Tesla M2070 vs GeForce 9800 GX2

Place in the ranking	870	629
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation	0.04	0.10
Power efficiency	0.73	1.50
Architecture	Tesla (2006−2010)	Fermi (2010−2014)
GPU code name	G92	GF100
Market segment	Desktop	Workstation
Release date	18 March 2008 (16 years ago)	25 July 2011 (13 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$599	$3,099

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

Tesla M2070 has 150% better value for money than 9800 GX2.

Detailed specifications

General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores	256 (128 per GPU)	448
Core clock speed	600 MHz	574 MHz
Number of transistors	754 million	3,100 million
Manufacturing process technology	65 nm	40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	197 Watt	225 Watt
Maximum GPU temperature	105 °C	no data
Texture fill rate	38.40	32.14
Floating-point processing power	0.384 TFLOPS	1.03 TFLOPS
ROPs	16	48
TMUs	64	56

Form factor & compatibility

Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).

Interface	PCIe 2.0 x16	PCIe 2.0 x16
Length	267 mm	248 mm
Height	2-slot	no data
Width	2-slot	2-slot
Supplementary power connectors	1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin	1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin
SLI options	+	-

VRAM capacity and type

Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory type	GDDR3	GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount	512 MB	6 GB
Memory bus width	512 Bit	384 Bit
Memory clock speed	1000 MHz	783 MHz
Memory bandwidth	128 (64 per GPU)	150.3 GB/s

Connectivity and outputs

Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.

Display Connectors	HDMIDual Link DVI	No outputs
Multi monitor support	+	no data
HDMI	+	-
Maximum VGA resolution	2048x1536	no data
Audio input for HDMI	S/PDIF	no data

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX	11.1 (10_0)	12 (11_0)
Shader Model	4.0	5.1
OpenGL	2.1	4.6
OpenCL	1.1	1.1
Vulkan	N/A	N/A
CUDA	+	2.0

Gaming performance

Let's see how good the compared graphics cards are for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in FPS.

Pros & cons summary

Performance score	2.07	4.88
Recency	18 March 2008	25 July 2011
Maximum RAM amount	512 MB	6 GB
Chip lithography	65 nm	40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	197 Watt	225 Watt

9800 GX2 has 14.2% lower power consumption.

Tesla M2070, on the other hand, has a 135.7% higher aggregate performance score, an age advantage of 3 years, a 1100% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 62.5% more advanced lithography process.

The Tesla M2070 is our recommended choice as it beats the GeForce 9800 GX2 in performance tests.

Be aware that GeForce 9800 GX2 is a desktop card while Tesla M2070 is a workstation one.

Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.