NVIDIA P102-100 vs NVIDIA RTX A4500 Mobile Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The benchmark data pits two very different NVIDIA designs against each other: the RTX A4500 Mobile, a modern Ampere-generation workstation GPU, and the P102-100, a Pascal-generation mining card from 2018. Across the two recorded Geekbench tests, the RTX A4500 Mobile takes a clean sweep, winning both OpenCL and Vulkan workloads.

The most dramatic gap appears in the Geekbench OpenCL test. The RTX A4500 Mobile posts a score of 105307, while the P102-100 manages only 49602. That works out to a 112.3% advantage for the Ampere card, meaning it delivers more than double the raw compute throughput in this particular workload. The OpenCL test tends to stress general-purpose compute, and the A4500 Mobile's 5888 shading units, 184 tensor cores, and 46 ray tracing cores provide a substantial architectural advantage over the P102-100's 3200 shading units with no dedicated tensor or RT hardware.

The Vulkan results are closer, but the A4500 Mobile still comes out ahead. It scores 76960 versus the P102-100's 67454, a 14.1% delta. This suggests that in graphics-oriented APIs, the older Pascal card is more competitive than in pure compute, though it still trails noticeably. The P102-100's higher boost clock of 1683 MHz versus the A4500 Mobile's 1500 MHz helps narrow the gap somewhat, but the Ampere card's newer architecture and additional execution resources keep it firmly in front.

Looking at the aggregate benchmark scores, the RTX A4500 Mobile averages 91134 across all recorded tests, while the P102-100 averages 58528. That places the A4500 Mobile in the 93rd percentile of all GPUs in the database, compared to the 88th percentile for the P102-100. The P102-100's nearest rivals, the AMD Radeon PRO V710 and Radeon RX 6950 XT, sit within 0.2% of its average score, indicating the Pascal card is competitive with those mid-range options. The A4500 Mobile, by contrast, sits within 1.4% of the AMD Radeon Instinct MI60 and 0.6% of the desktop RTX A4500, showing it holds its own among much more recent workstation hardware.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous: the RTX A4500 Mobile wins both recorded benchmark tests and holds a massive overall advantage in average score. For any workload measured by these two Geekbench tests, the A4500 Mobile is the superior performer. The 112.3% lead in OpenCL is particularly striking, as it indicates a fundamental compute capability gap that no amount of clock speed tuning on the P102-100 can overcome.

The P102-100 does have one clear domain where it appears to hold an edge based on the available data: its rated power consumption is higher at 250 W, but it was designed for a specific mining use case, not general purpose computing. The card has no display outputs, which means it cannot function as a primary graphics solution. The A4500 Mobile, by contrast, has display outputs that are portable device dependent, making it usable in laptop form factors.

For users choosing between these two, the decision hinges on workload compatibility. The A4500 Mobile is a proper mobile workstation GPU with driver support for professional applications, 16 GB of GDDR6 memory, and modern feature support including DirectX 12 Ultimate and Vulkan 1.4. The P102-100, with its 5 GB of GDDR5X memory and PCIe 1.0 x4 interface, is a mining-oriented product with no display outputs and limited utility outside of compute tasks that can tolerate its bandwidth constraints.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX A4500 Mobile wins in every measured category, but the margin varies by workload type. In OpenCL compute, it dominates by a factor of more than two, making it the clear choice for general-purpose GPU compute tasks like scientific simulation, machine learning inference, and rendering workloads that leverage OpenCL. Its 512.0 GB/s memory bandwidth, 17.66 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, and 17.66 TFLOPS of FP16 performance with a 1:1 ratio give it substantial headroom for compute-heavy applications.

In Vulkan graphics workloads, the A4500 Mobile's advantage narrows to 14.1%, but it still wins. Its 46 ray tracing cores and 184 tensor cores provide hardware acceleration for ray-traced rendering and AI-enhanced features that the P102-100 completely lacks. The Ampere card also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, while the P102-100 only reaches DirectX 12 (12_1), meaning newer graphics features like variable rate shading and mesh shaders are unavailable on the Pascal card.

