Intel Arc Pro A30M vs NVIDIA Quadro M5000 Comparison

Since the FACT PACK only contains a single head-to-head benchmark (Geekbench OpenCL), the analysis must focus on that data point and the architectural/specification differences, without inventing benchmark results.

FAQ

Q: What is the primary benchmark score difference between the Intel Arc Pro A30M and the NVIDIA Quadro M5000?

A: In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the Intel Arc Pro A30M scores 31,894 points, while the NVIDIA Quadro M5000 scores 29,481 points. This gives the Intel part an 8.2% lead in this specific workload.

Q: How does the Intel Arc Pro A30M compare to its nearest rivals in overall performance?

A: The Intel Arc Pro A30M's average benchmark score of 31,894 places it 0.7% ahead of the NVIDIA TITAN RTX (31,676) and 1.1% ahead of the NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell (31,532). It trails the AMD Radeon Pro 570X by 0.9% and the AMD FirePro S10000 by 1.5%.

Q: Which GPU has a higher pixel fill rate?

A: The NVIDIA Quadro M5000 has a higher pixel rate of 66.43 GPixel/s, compared to the Intel Arc Pro A30M's 64.00 GPixel/s. The difference is small, but it favors the NVIDIA card.

Q: What is the difference in memory bus width and bandwidth?

A: The NVIDIA Quadro M5000 uses a 256-bit bus with 211.6 GB/s of bandwidth, while the Intel Arc Pro A30M uses a 64-bit bus with 128.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The NVIDIA card offers significantly more memory bandwidth.

Q: What are the API level differences between these two GPUs?

A: The Intel Arc Pro A30M supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the NVIDIA Quadro M5000 only supports DirectX 12 (12_1). Both GPUs support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4.

Q: How do the two cards rank in the overall GPU percentile?

A: Both the Intel Arc Pro A30M and the NVIDIA Quadro M5000 sit at the 76th percentile when compared to all GPUs in the database.

Architecture Differences

The Intel Arc Pro A30M is built on the Xe-HPG architecture, specifically using the DG2-128 chip, and belongs to the Alchemist generation for Pro-Series Mobile. In contrast, the NVIDIA Quadro M5000 utilizes the Maxwell 2.0 architecture with the GM204 chip. This represents a fundamental design generation gap: the Intel part is a modern, mobile-oriented architecture, while the NVIDIA part is a professional workstation GPU from the Maxwell era.

The manufacturing processes highlight this generational leap. The Intel chip is fabricated on a 6 nm process at TSMC, while the NVIDIA chip uses a 28 nm process. This results in a dramatic difference in transistor density: the Intel die packs 45.9 million transistors per square millimeter across a 157 mm² die, totaling 7,200 million transistors. The NVIDIA chip, by contrast, has a 398 mm² die with 5,200 million transistors, yielding a density of only 13.1 million per square millimeter.

Feature-wise, the Intel Arc Pro A30M includes 8 dedicated ray tracing cores, a feature entirely absent from the NVIDIA Quadro M5000. The Intel part also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), whereas the NVIDIA card is limited to DirectX 12 (12_1). Both GPUs support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4, but the hardware-level feature sets diverge significantly due to the architectural differences.

Where Each One Wins

The Intel Arc Pro A30M demonstrates a clear win in the single available benchmark, the Geekbench OpenCL test, where it outperforms the NVIDIA Quadro M5000 by 8.2%. This suggests that in compute-heavy, general-purpose GPU workloads that rely on OpenCL, the Intel part holds the advantage. Its higher base and boost clocks (1500 MHz base, 2000 MHz boost) compared to the NVIDIA part (861 MHz base, 1038 MHz boost) likely contribute to this result.

The NVIDIA Quadro M5000, however, has structural advantages that point to where it would win in other scenarios, even though the data does not include such tests. Its 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 211.6 GB/s of bandwidth, which is 65% more bandwidth than the Intel part's 128.0 GB/s. This would be advantageous in memory-bound workloads that require large data sets, such as high-resolution texture processing or large frame buffers. The NVIDIA card also has higher pixel and texture rates (66.43 GPixel/s and 132.9 GTexel/s, respectively) compared to the Intel part (64.00 GPixel/s and 128.0 GTexel/s), suggesting an edge in traditional rasterization fill-rate scenarios.

Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ substantially across nearly every specification field. The Intel Arc Pro A30M uses 4 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 64-bit bus, while the NVIDIA Quadro M5000 uses 8 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus. Memory bandwidth is 128.0 GB/s for the Intel part versus 211.6 GB/s for the NVIDIA part.

Clock speeds favor the Intel GPU significantly: it runs at a 1500 MHz base and 2000 MHz boost, while the NVIDIA card runs at 861 MHz base and 1038 MHz boost. The Intel memory clock is listed as 2000 MHz (16 Gbps effective), while the NVIDIA memory clock is 1653 MHz (6.6 Gbps effective).

Shader resources differ in count but not in a straightforward way. The Intel part has 1024 shading units, 64 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The NVIDIA part has double the shading units at 2048, double the TMUs at 128, and double the ROPs at 64. Despite this, the NVIDIA card's pixel rate (66.43 GPixel/s) is only slightly higher than the Intel card's (64.00 GPixel/s), and its texture rate (132.9 GTexel/s) is only slightly higher (128.0 GTexel/s). The raw FP32 throughput is nearly identical: 4.096 TFLOPS for Intel versus 4.252 TFLOPS for NVIDIA. The Intel part also supports FP16 at 8.192 TFLOPS, a feature the NVIDIA card does not list.

Power and physical characteristics differ greatly. The Intel Arc Pro A30M has a TDP of 50 W and requires no power connectors, making it suitable for portable devices. The NVIDIA Quadro M5000 has a TDP of 150 W, requires a single 6-pin power connector, and a 450 W suggested power supply. The NVIDIA card is a dual-slot design measuring 267 mm in length and 111 mm in height, while the Intel part has no listed dimensions. The Intel card uses a PCIe 4.0 x8 interface, while the NVIDIA card uses PCIe 3.0 x16. Display outputs are "Portable Device Dependent" for the Intel part, whereas the NVIDIA card provides 1x DVI and 4x DisplayPort 1.2.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only direct benchmark comparison available is the Geekbench OpenCL test. In this test, the Intel Arc Pro A30M scores 31,894, and the NVIDIA Quadro M5000 scores 29,481. The Intel part wins by 8.2%. This is a substantial margin in a compute benchmark, suggesting that the architectural efficiency of the Xe-HPG design and the significantly higher clock speeds outweigh the NVIDIA card's advantages in raw shader count and memory bandwidth for this specific workload.

For context, the Intel Arc Pro A30M's score of 31,894 places it just above the NVIDIA TITAN RTX (31,676, +0.7%) and the NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell (31,532, +1.1%). The NVIDIA Quadro M5000's score of 29,481, when averaged with its Vulkan score, gives it an average of 31,206, which places it 0.4% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER (31,087) and 1.5% behind the NVIDIA TITAN RTX. In the specific OpenCL test, the Intel part's lead over the NVIDIA card is larger than the lead the TITAN RTX has over the Quadro M5000.

The Quadro M5000 does have a Vulkan benchmark score of 32,931, which is higher than its OpenCL score. However, since the Intel Arc Pro A30M has no Vulkan score listed, a direct comparison in that API cannot be made from this data. The data shows that for OpenCL compute, the Intel Arc Pro A30M is the clear winner by a margin of over 8%.