NVIDIA L40S vs NVIDIA RTX A4500 Comparison

Where Each One Wins

The recorded benchmark data splits this comparison into two clear domains. The NVIDIA L40S wins both recorded head-to-head tests, and it wins them by substantial margins. The first test, Geekbench OpenCL, shows the L40S scoring 330,727 against the RTX A4500's 141,837, a delta of 133.2%. That is more than double the compute throughput in a general-purpose GPU workload. The second test, Geekbench Vulkan, follows the same pattern: the L40S posts 260,799 while the RTX A4500 manages 129,980, a 100.6% advantage for the Ada-generation part.

Neither of the two recorded wins belongs to the RTX A4500. The wins tally is 2 for the L40S and 0 for the RTX A4500. The RTX A4500 does have an additional recorded benchmark in the database, 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, scoring 3,196, but the L40S has no corresponding entry for that test, so it cannot be used as a direct head-to-head comparison. The L40S also has no 3DMark result in the database, meaning the only comparable data points are the two Geekbench tests.

Looking at the average benchmark scores tells a similar story at a higher level. The L40S averages 295,763 across its recorded tests, while the RTX A4500 averages 91,671. That gap is roughly 3.2 times the RTX A4500's average, and it reflects the L40S's position in the 99th percentile of all GPUs versus the RTX A4500's 93rd percentile. The L40S sits alongside the AMD Instinct MI300X, the NVIDIA H200 NVL, and the NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada Generation in its nearest rivals, all of which score within a narrow band around 300,000. The RTX A4500, by contrast, competes with mobile workstation parts and older AMD accelerators, with its closest rival being the NVIDIA RTX A4500 Mobile at a 0.6% delta.

For use-case separation, the data points toward the L40S as the compute-first accelerator. Its OpenCL result, which is often associated with general-purpose compute workloads, is the stronger of its two scores relative to the RTX A4500. The Vulkan result, more commonly tied to graphics and rendering pipelines, is still a 100% win but shows a slightly smaller relative advantage. The RTX A4500, with its 20 GB memory and 200 W power draw, appears positioned for workstation tasks where the recorded data shows it holding a 93rd percentile rank, but nothing in the benchmark results suggests it can match the L40S in raw throughput.

Architecture Differences

The two cards come from different NVIDIA architectures, and the database records those differences explicitly. The L40S uses the AD102 chip on the Ada Lovelace architecture, built on a 5 nm process at TSMC. The RTX A4500 uses the GA102 chip on the Ampere architecture, built on an 8 nm process at Samsung. The process node difference alone explains part of the performance gap: the L40S packs 76,300 million transistors into a 609 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 125.3 million per square millimeter. The RTX A4500 has 28,300 million transistors on a slightly larger 628 mm² die, yielding 45.1 million per square millimeter. That is nearly three times the density advantage for the L40S.

The compute resources differ by a wide margin. The L40S has 18,176 shading units, 568 texture mapping units, 192 ROPs, 142 ray tracing cores, and 568 tensor cores. The RTX A4500 has 7,168 shading units, 224 TMUs, 96 ROPs, 56 ray tracing cores, and 224 tensor cores. Every one of those counts is roughly 2.5 to 2.6 times higher on the L40S, which aligns with the 133% OpenCL win. The clock speeds also favor the L40S: it boosts to 2520 MHz versus 1650 MHz for the RTX A4500, while the base clocks are 1110 MHz and 1050 MHz respectively.

Memory is another major divider. The L40S carries 48 GB of GDDR6 on a 384-bit bus, delivering 864.0 GB/s of bandwidth at an effective 18 Gbps. The RTX A4500 has 20 GB of GDDR6 on a 320-bit bus, delivering 640.0 GB/s at 16 Gbps effective. The L40S has more than double the capacity and about 35% more bandwidth. Pixel and texture rates follow the same pattern: the L40S reaches 483.8 GPixel/s and 1,431.4 GTexel/s, while the RTX A4500 reaches 158.4 GPixel/s and 369.6 GTexel/s. FP32 and FP16 compute are both listed at 91.61 TFLOPS for the L40S and 23.65 TFLOPS for the RTX A4500, a 3.9x difference in raw floating-point throughput.

Power and physical design also differ. The L40S has a 300 W TDP with a single 16-pin power connector and a suggested 700 W power supply. The RTX A4500 has a 200 W TDP with a single 8-pin connector and a suggested 550 W power supply. Both are dual-slot cards, both measure 267 mm in length, and both use PCIe 4.0 x16. The display outputs differ: the L40S has one HDMI 2.1 and three DisplayPort 1.4a outputs, while the RTX A4500 has four DisplayPort 1.4a outputs. The API support is identical across DirectX 12 Ultimate, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4.

The Verdict

The recorded data supports a clear split by workload class. If the priority is maximum compute throughput in OpenCL or Vulkan workloads, the NVIDIA L40S is the only defensible choice. It wins both head-to-head tests by margins of 133.2% and 100.6%, and its average benchmark score of 295,763 places it in the 99th percentile of all GPUs. The RTX A4500's average of 91,671 and 93rd percentile rank put it in a different performance tier entirely.

