NVIDIA A10G vs NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell Comparison

The NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell and the NVIDIA A10G represent two distinct generations of NVIDIA's professional GPU lineup, separated by a massive architectural leap. The data from the FACT PACK shows a clear hierarchy, with the RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell dominating in raw compute, while the A10G presents a legacy option with a significantly lower power footprint. Benchmark results indicate that the newer Blackwell part is not just incrementally faster, but a generational overhaul that redefines performance expectations for professional workloads.

Where Each One Wins

The performance split between these two cards is heavily lopsided, with the RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell winning both head-to-head benchmark comparisons. In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell scores 254,116 against the A10G's 158,063, a decisive 60.8% advantage. The gap widens even further in the Geekbench Vulkan test, where the RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell scores 282,631 versus the A10G's 145,863, representing a 93.8% lead. These results indicate that the RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell is the clear winner for any compute-heavy application, from AI inference to rendering tasks.

The A10G, however, finds its niche in power-constrained environments. Its thermal design power is just 150 W, exactly half of the RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell's 300 W, and it requires only a 450 W suggested PSU compared to the 700 W suggested for the newer card. The A10G is also a single-slot card with no display outputs, making it a purpose-built server accelerator for dense deployments where space and power are at a premium. While it cannot match the Blackwell card's performance, its lower power draw and single-slot form factor make it a viable option for specific data center workloads that prioritize density over sheer throughput.

In terms of market positioning, the RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell sits in the 98th percentile of all GPUs, while the A10G is just one point behind at the 97th percentile. This shows that despite being older and significantly slower, the A10G remains a capable performer in the broader GPU landscape. The RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell's average benchmark score of 182,109 far exceeds the A10G's average of 151,963, but the A10G still holds its own against rivals like the NVIDIA Tesla V100 PCIe 32 GB, which it leads by 1.1%, and the AMD Instinct MI100, which it beats by 9.3%.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two GPUs is stark, reflecting the generational shift from Ampere to Blackwell. The RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell is built on the GB202 chip using a 5 nm process from TSMC, while the A10G uses the GA102 chip on Samsung's 8 nm node. This process advantage translates directly into transistor density: the Blackwell chip packs 92,200 million transistors into a 750 mm² die, yielding a density of 122.9 million transistors per mm². The A10G's GA102, by contrast, contains 28,300 million transistors on a 628 mm² die, resulting in a density of just 45.1 million per mm².

The Blackwell architecture introduces a host of feature improvements over Ampere. The RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell supports PCIe 5.0 x16, while the A10G is limited to PCIe 4.0 x16. Display connectivity also differs dramatically: the RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell offers 4x DisplayPort 2.1b outputs, whereas the A10G has no display outputs at all, confirming its server-only status. Both cards support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, so API compatibility is not a differentiator.

The memory subsystem represents a major architectural split. The RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell uses 48 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 384-bit bus, delivering 1.34 TB/s of bandwidth. The A10G uses 24 GB of GDDR6 on the same 384-bit bus, but only achieves 600.2 GB/s. This is more than a 2x bandwidth advantage for the Blackwell card, which is critical for memory-bound workloads. The RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell also doubles the frame buffer capacity, which directly impacts the size of datasets that can be processed without spilling to system memory.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The two head-to-head benchmarks in the data paint a clear picture of the performance gap. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell scores 254,116 against the A10G's 158,063, a 60.8% difference. This test measures general-purpose compute performance across a variety of workloads, and the result shows that the Blackwell architecture's higher shader count and clock speeds translate into substantial real-world gains.

The Vulkan benchmark tells an even more dramatic story. The RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell scores 282,631, while the A10G manages just 145,863, resulting in a 93.8% lead for the newer card. Vulkan is a low-level API that can expose raw hardware capabilities more directly, and the near-doubling of performance highlights the efficiency of the Blackwell design. The RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell's boost clock of 2377 MHz, compared to the A10G's 1710 MHz, combined with its 14,080 shading units versus 9,216, explains this massive advantage.

