AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT vs NVIDIA Tesla P40 Comparison

# Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT delivers a decisive sweep in the available cross-benchmark comparisons, winning both head-to-head tests by substantial margins. In Geekbench OpenCL, the AMD part scores 85,040 points against the Tesla P40's 62,017 — a 37.1% advantage. The gap widens further in Geekbench Vulkan, where the RX 6850M XT reaches 99,483 points versus 68,172 for the P40, translating to a 45.9% lead. These are not marginal differences; they represent a generational performance gulf that favors the newer RDNA 2.0 architecture across compute and graphics workloads alike.

The aggregate benchmark data reinforces this pattern. The RX 6850M XT holds an average benchmark score of 78,940, placing it at the 92nd percentile among all GPUs. The Tesla P40, by contrast, averages 65,095 and sits at the 89th percentile. That 13,845-point average gap (~21%) is meaningful, yet the head-to-head deltas (37-46%) show the AMD card is particularly dominant in the specific API workloads tested. Notably, the RX 6850M XT's nearest rivals in the database include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 (avg score 79,842, delta -1.1%) and RTX 5090 D (77,712, +1.6%), placing it in elite company. The Tesla P40's closest competitors are the AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100 (64,212, +1.4%) and AMD Radeon VII (66,004, -1.4%), a much lower performance tier.

The win count is unambiguous: the RX 6850M XT wins 2 head-to-head tests, the Tesla P40 wins 0. No benchmark in the shared suite favors the NVIDIA card. This is a one-sided comparison in raw compute terms, with the AMD part outperforming in every measurable overlap.

# Architecture Differences

The architectural gulf between these two GPUs is as wide as the benchmark gap suggests. The RX 6850M XT is built on RDNA 2.0, fabricated by TSMC on a 7 nm process node, packing 17,200 million transistors into a 335 mm² die — a transistor density of 51.3 million per square millimeter. The Tesla P40 uses NVIDIA's older Pascal architecture, also built by TSMC but on a 16 nm node, with 11,800 million transistors spread across a larger 471 mm² die, yielding just 25.1M transistors per mm². The process advantage is stark: the AMD chip crams nearly 46% more transistors into a die that is 29% smaller.

The compute resources tell a story of different design philosophies. The Tesla P40 has more raw shading units (3,840 vs 2,560), more texture mapping units (240 vs 160), and more render output units (96 vs 64). Yet the RX 6850M XT compensates with far higher clock speeds: a 2,321 MHz base and 2,581 MHz boost, versus the P40's 1,303 MHz base and 1,531 MHz boost. The AMD part also introduces 40 ray tracing cores — hardware the Pascal-based P40 lacks entirely. Neither GPU has tensor cores, so AI acceleration is absent from both.

Memory architecture diverges sharply. The RX 6850M XT uses 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, achieving 432.0 GB/s bandwidth. The Tesla P40 offers twice the capacity — 24 GB of GDDR5 — on a wider 384-bit bus, but bandwidth drops to 347.1 GB/s. The AMD card's newer memory technology delivers 24% more bandwidth despite half the capacity and a narrower bus. Effective memory clocks are 18 Gbps for the RX 6850M XT versus 7.2 Gbps for the P40. The API support also differs: the AMD card supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the P40 is limited to DirectX 12 (12_1). Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4.

# Where Each One Wins

The data points to a clear division of labor. The RX 6850M XT wins on raw compute performance across both tested APIs. Its Geekbench Vulkan score of 99,483 versus 68,172 indicates a 45.9% advantage in modern graphics workloads, making it the stronger choice for gaming, real-time rendering, and any application leveraging Vulkan's low-overhead access to the GPU. The OpenCL result (85,040 vs 62,017, +37.1%) shows similar dominance in general-purpose compute tasks like physics simulation, image processing, and scientific workloads that use OpenCL.

The Tesla P40's advantages are not in speed but in capacity and form factor. With 24 GB of GDDR5 memory, it holds exactly double the VRAM of the RX 6850M XT. For workloads that require large datasets resident on the GPU — such as deep learning inference with big models, large-scale data analytics, or rendering scenes that exceed 12 GB — the P40's memory capacity is a decisive factor. Its 384-bit bus, while slower in bandwidth, provides the wider memory path that some memory-bound workloads benefit from. The P40 is also a dual-slot, 267 mm card with a 600 W suggested PSU, designed for server racks — it has no display outputs, making it purely a compute accelerator. The RX 6850M XT, by contrast, is an integrated-class mobile GPU (slot width: IGP) with no power connectors, intended for laptops where its 165 W TDP fits a portable envelope.