For workstation use where power draw and memory capacity are secondary concerns, the RTX A4500 still has a place. Its 200 W TDP and 20 GB memory may suit environments where the 300 W L40S is overkill. But the data does not show any test where the RTX A4500 wins. The closest rival comparison for the RTX A4500 is the NVIDIA RTX A4500 Mobile at 0.6% higher, and the AMD Radeon Instinct MI60 at 0.9% lower, which suggests its performance class is well below the L40S's nearest rivals (the AMD Instinct MI300X at 7% lower, the NVIDIA H200 NVL at 11.7% higher).

The L40S's nearest rival data reinforces its position. It sits 3% above the NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada Generation and 4.1% above the NVIDIA L40, while trailing the AMD Instinct MI300X by 7% and the NVIDIA H200 NVL by 11.7%. Those are all data-center-class accelerators. The RTX A4500's nearest rivals are mobile and older workstation parts. There is no benchmark result in the database that would justify choosing the RTX A4500 for compute-heavy tasks. The verdict, strictly from the data, is that the L40S is the higher-performing card by a wide margin, and the RTX A4500 is the more modest option for lighter workloads.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA L40S has an average benchmark score of 295,763, while the NVIDIA RTX A4500 averages 91,671.

Q: How much faster is the L40S in OpenCL?

A: The L40S scores 330,727 in Geekbench OpenCL versus 141,837 for the RTX A4500, a delta of 133.2%.

Q: What is the memory capacity difference?

A: The L40S has 48 GB of GDDR6 memory, while the RTX A4500 has 20 GB of GDDR6 memory.

Q: Are the two cards from the same architecture generation?

A: No. The L40S uses the Ada Lovelace architecture on a 5 nm TSMC process, while the RTX A4500 uses the Ampere architecture on an 8 nm Samsung process.

Q: Which card has more ray tracing cores?

A: The L40S has 142 ray tracing cores, compared to 56 on the RTX A4500.

Q: What is the power consumption difference?

A: The L40S has a 300 W TDP, while the RTX A4500 has a 200 W TDP.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The two recorded head-to-head tests both favor the L40S, and the margins are substantial. In Geekbench OpenCL, the L40S scores 330,727 against the RTX A4500's 141,837. That is a 133.2% advantage, meaning the L40S delivers over twice the compute performance in this workload. The OpenCL result is particularly relevant for general-purpose GPU computing, where raw FP32 throughput and memory bandwidth matter most. The L40S's 91.61 TFLOPS FP32 and 864.0 GB/s bandwidth versus the RTX A4500's 23.65 TFLOPS and 640.0 GB/s explain this outcome directly.

In Geekbench Vulkan, the L40S scores 260,799 against 129,980 for the RTX A4500, a 100.6% delta. The Vulkan result is still a dominant win, but the relative margin is smaller than in OpenCL. That suggests the L40S's advantage is slightly less pronounced in graphics-oriented workloads than in compute-oriented ones, though it remains overwhelming. The RTX A4500's only additional benchmark, 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 at 3,196, has no L40S counterpart in the database, so no cross-card comparison can be made from that test.

The nearest rival data provides context for these scores. The L40S's average of 295,763 sits 3% above the NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada Generation (287,237) and 4.1% above the NVIDIA L40 (284,111), while trailing the AMD Instinct MI300X (317,994) by 7% and the NVIDIA H200 NVL (334,891) by 11.7%. The RTX A4500's average of 91,671 sits within 0.6% of the NVIDIA RTX A4500 Mobile (91,134), 0.9% below the AMD Radeon Instinct MI60 (92,466), 4.8% above the NVIDIA Quadro GP100 (87,445), and 5.2% above the AMD Radeon PRO W7600 (87,108). These comparisons show that the L40S competes in the top tier of accelerators, while the RTX A4500 occupies a mid-range workstation segment.

Specification Differences

The database lists several specification fields where the two cards differ. The chip is AD102 for the L40S versus GA102 for the RTX A4500. The architecture is Ada Lovelace versus Ampere. The process node is 5 nm at TSMC versus 8 nm at Samsung. Transistor counts are 76,300 million versus 28,300 million, with die sizes of 609 mm² versus 628 mm². Transistor density is 125.3 million per mm² versus 45.1 million per mm².

Clock speeds differ across the board: base clocks are 1110 MHz versus 1050 MHz, boost clocks are 2520 MHz versus 1650 MHz, and memory clocks are 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective) versus 2000 MHz (16 Gbps effective). Memory size is 48 GB versus 20 GB, bus width is 384-bit versus 320-bit, and bandwidth is 864.0 GB/s versus 640.0 GB/s.

Compute unit counts are all higher on the L40S: shading units at 18,176 versus 7,168, TMUs at 568 versus 224, ROPs at 192 versus 96, ray tracing cores at 142 versus 56, and tensor cores at 568 versus 224. Pixel rate is 483.8 GPixel/s versus 158.4 GPixel/s, and texture rate is 1,431.4 GTexel/s versus 369.6 GTexel/s. FP32 and FP16 compute are both 91.61 TFLOPS versus 23.65 TFLOPS.

Power figures are 300 W versus 200 W TDP, with power connectors of 1x 16-pin versus 1x 8-pin and suggested PSU ratings of 700 W versus 550 W. Display outputs are 1x HDMI 2.1 plus 3x DisplayPort 1.4a versus 4x DisplayPort 1.4a. Both cards are dual-slot, PCIe 4.0 x16, and 267 mm long, with heights of 111 mm versus 112 mm. Release dates are October 2022 for the L40S and November 2021 for the RTX A4500, and both are marked end-of-life in the database.