NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER vs NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The benchmark data is unambiguous: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER dominates the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile in every recorded test. The database contains two head-to-head comparisons, and the desktop card wins both by margins that are not merely large, they are transformative.

In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 4080 SUPER scores 219,065 points against the RTX A500 Mobile's 41,263 points. That is a delta of 430.9%, meaning the RTX 4080 SUPER delivers more than five times the raw compute performance in this workload. The Geekbench Vulkan test tells an even more extreme story: the RTX 4080 SUPER posts 260,075 points, while the RTX A500 Mobile manages 37,873 points, a gap of 586.7%. In practical terms, the desktop card outperforms the mobile part by nearly sevenfold in Vulkan compute.

These are not close contests. The RTX A500 Mobile's best showing, its OpenCL result, still trails the RTX 4080 SUPER's Vulkan score by a factor of roughly 1.7. The data records 2 wins for the RTX 4080 SUPER and 0 for the RTX A500 Mobile. There is no benchmark in the database where the mobile GPU closes the gap to within even an order of magnitude.

Looking at the aggregate picture, the average benchmark score for the RTX 4080 SUPER is 54,209, placing it in the 86th percentile of all GPUs tracked. The RTX A500 Mobile averages 39,568, sitting in the 82nd percentile. The percentile difference is modest, but the raw score gap is enormous, a reminder that percentile ranks compress the tail of the distribution.

The RTX 4080 SUPER's nearest rivals in the database are other high-end desktop parts. It sits 0.1% behind the GeForce RTX 4080, 1.1% behind the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X, 2.7% behind the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB, and 2.8% behind the AMD Radeon 8060S. These are small, single-digit deltas, indicating that the RTX 4080 SUPER is clustered tightly with the fastest GPUs in the database.

The RTX A500 Mobile, by contrast, sits among workstation and mobile-class parts. It is exactly level with the AMD Radeon Pro 575, 1.2% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro 575X, 1.2% behind the AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100, and 1.9% behind the AMD Radeon Pro 580. These are all comparable mid-range parts, and the A500 Mobile's position among them confirms its placement in the upper-middle tier of mobile GPUs, not the flagship tier.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 4080 SUPER wins everywhere, and the nature of those wins points to distinct use cases. The Vulkan result, 260,075 versus 37,873, is the largest single advantage in the dataset. Vulkan is a low-overhead API used heavily in modern game engines and compute workloads. A sevenfold lead in Vulkan means the desktop card is not just faster for gaming, it is also dramatically better for Vulkan-based rendering and scientific compute.

The OpenCL gap, 430.9%, is smaller but still decisive. OpenCL is a general-purpose compute API used across video editing, machine learning inference, and CAD applications. The RTX 4080 SUPER's fivefold advantage here makes it the clear choice for any workload that relies on OpenCL acceleration, from rendering farms to data analysis pipelines.

The RTX A500 Mobile has no recorded wins. Its strengths, if any, do not appear in the benchmark data. The only two tests available show it losing by margins of 431% and 587%. What the data does indicate is that the A500 Mobile's 82nd percentile rank, despite its low absolute scores, means it still outperforms the majority of GPUs in the database. That suggests it is a capable part for its class, but the class itself is far below the RTX 4080 SUPER's performance tier.

For users who need maximum compute throughput in a desktop workstation, the RTX 4080 SUPER is the only rational choice from this comparison. For users constrained to a mobile form factor, the RTX A500 Mobile is what the data shows is available, but the performance delta is so vast that any workload ported from desktop to mobile will see a dramatic drop in throughput.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from different architectural generations and are built on different process nodes. The RTX 4080 SUPER uses the AD103 chip based on Ada Lovelace, manufactured on a 5 nm process at TSMC. The RTX A500 Mobile uses the GA107S chip based on Ampere, manufactured on an 8 nm process at Samsung. This is a two-generation gap in both architecture and manufacturing technology.

The transistor counts reflect the scale difference. The RTX 4080 SUPER integrates 45,900 million transistors on a 379 mm² die, yielding a density of 121.1 million transistors per mm². The RTX A500 Mobile has 8,700 million transistors on a 200 mm² die, a density of 43.5 million per mm². The desktop chip packs more than five times the transistors into less than twice the die area.

The compute resources are similarly lopsided. The RTX 4080 SUPER has 10,240 shading units, 320 texture mapping units, and 112 raster output units. The RTX A500 Mobile has 2,048 shading units, 64 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The desktop card has exactly five times the shading units, five times the TMUs, and 3.5 times the ROPs. The ray tracing and tensor core counts follow the same pattern: 80 RT cores and 320 tensor cores on the RTX 4080 SUPER versus 16 RT cores and 64 tensor cores on the RTX A500 Mobile.

Clock speeds are a point of differentiation. The RTX 4080 SUPER runs at a base clock of 2295 MHz and a boost clock of 2550 MHz. The RTX A500 Mobile runs at 832 MHz base and 1537 MHz boost. The desktop card's base clock is nearly three times the mobile part's base clock, and its boost clock is 66% higher. This reflects both the architectural efficiency of Ada Lovelace and the thermal headroom of a triple-slot desktop card versus an integrated graphics processor (IGP) mobile solution.

