to a clear winner for compute performance: the AMD Radeon RX 6800M. It wins every head-to-head benchmark by approximately 66%, offers more than double the memory bandwidth, and delivers 2.5x the FP32 throughput. Its 7 nm process, 40 ray tracing cores, and DirectX 12 Ultimate support make it the more modern and capable part across the board. For any workload measured in these benchmarks — OpenCL or Vulkan — the RX 6800M is the obvious choice.

The NVIDIA Tesla M60, however, still holds relevance in its niche. Its higher average benchmark score and better percentile ranking (75th vs 74th) suggest it performs more consistently across a wider range of tests, even if those tests are not shared with the RX 6800M. Its 300 W TDP and dual-slot form factor indicate it was designed for sustained datacenter workloads, not mobile efficiency. The M60's nearest rivals — the NVIDIA CMP 70HX and AMD Radeon RX 6700 — score within 0.2% of its average, showing it remains competitive within its own generation.

The choice depends on the use case. For laptop deployments requiring 12 GB VRAM, 384 GB/s bandwidth, and modern feature support, the RX 6800M is superior in every measurable way. For legacy server environments where PCIe 3.0 and Maxwell architecture are already integrated, the Tesla M60's 8 GB GDDR5 and 160.4 GB/s bandwidth may suffice. The benchmark data does not support any scenario where the M60 outperforms the RX 6800M in shared tests — the AMD card wins 2-0 in head-to-head comparisons with margins near 67%. The RX 6800M is the faster GPU, period.