GeForce GTX 260 vs Tesla K20c

Place in the ranking	483	744
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation	0.35	0.14
Power efficiency	2.74	1.20
Architecture	Kepler (2012−2018)	Tesla 2.0 (2007−2013)
GPU code name	GK110	GT200
Market segment	Workstation	Desktop
Release date	12 November 2012 (11 years ago)	16 June 2008 (16 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$3,199	$449

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

Tesla K20c has 150% better value for money than GTX 260.

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	2496	192
Core clock speed	706 MHz	576 MHz
Number of transistors	7,080 million	1,400 million
Manufacturing process technology	28 nm	65 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	225 Watt	182 Watt
Maximum GPU temperature	no data	105 °C
Texture fill rate	146.8	36.86
Floating-point processing power	3.524 TFLOPS	0.4769 TFLOPS
ROPs	40	28
TMUs	208	64

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	267 mm
Height	no data	4.376" (111 mm) (11.1 cm)
Width	2-slot	2-slot
Supplementary power connectors	1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin	2x 6-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	GDDR5	GDDR3
Maximum RAM amount	5 GB	896 MB
Memory bus width	320 Bit	448 Bit
Memory clock speed	1300 MHz	999 MHz
Memory bandwidth	208.0 GB/s	111.9 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	No outputs	Dual Link DVIHDTV
Multi monitor support	no data	+
HDMI	-	+
Maximum VGA resolution	no data	2048x1536
Audio input for HDMI	no data	S/PDIF

API compatibility

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

DirectX	12 (11_0)	11.1 (10_0)
Shader Model	5.1	4.0
OpenGL	4.6	2.1
OpenCL	1.2	1.1
Vulkan	1.1.126	N/A
CUDA	3.5	+

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	8.90	3.16
Recency	12 November 2012	16 June 2008
Maximum RAM amount	5 GB	896 MB
Chip lithography	28 nm	65 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	225 Watt	182 Watt

Tesla K20c has a 181.6% higher aggregate performance score, an age advantage of 4 years, a 471.4% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 132.1% more advanced lithography process.

GTX 260, on the other hand, has 23.6% lower power consumption.

The Tesla K20c is our recommended choice as it beats the GeForce GTX 260 in performance tests.

Be aware that Tesla K20c is a workstation graphics card while GeForce GTX 260 is a desktop one.

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