Memory technology differs as well. The RTX 4080 SUPER uses 16 GB of GDDR6X on a 256-bit bus, achieving a bandwidth of 736.3 GB/s. The RTX A500 Mobile uses 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 64-bit bus, with a bandwidth of 96.00 GB/s. The desktop card has eight times the memory bandwidth, which is consistent with its much higher compute throughput.

Both GPUs support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, so API compatibility is not a differentiator. Both are listed as end-of-life products in the database.

Specification Differences

| Specification | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER | NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile |

|---|---|---|

| Architecture | Ada Lovelace | Ampere |

| Process node | 5 nm | 8 nm |

| Foundry | TSMC | Samsung |

| Transistors | 45,900 million | 8,700 million |

| Die size | 379 mm² | 200 mm² |

| Transistor density | 121.1M / mm² | 43.5M / mm² |

| Base clock | 2295 MHz | 832 MHz |

| Boost clock | 2550 MHz | 1537 MHz |

| Memory size | 16 GB | 4 GB |

| Memory type | GDDR6X | GDDR6 |

| Memory bus width | 256 bit | 64 bit |

| Memory bandwidth | 736.3 GB/s | 96.00 GB/s |

| Memory clock | 1438 MHz, 23 Gbps effective | 1500 MHz, 12 Gbps effective |

| Shading units | 10240 | 2048 |

| TMUs | 320 | 64 |

| ROPs | 112 | 32 |

| RT cores | 80 | 16 |

| Tensor cores | 320 | 64 |

| Pixel rate | 285.6 GPixel/s | 49.18 GPixel/s |

| Texture rate | 816.0 GTexel/s | 98.37 GTexel/s |

| FP32 | 52.22 TFLOPS | 6.296 TFLOPS |

| FP16 | 52.22 TFLOPS (1:1) | 6.296 TFLOPS (1:1) |

| TDP | 320 W | 30 W |

| Slot width | Triple-slot | IGP |

| Power connectors | 1x 16-pin | None |

| Suggested PSU | 700 W | None |

| Bus interface | PCIe 4.0 x16 | PCIe 4.0 x8 |

| Display outputs | 1x HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a | Portable Device Dependent |

| Release date | 2024-01-30 | 2022-03-21 |

| Predecessor | GeForce 30 | Quadro Turing-M |

| Successor | GeForce 50 | Ada-MW |

The FP32 and FP16 compute rates are identical within each card, 52.22 TFLOPS for the RTX 4080 SUPER and 6.296 TFLOPS for the RTX A500 Mobile, indicating a 1:1 ratio for both. The desktop card delivers 8.3 times the FP32 throughput. Power consumption is a major separator: 320 W versus 30 W, a factor of 10.7, which explains the form factor differences: a triple-slot card with a 16-pin connector and a 700 W suggested PSU versus an IGP with no power connector and no suggested PSU.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER averages 54,209 points, while the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile averages 39,568 points.

Q: How much faster is the RTX 4080 SUPER in Geekbench Vulkan?

A: The RTX 4080 SUPER scores 260,075 versus 37,873, a delta of 586.7%.

Q: What is the memory bandwidth difference?

A: The RTX 4080 SUPER has 736.3 GB/s from 16 GB of GDDR6X on a 256-bit bus. The RTX A500 Mobile has 96.00 GB/s from 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 64-bit bus.

Q: Which GPU has more ray tracing cores?

A: The RTX 4080 SUPER has 80 RT cores. The RTX A500 Mobile has 16 RT cores.

Q: Are both GPUs end-of-life products?

A: Yes, the database lists both the RTX 4080 SUPER and the RTX A500 Mobile as end-of-life.

Q: What are the nearest rivals to each card?

A: The RTX 4080 SUPER sits within 2.8% of the GeForce RTX 4080, AMD Radeon Pro W5700X, AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB, and AMD Radeon 8060S. The RTX A500 Mobile sits within 1.9% of the AMD Radeon Pro 575, Pro 575X, Pro WX 7100, and Pro 580.

The Verdict

The data dictates a straightforward conclusion. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is in a completely different performance class than the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile. The desktop card wins both head-to-head benchmarks by margins of 430.9% and 586.7%, has 8.3 times the FP32 throughput, 7.7 times the memory bandwidth, and 5 times the shading units. Its average benchmark score is 37% higher, and it sits in the 86th percentile versus the A500 Mobile's 82nd.

Anyone selecting a GPU for maximum compute performance should choose the RTX 4080 SUPER without qualification. The data shows no scenario, within the recorded benchmarks, where the RTX A500 Mobile is competitive. The A500 Mobile's only advantage is power consumption, 30 W versus 320 W, and its IGP form factor, which makes it suitable for laptops where a 320 W triple-slot card is physically impossible.

The RTX A500 Mobile is appropriate only for users who require a discrete-class GPU in a mobile chassis and cannot use a desktop card. Its 82nd percentile rank indicates it is still faster than most GPUs in the database, so it is not a weak part in absolute terms. But relative to the RTX 4080 SUPER, it is a fundamentally different product tier.

For desktop workstation builds, rendering nodes, or high-performance compute tasks, the RTX 4080 SUPER is the only defensible choice from this comparison. The launch MSRP of 999 USD reflects its position as a high-end desktop part. For mobile users, the RTX A500 Mobile offers a baseline level of acceleration, but the performance gap to the desktop card is so large that any workload sensitive to compute throughput will see a dramatic slowdown when moved from one to the other.