Nvidia Tesla T4 vs Nvidia Tesla K80


Name	Nvidia Tesla T4	Nvidia Tesla K80
Release Date	13 September 2018	17 November 2014
Price	1,991 USD	450 USD
GPU Score
Brand	Nvidia	Nvidia
Series	Tesla T4	Tesla K80

Key Differences

The Tesla T4 and Tesla K80 are both really decent graphics accelerators that, despite being older than most of their peers, still see a hefty amount of use. Both GPUs are readily available in today’s market, with their prices varying according to their availability and the release of newer, more efficient options from Nvidia.

The K80 is ten years old, which can be an eternity in the highly advanced and fast-paced industry of processor development. However, due to its top-of-the-line attributes of that time and excellent working efficiency, this GPU easily ranks among the “most wanted” for casual consumer use and also has seen plenty of use for gaming.

The T4 is a relatively more modern option, with more features and much cleaner processing times. However, it still costs equal to many S-tier mainstream GPUs.

Why you should consider Nvidia Tesla T4

It has a 16 Gig memory and costs only around 1200$.
It features a higher core and memory frequency with an excellent bandwidth.
Also, its power efficiency ranks among the best.

Why you should consider Nvidia Tesla K80

It is much cheaper and comes at the price of an excellent mid-tier graphics card.
It contains a good memory capacity and core clock frequencies.
It has legacy driver support and can easily interact with plenty of modern APIs.

Graphics Processor

The Tesla K80 and T4 feature a distinct set of specifications primarily because they have a substantial generational difference. The K80, being older, is based on a 28nm process size chip that only consists of 7 billion transistors and has a 561mm2 die size. Furthermore, its basic architecture has been long obsolete; Kepler 2.0 and Nvidia came a long way ahead of it at the time of releasing the T4.

Compared to the K80, the processing chip of the T4 is a lot more efficient and powerful. With a process size of only 12nm, this chip contains more than 13 billion transistors and works on a much modern “Turing” architecture, which renders the use of advanced AI-powered cores and raytracing units. The smaller fabrication size of the T4 is beneficial because it holds these many transistors in a die that is somewhat smaller than that of the K80.

GPU Name	Nvidia Tesla T4	Nvidia Tesla K80
GPU Variant	TU104-895-A1	GK210-885-A1
Architecture	Turing	Kepler 2.0
Manufacturing Size	12 nm	28 nm
Numbers of Transistors	13,600 million	7,100 million
Die Size	545 mm²	561 mm²

GPU Clocks

Once again, the T4 is above the K80 regarding core clock frequency and memory speeds. Due to its robust yet diminutive size, the T4 features much higher clock speed ranges of 585 MHz Base clock and 1590 MHz boost clock. Meanwhile, the K80 is only decent at best, with a clock range of 562 – 824 MHz.

The memory speed for both GPUs is roughly similar, with a rating of 1250 MHz. However, the T4 features a highly effective memory clock that doubles the amount of efficiency over the K80

Base Clock	585 MHz	562 MHz
Boost Clock	1590 MHz	824 MHz
Memory Clock	1250 MHz, 10 Gbps effective	1253 MHz, 5 Gbps effective

Memory Specifications

Both graphics cards have a robust and hefty memory, which will come in handy in several use cases. Where the T4 features a 16 GB VRAM, the K80 has a 12 GB VRAM. However, the memory types that both GPU have a difference of a whole generation. For example, the K80 has a GDDR5, whereas the T4 uses a trendy GDDR6. This not only affects the overall bandwidths of these GPUs but also reflects on their memory bandwidths.

Moreover, the K80 has a 384-bit bus. Meanwhile, the T4 supports a 256-bit bus. Hence, the K80 ends up with a relatively wider memory bus. Nevertheless, the T4 still beats the K80 in terms of memory bandwidths due to its better memory type.

Memory Size	16GB	12GB
Memory Type	GDDR6	GDDR5
Memory Bus	256 bit	384 bit
Bandwidth	320.0 GB/s	240.6 GB/s

Board Specifications

As usual, these graphics cards don’t support any display outputs because of their highly selective and professional nature. Additionally, they also measure at an identical length of 168mm.

The T4 consumes only a slight amount of power concerning the K80. Its TDP of only 70 Watts works well in its favor because it makes it much more energy efficient and doesn’t warrant the utilization of any VGA connectors. The K80, however, requires a robust power supply because it will need around 300 Watts for itself. Also, it needs an 8-pin PCIe Connector.

Number of Slots	Nvidia RTX 3090	AMD RX 5700 XT
Lenght	168 mm	168 mm
Width	-	-
Height	-	-
TDP	70W	300W
Power Connectors	None	1x 8-pin
Suggested PSU	250W	700W
Display Outputs	N/A	N/A

Graphics Features

The K80 and T4 support several APIs for developers and users to harness the full capabilities of these graphics cards effectively. Anyhow, the K80 only supports slightly older API versions. Meanwhile, the T4 can communicate with the latest versions of Direct X 12, Open CL, Open GL, Vulkan, and Shader Model.