NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 A Mobile vs NVIDIA RTX 4500 Ada Generation Comparison

FAQ

Q: How does the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 A Mobile compare to the NVIDIA RTX 4500 Ada Generation in overall benchmark performance?

A: The RTX 4500 Ada Generation holds a decisive lead. Its average benchmark score is 166,094, placing it in the 97th percentile of all GPUs, while the RTX 3050 A Mobile averages 8,746, sitting in the 44th percentile. The head-to-head Geekbench OpenCL result shows the RTX 4500 Ada Generation scoring 160,786 against 52,998 for the RTX 3050 A Mobile, a delta of -67% for the mobile chip.

Q: What are the nearest performance rivals for each card according to the database?

A: The RTX 3050 A Mobile’s closest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 v2 (average score 8,743, delta 0%), the NVIDIA Quadro P2200 (8,686, delta 0.7%), the AMD Radeon R9 M265X (8,851, delta -1.2%), and the AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 (8,863, delta -1.3%). The RTX 4500 Ada Generation’s nearest rivals are the NVIDIA RTX A5500 (165,217, delta 0.5%), the AMD Radeon PRO W7800 (164,894, delta 0.7%), the AMD Radeon Pro W6900X (168,574, delta -1.5%), and the NVIDIA A100 PCIe 40 GB (162,504, delta 2.2%).

Q: Which card has the higher memory capacity and bandwidth?

A: The RTX 4500 Ada Generation offers 24 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, delivering 432.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The RTX 3050 A Mobile has 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, providing 192.0 GB/s. The workstation card has six times the memory capacity and more than double the bandwidth.

Q: What are the production statuses of these two GPUs?

A: The RTX 3050 A Mobile is marked as end-of-life, having been released on December 31, 2023. The RTX 4500 Ada Generation is active in production, with a release date of August 8, 2023, and it lists the Blackwell PRO W as its successor.

Q: How do the shading unit counts differ between the two cards?

A: The RTX 4500 Ada Generation has 7,680 shading units, while the RTX 3050 A Mobile has 1,792. This represents a 4.3x difference in raw shader hardware, consistent with the large gap in FP32 compute performance (39.63 TFLOPS versus 4.813 TFLOPS).

Q: What power and physical specifications separate the two?

A: The RTX 3050 A Mobile has a 45 W TDP and uses an IGP slot width with no power connectors, making it suitable for portable devices. The RTX 4500 Ada Generation has a 210 W TDP, a dual-slot form factor, no power connectors, and a suggested PSU of 550 W. The workstation card measures 245 mm in length and 112 mm in height.

The Verdict

The data draws a very clear line between these two products. The RTX 3050 A Mobile is a low-power mobile chip aimed at portable systems, delivering 4.813 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and scoring in the 44th percentile globally. Its average benchmark score of 8,746 places it in the company of older desktop cards like the GeForce GTX 460 v2 and the Quadro P2200, both within 1% of its average score. This is not a workstation-class part; it is an entry-level mobile GPU with 4 GB of memory and a 45 W envelope.

The RTX 4500 Ada Generation, by contrast, is a professional workstation GPU built on the Ada Lovelace architecture. It scores 166,094 on average, sits in the 97th percentile, and outperforms its nearest rivals, the RTX A5500 and the Radeon PRO W7800, by 0.5% and 0.7% respectively. Its 39.63 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, 24 GB of memory, and 432.0 GB/s of bandwidth put it in an entirely different performance class.

For users with portable devices or constrained thermal budgets, the RTX 3050 A Mobile fits a niche where power draw is critical and compute demands are modest. For professional workloads requiring large memory capacity, high throughput, and sustained compute performance, the RTX 4500 Ada Generation is the only viable choice between the two. The benchmark data shows no scenario where the mobile chip competes with the workstation card; the performance gap is overwhelming and consistent across every recorded metric.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only shared benchmark in the database is Geekbench OpenCL, and the result is one-sided. The RTX 4500 Ada Generation scores 160,786, while the RTX 3050 A Mobile scores 52,998. The delta is -67% for the mobile GPU, meaning the workstation card delivers approximately three times the OpenCL performance. This aligns with the raw compute specifications: the RTX 4500 Ada Generation produces 39.63 TFLOPS of FP32 and FP16 (1:1 ratio), while the RTX 3050 A Mobile produces 4.813 TFLOPS in both, a factor of roughly 8.2x.

In other benchmark categories where only the RTX 3050 A Mobile has recorded scores, the picture remains consistent. Its Passmark G3D score is 11,664, with DirectX 11 scoring 94 and DirectX 9 scoring 152. Its Passmark GPU compute score is 4,419. These figures are all consistent with a low-end mobile part. The RTX 4500 Ada Generation has no recorded Passmark scores in the database, but its Geekbench Vulkan score of 171,401 further confirms its high-end positioning, exceeding even its own OpenCL result.

