NVIDIA CMP 40HX vs NVIDIA RTX A4500 Mobile Comparison

The NVIDIA RTX A4500 Mobile and NVIDIA CMP 40HX are both end-of-life NVIDIA products, yet they target entirely different workloads. The A4500 Mobile is a professional Ampere-based mobile workstation GPU with 16 GB of memory, while the CMP 40HX is a Turing-based mining card with 8 GB and no display outputs. Benchmark data shows the A4500 Mobile holds a significant edge in OpenCL performance, while the CMP 40HX edges ahead in Vulkan, making the choice heavily dependent on the specific application and compute API in use.

The Verdict

The data presents a clear split decision. For general-purpose compute and professional workloads that leverage OpenCL, the NVIDIA RTX A4500 Mobile is the superior option, delivering a 12.8% higher score in that benchmark. Its 17.66 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, 16 GB of VRAM, and 512.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth provide a substantial hardware foundation for tasks like rendering, simulation, and data science. The RTX A4500 Mobile also benefits from having more shading units (5888 vs 2304), more TMUs (184 vs 144), and more ROPs (96 vs 64) than the CMP 40HX.

Conversely, the NVIDIA CMP 40HX wins the only other head-to-head benchmark, the Vulkan test, by a narrow 1.2% margin (77879 vs 76960). However, its hardware profile makes it a niche product. With no display outputs, a PCIe 1.0 x4 bus interface, and a mining-specific generation designation, it is not designed for interactive or general-purpose use. Its higher FP16 throughput (15.21 TFLOPS, 2:1 ratio) and more tensor cores (288 vs 184) suggest an orientation toward specific compute tasks rather than traditional graphics or workstation applications. Therefore, the RTX A4500 Mobile is the rational pick for most professional users, while the CMP 40HX is only relevant for specialized compute workloads where its specific strengths, such as Vulkan performance and higher base clocks, are applicable.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA RTX A4500 Mobile has a higher average benchmark score of 91134, compared to the NVIDIA CMP 40HX's 85637. This places the A4500 Mobile 6.4% ahead of the CMP 40HX based on their aggregate performance.

Q: What is the main architectural difference between the two GPUs?

A: The RTX A4500 Mobile is built on the Ampere architecture using an 8 nm process from Samsung, while the CMP 40HX is based on the older Turing architecture using TSMC's 12 nm process. This results in a significant difference in transistor density, with the A4500 Mobile packing 44.4M transistors per mm² compared to the CMP 40HX's 24.3M.

Q: How does the memory configuration differ?

A: The RTX A4500 Mobile comes with 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 512.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The CMP 40HX has half the memory at 8 GB, also on a 256-bit bus, but with lower bandwidth at 448.0 GB/s due to a slower effective memory speed of 14 Gbps versus 16 Gbps.

Q: Which card has a better FP32 (single-precision) compute performance?

A: The RTX A4500 Mobile is vastly superior in FP32 performance, offering 17.66 TFLOPS compared to the CMP 40HX's 7.603 TFLOPS. This represents a 132% advantage for the A4500 Mobile, making it more than twice as fast for standard single-precision compute tasks.

Q: Does the CMP 40HX support display outputs?

A: No, the NVIDIA CMP 40HX has no display outputs and is described as a "Mining GPUs" generation product. In contrast, the RTX A4500 Mobile's display outputs are listed as "Portable Device Dependent," indicating it is designed for mobile workstations with integrated displays.

Q: What are the TDP differences between the two cards?

A: The RTX A4500 Mobile has a TDP of 140 W, while the CMP 40HX has a higher TDP of 185 W. This is notable because the A4500 Mobile achieves higher FP32 performance while consuming 45 W less power, indicating a significant efficiency advantage for the Ampere-based part.

Architecture Differences

The fundamental architectural divide is between NVIDIA's Ampere and Turing generations. The RTX A4500 Mobile uses the GA104 chip, fabricated on an 8 nm process by Samsung, while the CMP 40HX uses the TU106 chip on TSMC's 12 nm process. This process difference yields a major efficiency and density gap: the A4500 Mobile integrates 17,400 million transistors on a 392 mm² die for a density of 44.4M transistors per mm². The CMP 40HX, despite having a larger die at 445 mm², contains fewer transistors at 10,800 million, resulting in a density of just 24.3M per mm².

