NVIDIA L40 vs NVIDIA RTX A5500 Mobile Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The benchmark data presents a decisive matchup. The NVIDIA L40 wins both recorded tests, and it does so by overwhelming margins. In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the L40 scores 330,926 against 124,287 for the RTX A5500 Mobile. That is a delta of 166.3 percent, meaning the L40 more than doubles the mobile part's compute output in this workload. The Vulkan result tells a similar story: 237,295 for the L40 versus 103,601 for the RTX A5500 Mobile, a 129 percent advantage.

These are not close calls. The L40's average benchmark score of 284,111 sits far above the RTX A5500 Mobile's 113,944. To put that in context, the RTX A5500 Mobile's nearest rival, the NVIDIA Tesla V100 SXM2 16 GB, posts an average score of 114,395, which is only 0.4 percent ahead of the mobile GPU. Meanwhile, the L40's nearest rival, the NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada Generation, averages 287,237, a mere 1.1 percent above the L40. The L40 effectively trades blows with a desktop-class Ada workstation card, while the RTX A5500 Mobile lands in a completely different performance tier.

The OpenCL gap deserves special attention. A 166.3 percent lead in raw compute suggests the L40 is not just faster, it is in another class of hardware. The Vulkan delta of 129 percent reinforces this, though the slightly smaller margin hints that graphics-oriented workloads may compress the gap a bit compared to pure compute tasks. Still, both tests point the same direction: the L40 is the dominant part in every measured category.

The percentile data reinforces the hierarchy. The L40 sits at the 99th percentile among all GPUs in the database. The RTX A5500 Mobile, while still strong, sits at the 94th percentile. That five-point gap in percentile ranking translates into a massive raw score difference because the upper echelons of GPU performance are sparsely populated. A GPU at the 99th percentile is competing with the fastest accelerators ever recorded, while a 94th percentile part is merely very good.

Where Each One Wins

The L40 wins in every benchmark category recorded. There are no tests in the database where the RTX A5500 Mobile comes out ahead. For compute-heavy OpenCL workloads, the L40's lead is enormous. For Vulkan graphics workloads, the lead is slightly smaller but still overwhelming. This makes the use-case split straightforward: the L40 is the choice for any task that stresses raw throughput, from rendering to simulation to machine learning inference.

The RTX A5500 Mobile does have one practical advantage that the benchmark scores do not capture: mobility. The L40 is a dual-slot server card with a 300 W TDP, requiring a 700 W power supply and a 16-pin power connector. The RTX A5500 Mobile draws 165 W and uses no external power connectors, relying entirely on the host laptop's power delivery. For a workstation-class laptop, that makes the RTX A5500 Mobile the only viable option in this comparison. The L40 cannot be installed in a portable chassis at all.

The RTX A5500 Mobile also depends on the host device for display output. Its display outputs are listed as "Portable Device Dependent," meaning the laptop's internal panel and ports handle display duties. The L40 offers four DisplayPort 1.4a outputs, which suits fixed workstations with multiple external monitors. So while the L40 wins every performance metric, the RTX A5500 Mobile wins the portability argument by default, it is the only one of the two that can exist in a laptop at all.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from different NVIDIA architectures. The L40 is built on Ada Lovelace, using the AD102 chip, the same architecture generation labeled as "Server Ada (Lxx)". The RTX A5500 Mobile uses the older Ampere architecture with the GA103 chip, generation "Ampere-MW (Ax000)". This architectural gap explains much of the performance disparity.

The manufacturing process differs significantly. The L40 is fabricated on a 5 nm process at TSMC, while the RTX A5500 Mobile uses an 8 nm process at Samsung. The smaller node allows the L40 to pack far more transistors into its die. The L40 contains 76,300 million transistors on a 609 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 125.3 million per square millimeter. The RTX A5500 Mobile has 22,000 million transistors on a 496 mm² die, for a density of 44.4 million per square millimeter. The L40's transistor density is nearly three times higher, and its total transistor count is more than triple that of the mobile part.

The compute resources reflect this gap. The L40 fields 18,176 shading units, 568 texture mapping units, 192 raster output units, 142 ray tracing cores, and 568 tensor cores. The RTX A5500 Mobile counters with 7,424 shading units, 232 TMUs, 96 ROPs, 58 ray tracing cores, and 232 tensor cores. Every resource category favors the L40 by a wide margin, typically more than double.

