RTX A40 vs Tesla C870

VS

Primary details

GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.

Place in the rankingnot ratednot rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
ArchitectureTesla (2006−2010)Ampere (2020−2024)
GPU code nameG80GA102
Market segmentWorkstationWorkstation
Release date2 May 2007 (17 years ago)5 October 2020 (4 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$1,499 no data

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 cores12810752
Core clock speed600 MHz1305 MHz
Boost clock speedno data1755 MHz
Number of transistors681 million28,300 million
Manufacturing process technology90 nm8 nm
Power consumption (TDP)171 Watt300 Watt
Texture fill rate38.40589.7
Floating-point processing power0.3456 TFLOPS37.74 TFLOPS
ROPs24112
TMUs32336
Tensor Coresno data336
Ray Tracing Coresno data84

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).

InterfacePCIe 1.0 x16PCIe 4.0 x16
Lengthno data267 mm
Width2-slot2-slot
Supplementary power connectors2x 6-pin8-pin EPS

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 typeGDDR3GDDR6
Maximum RAM amount1536 MB48 GB
Memory bus width384 Bit384 Bit
Memory clock speed800 MHz1812 MHz
Memory bandwidth76.8 GB/s695.8 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 ConnectorsNo outputs3x DisplayPort

API compatibility

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

DirectX11.1 (10_0)12 Ultimate (12_2)
Shader Model4.06.5
OpenGL3.34.6
OpenCL1.12.0
VulkanN/A1.2
CUDA+8.6

Pros & cons summary


Recency 2 May 2007 5 October 2020
Maximum RAM amount 1536 MB 48 GB
Chip lithography 90 nm 8 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 171 Watt 300 Watt

Tesla C870 has 75.4% lower power consumption.

RTX A40, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 13 years, a 3100% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 1025% more advanced lithography process.

We couldn't decide between Tesla C870 and RTX A40. We've got no test results to judge.


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

Vote for your favorite

Do you think we are right or mistaken in our choice? Vote by clicking "Like" button near your favorite graphics card.


NVIDIA Tesla C870
Tesla C870
NVIDIA RTX A40
RTX A40

Comparisons with similar GPUs

We selected several comparisons of graphics cards with performance close to those reviewed, providing you with more options to consider.

Community ratings

Here you can see the user ratings of the compared graphics cards, as well as rate them yourself.


No user ratings yet.

Rate Tesla C870 on a scale of 1 to 5:

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
1.4 394 votes

Rate RTX A40 on a scale of 1 to 5:

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Questions & comments

Here you can ask a question about this comparison, agree or disagree with our judgements, or report an error or mismatch.