The RTX 3050 A Mobile’s nearest rivals, all within a 1.3% delta of its average score, demonstrate that it competes with hardware from a much older generation or lower tier. The GeForce GTX 460 v2, a desktop GPU from over a decade ago, matches it almost exactly at 8,743 versus 8,746. The RTX 4500 Ada Generation, meanwhile, edges out the RTX A5500 by 0.5% and the Radeon PRO W7800 by 0.7%, while trailing the Radeon Pro W6900X by 1.5%. These are tight margins among professional workstation GPUs, indicating that the RTX 4500 Ada Generation sits at the top of its immediate competitive set.

Specification Differences

The two cards diverge on nearly every measurable specification. The RTX 3050 A Mobile uses the GA106 chip on an 8 nm process from Samsung, with 12,000 million transistors on a 276 mm² die. The RTX 4500 Ada Generation uses the AD103 chip on a 5 nm process from TSMC, with 45,900 million transistors on a 379 mm² die. Transistor density reflects the process advantage: 43.5 million transistors per mm² for the mobile chip versus 121.1 million per mm² for the Ada card.

Clock speeds differ substantially. The RTX 3050 A Mobile has a base clock of 1065 MHz and a boost of 1343 MHz. The RTX 4500 Ada Generation runs at 2070 MHz base and 2580 MHz boost. Memory clocks also differ: 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective) versus 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective).

Memory configuration is a major differentiator. The RTX 3050 A Mobile has 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus with 192.0 GB/s bandwidth. The RTX 4500 Ada Generation has 24 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus with 432.0 GB/s bandwidth. The workstation card has 6x the capacity and 2.25x the bandwidth.

Compute resources scale accordingly. The RTX 3050 A Mobile has 1,792 shading units, 56 TMUs, 32 ROPs, 14 RT cores, and 56 tensor cores. The RTX 4500 Ada Generation has 7,680 shading units, 240 TMUs, 80 ROPs, 60 RT cores, and 240 tensor cores. Pixel rate is 42.98 GPixel/s versus 206.4 GPixel/s, and texture rate is 75.21 GTexel/s versus 619.2 GTexel/s.

Power and physical design are opposites. The RTX 3050 A Mobile draws 45 W, uses an IGP slot width, and has no power connectors. The RTX 4500 Ada Generation draws 210 W, uses a dual-slot design, has no power connectors, and requires a 550 W suggested PSU. The bus interface also differs: PCIe 4.0 x8 for the mobile chip versus PCIe 4.0 x16 for the workstation card. Display outputs are portable-device dependent for the mobile part, while the RTX 4500 Ada Generation provides 4x DisplayPort 1.4a.

Architecture Differences

The RTX 3050 A Mobile is built on NVIDIA’s Ampere architecture, belonging to the GeForce 30-series and the GeForce 30 Mobile generation. The RTX 4500 Ada Generation uses the Ada Lovelace architecture, part of the GeForce 40-series lineage but classified under the Workstation Ada generation. The chip designs themselves are from different eras and design philosophies: Ampere targeted broad consumer and mobile adoption, while Ada Lovelace is NVIDIA’s professional compute and rendering architecture.

The manufacturing process marks a significant architectural shift. The RTX 3050 A Mobile uses an 8 nm process from Samsung, a node that limits transistor density to 43.5 million per mm². The RTX 4500 Ada Generation uses TSMC’s 5 nm process, enabling 121.1 million transistors per mm². This density advantage allows the Ada chip to pack 45,900 million transistors into a 379 mm² die, compared to 12,000 million in 276 mm² for the Ampere chip.

RT core and tensor core counts reflect generational progress. The RTX 3050 A Mobile has 14 RT cores and 56 tensor cores, supporting DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The RTX 4500 Ada Generation has 60 RT cores and 240 tensor cores, with the same API support. The ratio of RT cores to shading units is similar (14/1792 versus 60/7680), but the absolute counts are far higher on the Ada part.

The predecessor and successor lineage also differs. The RTX 3050 A Mobile lists the GeForce 20 Mobile as its predecessor and has no successor recorded, consistent with its end-of-life status. The RTX 4500 Ada Generation lists Workstation Ampere as its predecessor and Blackwell PRO W as its successor, showing an active product cycle in the professional lineup.

FP16 and FP32 performance are both delivered at a 1:1 ratio on each card, meaning there is no dedicated half-precision boost on either chip. However, the absolute figures differ by roughly 8.2x: 4.813 TFLOPS for the mobile part versus 39.63 TFLOPS for the Ada card. This uniform ratio suggests both architectures treat FP16 and FP32 with equal throughput, but the Ada Lovelace implementation does so at a much higher absolute rate.