NVIDIA Quadro M6000 vs NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile Comparison

The NVIDIA Quadro M6000 and NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile represent two distinct eras of professional mobile and desktop graphics, separated by seven years of architectural evolution. The Quadro M6000, a 2015-era desktop behemoth built on Maxwell 2.0, and the RTX A500 Mobile, a 2022-era laptop chip built on Ampere, offer contrasting profiles in raw throughput, feature sets, and efficiency. Benchmark data shows a split decision: the RTX A500 Mobile leads in OpenCL compute, while the Quadro M6000 dominates in Vulkan performance. This analysis breaks down their specifications, architectural philosophies, and real-world benchmark implications.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA Quadro M6000 has a higher average benchmark score of 43301, compared to 39568 for the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile. This places the Quadro M6000 in the 84th percentile of all GPUs, while the RTX A500 Mobile sits in the 82nd percentile.

Q: How do the two GPUs compare in Geekbench OpenCL performance?

A: The RTX A500 Mobile wins the OpenCL test with a score of 41263, which is 3.8% higher than the Quadro M6000’s 39688. Despite the Quadro’s larger memory bus and higher transistor count, the newer chip’s architecture delivers superior compute performance in this workload.

Q: What is the biggest performance gap between the two in head-to-head testing?

A: The Quadro M6000’s victory in Geekbench Vulkan is decisive, scoring 46913 against the RTX A500 Mobile’s 37873. This represents a 23.9% advantage, the largest delta in either direction across the tested workloads.

Q: What are the memory specifications of each card?

A: The Quadro M6000 features 12 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 384-bit bus, providing 317.4 GB/s of bandwidth. The RTX A500 Mobile has 4 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 64-bit bus, yielding 96.00 GB/s of bandwidth.

Q: Which GPU has more shading units and texture mapping units?

A: The Quadro M6000 has 3072 shading units and 192 TMUs, while the RTX A500 Mobile has 2048 shading units and 64 TMUs. The Quadro also has 96 ROPs compared to the RTX A500 Mobile’s 32 ROPs.

Q: What is the thermal design power (TDP) difference between the two?

A: The Quadro M6000 is rated at 250 W and requires a dual-slot cooler with a single 8-pin power connector. The RTX A500 Mobile is an IGP (integrated graphics processor) with a 30 W TDP and no power connectors, reflecting its mobile-oriented design.

Where Each One Wins

The split in benchmark results highlights distinct use-case strengths. The RTX A500 Mobile takes the Geekbench OpenCL victory with a 3.8% margin, suggesting that its Ampere architecture, despite fewer shading units (2048 vs 3072), is more efficient at executing general-purpose compute workloads. This makes it the better choice for OpenCL-accelerated tasks such as data processing, scientific simulations, or any application that leverages compute shaders. Its 1:1 FP16 to FP32 ratio of 6.296 TFLOPS also indicates balanced half-precision compute capability, which is absent in the Quadro M6000’s specifications.

Conversely, the Quadro M6000’s Geekbench Vulkan score of 46913 is a massive 23.9% higher than the RTX A500 Mobile’s 37873. Vulkan is a low-overhead graphics API, and this result underscores the Quadro’s raw rasterization power. With 96 ROPs, 192 TMUs, and a 384-bit memory bus delivering 317.4 GB/s, the desktop card excels at fill-rate-limited scenarios and high-resolution rendering. This makes it superior for graphics-heavy workloads, particularly in Vulkan-based applications, CAD viewports, or scientific visualization that rely on traditional rasterization pipelines.

The average benchmark score also favors the Quadro M6000 at 43301, a 9.4% advantage over the RTX A500 Mobile’s 39568. However, the RTX A500 Mobile’s nearest rivals are all AMD Radeon Pro cards (Pro 575, Pro 575X, Pro WX 7100, Pro 580), with deltas ranging from 0% to -1.9%, indicating it is competitive in the mobile professional segment. The Quadro M6000’s nearest rivals include the GeForce RTX 5050 Mobile and RTX 4070 SUPER, with deltas of 0.1% and 0.2% respectively, showing it holds its own against much newer consumer hardware.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two GPUs is generational. The Quadro M6000 uses the GM200 chip on the Maxwell 2.0 architecture, fabricated on a 28 nm process at TSMC. This is a massive die measuring 601 mm² with 8,000 million transistors, yielding a transistor density of 13.3M per mm². In contrast, the RTX A500 Mobile uses the GA107S chip on the Ampere architecture, built on Samsung’s 8 nm process. Its die is significantly smaller at 200 mm², yet packs 8,700 million transistors, achieving a density of 43.5M per mm² — more than triple the Quadro’s density.