# Specification Differences

| Specification | AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT | NVIDIA Tesla P40 |

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

| Architecture | RDNA 2.0 | Pascal |

| Process node | 7 nm | 16 nm |

| Transistors | 17,200 million | 11,800 million |

| Die size | 335 mm² | 471 mm² |

| Base clock | 2,321 MHz | 1,303 MHz |

| Boost clock | 2,581 MHz | 1,531 MHz |

| Memory size | 12 GB GDDR6 | 24 GB GDDR5 |

| Memory bus | 192 bit | 384 bit |

| Memory bandwidth | 432.0 GB/s | 347.1 GB/s |

| Shading units | 2,560 | 3,840 |

| TMUs | 160 | 240 |

| ROPs | 64 | 96 |

| Ray tracing cores | 40 | None |

| FP32 performance | 13.21 TFLOPS | 11.76 TFLOPS |

| FP16 performance | 26.43 TFLOPS (2:1) | 183.7 GFLOPS (1:64) |

| TDP | 165 W | 250 W |

| Slot width | IGP | Dual-slot |

| Power connectors | None | 8-pin EPS |

| Bus interface | PCIe 4.0 x16 | PCIe 3.0 x16 |

| Display outputs | Portable Device Dependent | No outputs |

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

| Release date | 2022-01-03 | 2016-09-12 |

| Launch MSRP | — | 5,699 USD |

# FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster in Geekbench OpenCL?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT scores 85,040 versus the Tesla P40's 62,017, a 37.1% advantage for AMD.

Q: How much better is the AMD card in Vulkan performance?

A: The RX 6850M XT scores 99,483 in Geekbench Vulkan, which is 45.9% higher than the Tesla P40's 68,172.

Q: Does the Tesla P40 have ray tracing hardware?

A: No. The Tesla P40 has zero ray tracing cores, while the RX 6850M XT includes 40 dedicated RT cores.

Q: Which GPU has more memory capacity?

A: The Tesla P40 has 24 GB of GDDR5 memory, exactly double the RX 6850M XT's 12 GB of GDDR6.

Q: What is the memory bandwidth difference?

A: The RX 6850M XT delivers 432.0 GB/s, which is 24% higher than the Tesla P40's 347.1 GB/s, despite the P40's wider 384-bit bus.

Q: How do their average benchmark scores compare?

A: The RX 6850M XT averages 78,940 points (92nd percentile) versus 65,095 for the Tesla P40 (89th percentile), an approximate 21% gap.

# The Verdict

The data is unambiguous: the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT is the superior performer in every benchmark overlap. It wins both head-to-head tests by 37-46%, holds a 13,845-point average score advantage, and sits in the 92nd percentile versus the P40's 89th. Its 7 nm RDNA 2.0 architecture delivers 13.21 TFLOPS FP32 and 26.43 TFLOPS FP16, versus the P40's 11.76 TFLOPS and just 183.7 GFLOPS FP16 — a 144x difference in half-precision throughput that makes the AMD card overwhelmingly better for mixed-precision workloads. The RX 6850M XT also brings modern features like ray tracing cores and DirectX 12 Ultimate support that the Pascal-based P40 simply cannot offer.

Choose the RX 6850M XT if you need raw performance, modern API support, or energy efficiency — its 165 W TDP is 85 W lower than the P40's 250 W. It is the obvious pick for gaming laptops, mobile workstations, and any compute task that fits within 12 GB of VRAM.

Choose the Tesla P40 only if your workload demands more than 12 GB of memory. Its 24 GB capacity is its single decisive advantage, and for server-side inference or rendering jobs that exceed the AMD card's memory pool, that capacity outweighs its 16% lower FP32 throughput. The P40's dual-slot server form factor, no display outputs, and PCIe 3.0 interface also suit it to data-center installation. But for anyone comparing raw capability per benchmark score, this is not a close contest — the RX 6850M XT wins decisively.