Clock behavior is interesting. The RTX A5500 Mobile has a higher base clock at 975 MHz versus 735 MHz for the L40. But the L40's boost clock reaches 2490 MHz, far above the mobile part's 1500 MHz. The L40 also runs its memory at 2250 MHz with 18 Gbps effective speed, while the RTX A5500 Mobile runs at 2000 MHz with 16 Gbps effective. The L40's higher boost clock, combined with its massive resource count, drives its performance far beyond what the mobile part can achieve.

Both GPUs support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, so the software feature set is identical. The difference lies entirely in execution resources and memory capacity.

Specification Differences

The memory subsystem differs dramatically. The L40 carries 48 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 384 bit bus, delivering 864.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The RTX A5500 Mobile has 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256 bit bus, delivering 512.0 GB/s. The L40 offers three times the capacity and roughly 69 percent more bandwidth.

Theoretical throughput numbers show the same pattern. The L40 achieves 90.52 TFLOPS of FP32 and FP16 performance (1:1 ratio). The RTX A5500 Mobile manages 22.27 TFLOPS in both precision modes. That is roughly a fourfold difference in raw floating point throughput. Pixel rate favors the L40 at 478.1 GPixel/s versus 144.0 GPixel/s. Texture rate favors the L40 at 1,414.3 GTexel/s versus 348.0 GTexel/s.

Power and physical requirements diverge sharply. The L40 consumes 300 W TDP, requires a 700 W suggested power supply, and uses a single 16-pin power connector. It is a dual-slot card measuring 267 mm in length and 111 mm in height. The RTX A5500 Mobile consumes 165 W TDP, uses no external power connectors, and has no recorded dimensions or slot width, as it is designed to be integrated by laptop manufacturers.

The L40 provides four DisplayPort 1.4a outputs for direct monitor connectivity. The RTX A5500 Mobile lists "Portable Device Dependent" for display outputs, meaning the host laptop controls all display connections.

Both cards use PCIe 4.0 x16 interfaces, so host connectivity is equal. Both are end-of-life products. The L40 launched on October 12, 2022, while the RTX A5500 Mobile launched earlier on March 21, 2022. The L40's predecessor is Server Ampere and its successor is Server Hopper. The RTX A5500 Mobile's predecessor is Quadro Turing-M and its successor is Ada-MW. Neither has a recorded launch MSRP.

FAQ

Q: How much faster is the NVIDIA L40 than the RTX A5500 Mobile in OpenCL?

A: The L40 scores 330,926 in Geekbench OpenCL, while the RTX A5500 Mobile scores 124,287. That is a 166.3 percent lead for the L40.

Q: Does the RTX A5500 Mobile win any benchmark?

A: No. The database records two tests, Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Vulkan, and the L40 wins both. The L40 also records 2 total wins versus 0 for the RTX A5500 Mobile.

Q: Why is the L40 so much faster despite having a lower base clock?

A: The L40 has a 735 MHz base clock versus 975 MHz for the RTX A5500 Mobile, but its boost clock reaches 2490 MHz versus 1500 MHz. More importantly, the L40 has 18,176 shading units, 568 TMUs, and 192 ROPs, compared to 7,424 shading units, 232 TMUs, and 96 ROPs on the mobile part. The L40 also has 142 ray tracing cores and 568 tensor cores versus 58 and 232 respectively.

Q: What are the memory capacity and bandwidth differences?

A: The L40 has 48 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 384 bit bus with 864.0 GB/s bandwidth. The RTX A5500 Mobile has 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256 bit bus with 512.0 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: Can the RTX A5500 Mobile be used in a desktop workstation?

A: The RTX A5500 Mobile is designed for laptops. It uses no external power connectors, has no recorded slot width or dimensions, and its display outputs are listed as "Portable Device Dependent." The L40, by contrast, is a dual-slot card with four DisplayPort 1.4a outputs and a 300 W TDP.

Q: How do these GPUs compare to their nearest rivals in the database?

A: The L40's average benchmark score is 284,111. Its closest rival, the NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada Generation, scores 287,237, which is 1.1 percent higher. The RTX A5500 Mobile's average score is 113,944. Its closest rival, the NVIDIA Tesla V100 SXM2 16 GB, scores 114,395, only 0.4 percent higher. The L40 sits at the 99th percentile of all GPUs, while the RTX A5500 Mobile sits at the 94th percentile.