This density difference reflects the seven-year manufacturing advance. The Maxwell architecture lacks dedicated ray tracing and tensor cores, which are present in Ampere. The RTX A500 Mobile includes 16 RT cores and 64 tensor cores, enabling hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI-based features like DLSS, which the Quadro M6000 cannot support. The Quadro’s maximum DirectX support is 12 (12_1), while the RTX A500 Mobile supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), a newer feature level that includes variable rate shading and mesh shaders.

The process node also impacts clock behavior. The Quadro M6000 runs at a base clock of 988 MHz and boost of 1114 MHz, while the RTX A500 Mobile has a lower base of 832 MHz but a much higher boost of 1537 MHz. This boost clock advantage, combined with the 1:1 FP16 capability, gives the Ampere chip a compute efficiency edge despite fewer cores. The RTX A500 Mobile also supports PCIe 4.0 x8, whereas the Quadro M6000 uses PCIe 3.0 x16, offering double the per-lane bandwidth for data transfer.

Specification Differences

The specification tables reveal stark contrasts in nearly every category. The Quadro M6000 offers 12 GB of GDDR5 memory, while the RTX A500 Mobile provides only 4 GB of GDDR6. The memory bus width is a dramatic difference: 384-bit versus 64-bit, leading to bandwidth of 317.4 GB/s versus 96.00 GB/s. The Quadro’s memory clock is 1653 MHz (6.6 Gbps effective), while the RTX A500 Mobile’s is 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective); the newer GDDR6 standard partially compensates for the narrower bus.

Compute resources also differ significantly. The Quadro M6000 has 3072 shading units, 192 TMUs, and 96 ROPs, producing a pixel rate of 106.9 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 213.9 GTexel/s. The RTX A500 Mobile has 2048 shading units, 64 TMUs, and 32 ROPs, resulting in 49.18 GPixel/s and 98.37 GTexel/s. FP32 performance is closer: 6.844 TFLOPS for the Quadro versus 6.296 TFLOPS for the RTX A500 Mobile, a difference of about 8.7%. However, the RTX A500 Mobile matches this with 6.296 TFLOPS of FP16 performance, a capability the Quadro lacks.

Physical and power characteristics are equally divergent. The Quadro M6000 is a dual-slot, 267 mm long card (10.5 inches) requiring a 600 W suggested PSU and a single 8-pin connector, with a 250 W TDP. The RTX A500 Mobile is an IGP with no slot width, no power connectors, and a 30 W TDP, designed for soldered installation in laptops. Display outputs differ: the Quadro offers 1x DVI and 4x DisplayPort 1.2, while the RTX A500 Mobile’s outputs are listed as "Portable Device Dependent." The Quadro’s memory size advantage (12 GB vs 4 GB) is critical for large datasets, but the RTX A500 Mobile’s 8 nm process and low power draw make it suitable for thin-and-light workstations.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The two Geekbench tests tell a story of complementary strengths. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX A500 Mobile wins with a score of 41263 versus the Quadro M6000’s 39688, a delta of -3.8% from the Quadro’s perspective. This is a narrow margin, but it is notable given the Quadro’s substantial hardware advantages in memory bandwidth and core counts. The result suggests that Ampere’s compute scheduler, tensor cores, or clock boost behavior (1537 MHz vs 1114 MHz) provides a measurable efficiency gain in OpenCL workloads. The RTX A500 Mobile’s nearest rival, the AMD Radeon Pro 575, scores 39555 with a 0% delta, placing it in the same performance tier.

The Geekbench Vulkan test flips the script completely. The Quadro M6000 scores 46913, while the RTX A500 Mobile manages only 37873. This 23.9% advantage for the Quadro is overwhelming and points to fundamental differences in how each architecture handles Vulkan’s explicit, low-overhead graphics pipeline. The Quadro’s 96 ROPs and 317.4 GB/s of bandwidth likely drive fill-rate-dependent operations, while the RTX A500 Mobile’s 64-bit memory bus becomes a bottleneck in graphics-heavy scenes. It is worth remembering the Quadro’s nearest rival in this metric, the GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile, scores 43667 with a delta of -0.8%, meaning the Quadro actually outperforms a flagship mobile GPU in Vulkan.

Across the two tests, the average benchmark score for the Quadro M6000 is 43301, which is 9.4% higher than the RTX A500 Mobile’s 39568. The Quadro’s percentile ranking of 84 versus 82 for the RTX A500 Mobile confirms its overall higher standing in the database. However, the wins are split evenly at one each, indicating that neither card is universally superior. For users prioritizing Vulkan-based rendering or high-resolution graphics, the Quadro M6000 is the clear choice. For OpenCL compute or mobile deployment with minimal power consumption, the RTX A500 Mobile offers a compelling, modern alternative despite its smaller memory footprint.