NVIDIA A2 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Comparison

The database pairs two NVIDIA GPUs that rarely share a sentence: the GeForce RTX 5070, a current-generation gaming card built on Blackwell 2.0, and the A2, an end-of-life entry workstation product from the Ampere era. On raw capability the matchup is lopsided, with the RTX 5070 winning both head-to-head benchmarks by margins approaching five to one. Yet the recorded data also shows the A2 occupies a design space the RTX 5070 deliberately ignores: single-slot, slot-powered, PCIe-attached compute with no display outputs at all. What follows is a look at what the numbers say, where each card's design intent shows through, and which profiles of buyer each one serves.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The shared test suite between the two cards is limited to two Geekbench workloads, and both go decisively to the RTX 5070.

In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 5070 scores 172660 against the A2's 35357, a gap of 388.3 percent in the RTX 5070's favor. Geekbench Vulkan tells an even more dramatic story: 178923 versus 34023, a 425.9 percent advantage. Both tests probe general GPU compute and graphics API throughput, and the deltas track closely with the underlying hardware disparity: the RTX 5070 posts 30.87 TFLOPS of FP32 against the A2's 4.531 TFLOPS, roughly a factor of seven in raw shading capability.

Beyond the shared tests, the RTX 5070's fuller benchmark record reinforces the picture. It scores 5077 in 3DMark Steel Nomad (DirectX 12), 29137 in Passmark G3D, 15787 in Passmark GPU Compute, and posts Passmark DirectX results of 320 (DX9), 277 (DX11), 180 (DX10), and 1305 in G2D. The A2 has no recorded entries in any of these tests, which itself is informative: the database's coverage of the A2 is confined to compute-oriented suites, consistent with its role as a passively-positioned, slot-powered workstation part rather than a gaming card.

Aggregate scores land at 40377 for the RTX 5070 and 34690 for the A2. Those averages are closer than the head-to-head results might suggest, but the composition differs: the RTX 5070's average is built from ten recorded tests spanning gaming and compute, while the A2's reflects only the two Geekbench runs. Percentile placement versus all GPUs in the database is 82 for the RTX 5070 and 79 for the A2, again with very different sample compositions behind those figures.

Curiously, the RTX 5070's nearest rivals in the database include some older professional parts: the AMD Radeon Pro 580 sits at an average score of 40318, just 0.1 percent behind, the Radeon Pro WX 7100 trails by 0.8 percent, the Radeon Pro 5300 is actually 1.2 percent ahead, and the RTX A500 Mobile sits 2 percent back. The A2's rivals cluster tightly around its own average: the T1000 8 GB and the Radeon HD 7970 are both within 0.4 percent, TITAN V is 1 percent behind, and the RTX A1000 trails by 1.4 percent. That clustering suggests the A2 competes in a densely populated low-throughput tier.

FAQ

Q: How much faster is the RTX 5070 than the A2 in compute benchmarks?

A: In Geekbench OpenCL the RTX 5070 leads by 388.3 percent (172660 vs 35357), and in Geekbench Vulkan by 425.9 percent (178923 vs 34023).

Q: Which card has more memory?

A: The A2, with 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus delivering 200.1 GB/s. The RTX 5070 has 12 GB of GDDR7 on a 192-bit bus, but with 672.0 GB/s of bandwidth, more than three times the A2's.

Q: Do both cards support the same graphics APIs?

A: Yes. Both list DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, so API-level support is identical despite the generational gap.

Q: Can the A2 drive a display?

A: Not according to the database, which lists no display outputs for the A2. The RTX 5070 offers one HDMI 2.1b and three DisplayPort 2.1b outputs.

Q: Which card is still in production?

A: The RTX 5070 is marked Active, while the A2 is End-of-life. The A2 launched in November 2021; the RTX 5070 released in March 2025.

Q: How do their power requirements differ?

A: The A2 draws 60 W with no auxiliary power connectors and needs a 250 W suggested PSU. The RTX 5070 draws 250 W via one 16-pin connector with a 600 W suggested PSU.

Architecture Differences

The two cards sit three architectural and process generations apart in spirit. The RTX 5070 uses the GB205 chip on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture, fabricated at TSMC on a 5 nm process, packing 31,100 million transistors into a 263 mm² die for a density of 118.3M per mm². The A2's GA107 chip runs the Ampere architecture, built by Samsung on an 8 nm process, with 8,700 million transistors on a 200 mm² die at 43.5M per mm². The density difference, nearly a factor of three, reflects the process node gap as much as the design era.