The P102-100's only theoretical advantages lie outside the benchmark suite. It has a higher base clock of 1582 MHz versus 930 MHz, and a higher boost clock of 1683 MHz versus 1500 MHz. Its texture rate of 336.6 GTexel/s exceeds the A4500 Mobile's 276.0 GTexel/s, and its pixel rate of 134.6 GPixel/s is close to the A4500 Mobile's 144.0 GPixel/s. However, these raw clock and fillrate advantages do not translate into benchmark wins, likely due to the older architecture's less efficient instruction scheduling and the memory bandwidth deficit (440.3 GB/s versus 512.0 GB/s).

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has higher raw FP32 compute performance?

A: The RTX A4500 Mobile delivers 17.66 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, while the P102-100 delivers 10.77 TFLOPS. This represents a significant compute advantage for the Ampere card.

Q: How do the memory configurations differ?

A: The RTX A4500 Mobile has 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus with 512.0 GB/s bandwidth. The P102-100 has 5 GB of GDDR5X memory on a 320-bit bus with 440.3 GB/s bandwidth. The A4500 Mobile has three times the capacity and higher total bandwidth.

Q: Does the P102-100 support ray tracing or tensor operations?

A: No. The P102-100 has no ray tracing cores and no tensor cores listed in the database. The RTX A4500 Mobile includes 46 ray tracing cores and 184 tensor cores, enabling hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI workloads.

Q: What is the performance percentile ranking for each card?

A: The RTX A4500 Mobile ranks in the 93rd percentile of all GPUs in the database, while the P102-100 ranks in the 88th percentile. This places the A4500 Mobile among the top 7% of all recorded GPUs.

Q: Which card has better display output capabilities?

A: The RTX A4500 Mobile has display outputs that are portable device dependent, meaning it can drive displays in laptop configurations. The P102-100 has no display outputs at all, making it unsuitable for graphics display purposes.

Q: How does the P102-100 compare to its nearest rivals in the database?

A: The P102-100's average score of 58528 is within 0.2% of the AMD Radeon PRO V710, 0.2% of the Radeon RX 6950 XT, 0.5% of the Intel Arc A570M, and 0.8% of the Radeon RX 5600 OEM. It performs at a similar level to these mid-range cards.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from entirely different architectural generations. The RTX A4500 Mobile uses the GA104 chip built on Ampere architecture, fabricated on an 8 nm process at Samsung. It packs 17,400 million transistors into a 392 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 44.4 million transistors per square millimeter. The P102-100 uses the GP102 chip on Pascal architecture, built on a 16 nm process at TSMC. It contains 11,800 million transistors on a larger 471 mm² die, resulting in a lower density of 25.1 million transistors per square millimeter.

The execution resources differ substantially. The A4500 Mobile has 5888 shading units, 184 texture mapping units, and 96 raster operation units. The P102-100 has 3200 shading units, 200 TMUs, and 80 ROPs. While the P102-100 has slightly more TMUs, the A4500 Mobile's higher shading unit count gives it a substantial compute advantage. The A4500 Mobile also adds 46 RT cores and 184 tensor cores, features entirely absent from the P102-100.

Memory architecture reflects their different design goals. The A4500 Mobile uses 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit interface with effective memory clock of 16 Gbps, producing 512.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The P102-100 uses 5 GB of GDDR5X on a wider 320-bit interface but with a slower 11 Gbps effective clock, resulting in 440.3 GB/s. The A4500 Mobile's smaller bus width is compensated by faster memory technology and higher capacity.

Power and connectivity show the P102-100's mining origins. The A4500 Mobile has a 140 W TDP and requires no power connectors, suitable for mobile integration. The P102-100 has a 250 W TDP, uses dual 8-pin power connectors, and suggests a 600 W power supply. It uses a PCIe 1.0 x4 interface, which severely limits data transfer to the host system compared to the A4500 Mobile's PCIe 4.0 x16 connection. The P102-100 is a dual-slot card measuring 267 mm in length, while the A4500 Mobile has no listed dimensions.

API support also differs. The A4500 Mobile supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the P102-100 only reaches DirectX 12 (12_1). Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4. The A4500 Mobile's newer feature set enables hardware ray tracing through DirectX 12 Ultimate, a capability the Pascal card cannot offer.

The production status for both cards is end-of-life, though they were released nearly four years apart. The P102-100 launched on February 11, 2018, while the A4500 Mobile launched on March 21, 2022. The A4500 Mobile's predecessor is listed as Quadro Turing-M and its successor as Ada-MW, while the P102-100 has no listed predecessor or successor, reflecting its niche mining market position.