For context on the A10G's standing, its nearest rival in the database is the NVIDIA Tesla V100 PCIe 32 GB, which it beats by just 1.1%. It also outperforms the AMD Instinct MI100 by 9.3%. However, it trails the AMD Radeon Pro W6800X by 5.4% and the NVIDIA A100 PCIe 40 GB by 6.5%. The RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell, meanwhile, sits in a different performance tier entirely, with its nearest rivals including the NVIDIA A100 SXM4 80 GB, which it trails by 0.9%, and the NVIDIA RTX 5000 Ada Generation, which it trails by 1.4%. It leads the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 D by 2.3% and the NVIDIA A100 SXM4 40 GB by 2.7%.

Specification Differences

The specification sheets for these two cards reveal differences in nearly every category. The RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell has 14,080 shading units, 440 texture mapping units, and 160 raster output pipelines, while the A10G has 9,216 shading units, 288 TMUs, and 96 ROPs. The Blackwell card also features 110 ray tracing cores and 440 tensor cores, compared to 72 RT cores and 288 tensor cores on the A10G.

Clock speeds favor the newer card substantially. The RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell runs at a base clock of 1740 MHz and boosts to 2377 MHz, while the A10G operates at 1320 MHz base and 1710 MHz boost. This clock advantage compounds with the higher core count to produce the performance gap seen in benchmarks. The pixel rate of the RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell is 380.3 GPixel/s, more than double the A10G's 164.2 GPixel/s, and the texture rate is 1,045.9 GTexel/s versus 492.5 GTexel/s.

FP32 performance is another area of decisive difference. The RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell delivers 66.94 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, while the A10G manages just 31.52 TFLOPS. FP16 performance is identical to FP32 on both cards at a 1:1 ratio, meaning the Blackwell card also doubles the A10G's FP16 throughput. The power envelope tells a different story: the RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell draws 300 W and requires a 1x 16-pin power connector, while the A10G draws just 150 W via an 8-pin EPS connector.

Physical specifications are largely similar in length and height, with both cards measuring 267 mm in length and approximately 111-112 mm in height. The RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell is dual-slot with a width of 40 mm, while the A10G is single-slot with no width specified. The A10G is marked as end-of-life in production status, while the RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell is active, and the A10G's predecessor is Tesla Turing, while the RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell follows the Workstation Ada generation.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has higher raw compute performance?

A: The NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell delivers 66.94 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, more than double the A10G's 31.52 TFLOPS. This translates to a 60.8% lead in Geekbench OpenCL and a 93.8% lead in Geekbench Vulkan.

Q: How do the memory capacities and bandwidths compare?

A: The RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell features 48 GB of GDDR7 memory with 1.34 TB/s bandwidth, while the A10G has 24 GB of GDDR6 with 600.2 GB/s. Both use a 384-bit memory bus.

Q: What are the power consumption requirements for each card?

A: The RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell has a thermal design power of 300 W and requires a 700 W suggested PSU, while the A10G draws just 150 W with a 450 W suggested PSU. The A10G is also single-slot, while the RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell is dual-slot.

Q: Which card is better suited for display-centric workloads?

A: The RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell has 4x DisplayPort 2.1b outputs, while the A10G has no display outputs at all. The A10G is designed exclusively for server deployments without direct display connectivity.

Q: How does the A10G perform against its own rivals?

A: The A10G beats the NVIDIA Tesla V100 PCIe 32 GB by 1.1% and the AMD Instinct MI100 by 9.3%, but trails the AMD Radeon Pro W6800X by 5.4% and the NVIDIA A100 PCIe 40 GB by 6.5%.

Q: What is the production status of each GPU?

A: The RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell is marked as active in production, while the A10G is end-of-life. The A10G's successor is Server Ada, and its predecessor is Tesla Turing.