The execution resource counts scale accordingly. The RTX 5070 carries 6144 shading units, 192 TMUs, 80 ROPs, 48 RT cores, and 192 tensor cores. The A2 has 1280 shading units, 40 TMUs, 32 ROPs, 10 RT cores, and 40 tensor cores. Clocks compound the gap: the RTX 5070 boosts to 2512 MHz from a 2325 MHz base, versus 1770 MHz boost and 1440 MHz base for the A2. The resulting throughput figures are stark, with pixel fill of 201.0 GPixel/s against 56.64 GPixel/s and texture fill of 482.3 GTexel/s against 70.80 GTexel/s.

Memory subsystems diverge in philosophy. The RTX 5070's GDDR7 runs at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective) to reach 672.0 GB/s over a 192-bit bus. The A2's GDDR6 runs at 1563 MHz (12.5 Gbps effective) for 200.1 GB/s over 128 bits, trading bandwidth for the larger 16 GB capacity typical of workstation cards.

The A2's physical and interface choices mark it as an appliance-class part: single-slot width, no power connectors, PCIe 4.0 x8 rather than a full x16 link. The RTX 5070 is a dual-slot card on PCIe 5.0 x16 measuring 245 mm long, 115 mm tall, and 40 mm wide.

The Verdict

For anything compute- or graphics-throughput-bound, the data is unambiguous. The RTX 5070 wins every shared benchmark by roughly 400 percent, delivers about seven times the FP32 compute, three times the memory bandwidth, and offers substantially deeper ray tracing and tensor resources. It is also the only one of the two still in active production, with DirectX 12 Ultimate support and current display connectivity. Anyone choosing between these two for rendering, compute, or gaming should take the RTX 5070.

The A2's case rests on constraints the RTX 5070 cannot satisfy. It fits a single slot, draws 60 W with no auxiliary connector, works within a 250 W suggested PSU, and carries 16 GB of memory despite its modest throughput. In dense multi-GPU chassis or low-power edge systems where the A2's rival set (the T1000 8 GB, RTX A1000, and peers within about a percent of its average score) is the relevant comparison, that profile explains its existence. But as a performance choice against the RTX 5070, the recorded numbers leave no argument: it wins nothing in the head-to-head.

Specification Differences

• Architecture: Blackwell 2.0 (RTX 5070) vs Ampere (A2)
• Chip: GB205 vs GA107
• Process: TSMC 5 nm, 31,100M transistors, 263 mm², 118.3M/mm² vs Samsung 8 nm, 8,700M transistors, 200 mm², 43.5M/mm²
• Shading units: 6144 vs 1280
• TMUs: 192 vs 40
• ROPs: 80 vs 32
• RT cores: 48 vs 10
• Tensor cores: 192 vs 40
• Clocks: 2325 MHz base / 2512 MHz boost vs 1440 MHz base / 1770 MHz boost
• Memory: 12 GB GDDR7, 192-bit, 672.0 GB/s vs 16 GB GDDR6, 128-bit, 200.1 GB/s
• FP32: 30.87 TFLOPS vs 4.531 TFLOPS
• Pixel rate: 201.0 vs 56.64 GPixel/s; Texture rate: 482.3 vs 70.80 GTexel/s
• TDP: 250 W vs 60 W; Suggested PSU: 600 W vs 250 W
• Power connectors: 1x 16-pin vs none
• Slot width: Dual-slot vs single-slot
• Bus: PCIe 5.0 x16 vs PCIe 4.0 x8
• Display outputs: 1x HDMI 2.1b and 3x DisplayPort 2.1b vs none
• Status: Active vs End-of-life
• Release: March 2025 vs November 2021
• Average benchmark score: 40377 vs 34690; Percentile: 82 vs 79
• Launch MSRP: 549 USD (RTX 5070); no launch MSRP recorded for the A2

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 5070 wins every performance dimension in the database. Geekbench OpenCL (172660 vs 35357) and Geekbench Vulkan (178923 vs 34023) both go its way by margins near 400 percent. Its Passmark record (29137 G3D, 15787 GPU Compute, 5077 Steel Nomad) shows strength across gaming and compute suites the A2 does not even appear in. Add the ray tracing and tensor core counts, the bandwidth advantage, and full display connectivity, and the use cases are clear: gaming at any setting, GPU compute, rendering, and anything requiring modern display outputs belong to the RTX 5070.

The A2 wins on form factor and capacity, full stop. Its single-slot, connector-free 60 W design suits systems that cannot host or feed the RTX 5070's dual-slot 250 W profile, and its 16 GB frame buffer exceeds the RTX 5070's 12 GB, a genuine advantage for workloads that fit its modest throughput. Against its own neighbors in the database, the T1000 8 GB, Radeon HD 7970, TITAN V, and RTX A1000, all within about a percent of its average score, it holds its own. That is the A2's real arena: not this head-to-head, but the low-power tier where it was designed to compete.