The compute resources also diverge sharply. The A4500 Mobile is equipped with 5888 shading units, 184 TMUs, and 96 ROPs, alongside 46 RT cores and 184 tensor cores. The CMP 40HX, by contrast, has only 2304 shading units, 144 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, but includes 36 RT cores and a higher count of 288 tensor cores. The tensor core count is a notable anomaly; despite being an older architecture, the CMP 40HX has more of these AI-focused units. However, the A4500 Mobile's advantage in raw shader count is massive, which aligns with its superior FP32 throughput.

Another key architectural distinction is the FP16/FP32 ratio. The A4500 Mobile operates at a 1:1 ratio, delivering 17.66 TFLOPS for both FP32 and FP16. The CMP 40HX has a 2:1 ratio, meaning its FP16 performance of 15.21 TFLOPS is double its FP32 performance of 7.603 TFLOPS. This suggests the CMP 40HX was designed to excel in workloads that can leverage half-precision arithmetic, a common trait in some compute and machine learning tasks. Finally, the A4500 Mobile supports the PCIe 4.0 x16 interface, while the CMP 40HX is limited to the much older PCIe 1.0 x4 interface, which severely constrains data transfer speeds between the GPU and the host system.

Specification Differences

The specification sheets for these two GPUs reveal stark contrasts in almost every category. The RTX A4500 Mobile is a mobile part with a 140 W TDP, while the CMP 40HX is a dual-slot desktop card with a 185 W TDP and a single 8-pin power connector, requiring a 450 W suggested PSU. The CMP 40HX has physical dimensions of 229 mm in length, 111 mm in height, and 35 mm in width, whereas the A4500 Mobile's dimensions are listed as null, reflecting its portable device integration.

Clock speeds differ, with the CMP 40HX running at a higher base clock of 1470 MHz and boost of 1650 MHz, compared to the A4500 Mobile's 930 MHz base and 1500 MHz boost. Memory configuration is another differentiator: the A4500 Mobile offers 16 GB of GDDR6 at 2000 MHz (16 Gbps effective) for 512.0 GB/s bandwidth, while the CMP 40HX has 8 GB of GDDR6 at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective) for 448.0 GB/s. The A4500 Mobile has no power connectors (relying on the laptop's power delivery), while the CMP 40HX uses a 1x 8-pin connector.

The bus interface is a major point of separation: the A4500 Mobile uses PCIe 4.0 x16, while the CMP 40HX is restricted to PCIe 1.0 x4. Display outputs also differ, with the A4500 Mobile being "Portable Device Dependent" and the CMP 40HX having none. The CMP 40HX has a listed launch MSRP of 699 USD, while the A4500 Mobile has no launch MSRP listed. Finally, the release dates are distinct, with the CMP 40HX launching on 2021-02-24 and the A4500 Mobile on 2022-03-21, and their generations are listed as "Mining GPUs" versus "Ampere-MW (Ax000)" respectively.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the RTX A4500 Mobile decisively outperforms the CMP 40HX, scoring 105307 against 93395. This 12.8% delta is the largest performance gap in the comparison and directly correlates with the A4500 Mobile's substantial hardware advantages: 2.5 times more shading units, over twice the FP32 TFLOPS (17.66 vs 7.603), and 64 GB/s more memory bandwidth. This result demonstrates the A4500 Mobile's dominance in OpenCL-based compute applications, where its raw shader count and memory throughput are fully utilized.

The Vulkan benchmark tells a different story. Here, the CMP 40HX narrowly wins with a score of 77879, edging out the A4500 Mobile's 76960 by a slim 1.2% margin. This is a surprising outcome given the CMP 40HX's older architecture and significantly lower FP32 compute. The result may be attributed to its higher base and boost clocks (1470/1650 MHz vs 930/1500 MHz), which can benefit certain low-level API workloads that are more latency-sensitive than throughput-bound. It also has more tensor cores (288 vs 184), which could influence specific Vulkan compute paths.

Analyzing the rivals for context, the A4500 Mobile's average score of 91134 places it 4.2% ahead of the NVIDIA Quadro GP100 (87445) and 4.6% ahead of the AMD Radeon PRO W7600 (87108), while sitting just 0.6% below the desktop RTX A4500 (91671). The CMP 40HX's average of 85637 is 1.7% behind the Radeon PRO W7600 and 2.1% behind the Quadro GP100, but it leads the AMD Radeon PRO W6600 (81995) by 4.4% and the Radeon Pro Vega 64X (80959) by 5.8%. Both GPUs sit at the 93rd percentile among all GPUs, indicating they are both high performers, but the A4500 Mobile's OpenCL advantage and superior general compute specifications make it the more versatile and powerful choice in most head-to-head scenarios. The single Vulkan win for the CMP 40HX is a narrow, niche victory that does not outweigh its losses in core compute metrics.