NVIDIA Quadro P6000 vs NVIDIA RTX A5500 Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded data is unambiguous: the NVIDIA RTX A5500 outperforms the Quadro P6000 in every benchmark category measured. In Geekbench OpenCL, the A5500 scores 174,637 against 66,382 for the P6000, a margin of 163.1%. The Vulkan results tell a similar story, with the A5500 at 155,797 versus 73,590, a 111.7% advantage. These are not incremental gains; they represent a generational leap in raw compute capability.

The average benchmark score across all tests reinforces this dominance. The A5500 posts a 165,217 average, placing it in the 97th percentile of all GPUs tracked. The P6000, by contrast, averages 69,986, good for only the 90th percentile. In practical terms, the A5500 delivers more than double the average performance of its predecessor.

Looking at the competitive landscape, the A5500 sits in strong company. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon PRO W7800, scores 164,894 on average, a mere 0.2% behind the A5500. The NVIDIA RTX 4500 Ada Generation is slightly ahead at 166,094, a 0.5% advantage. The A100 PCIe 1.7% ahead of the A5500 at 162,504, while the AMD Radeon Pro W6900X leads by 2%. This tight clustering around the 165,000 score range indicates the A5500 is squarely competitive with modern workstation offerings.

For the P6000, the competitive picture is far less favorable. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200, matches it at 69,870, just 0.2% behind. The NVIDIA RTX A3000 Mobile is essentially tied at 70,140, a 0.2% difference. Even the AMD Radeon RX 6600 LE, a consumer card, leads by 1.2%. The P6000's performance class is now occupied by mid-range mobile and entry-level desktop parts.

Where Each One Wins

The A5500 wins on every measurable axis. In OpenCL workloads, which often reflect general compute tasks, the A5500's 163.1% advantage demonstrates its superiority in data-parallel processing. This is the kind of workload that benefits from the massive shading unit count and dedicated compute features of the Ampere architecture.

Vulkan performance shows a 111.7% lead for the A5500, indicating that graphics-heavy applications, including those using modern rendering APIs, will see more than double the frame throughput. This matters for real-time visualization, GPU-accelerated rendering viewports, and any workload that leverages Vulkan's low-overhead design.

The P6000 has no benchmark category where it emerges victorious. Its best performance relative to the A5500 comes in Vulkan, where the gap narrows to a still-massive 111.7%. Even in its strongest area, the P6000 cannot challenge the newer card.

The wins tally confirms this: the A5500 takes 2 wins out of 2 benchmark categories, while the P6000 records zero victories. For users migrating from the P6000, every workload category will see substantial improvement, though the degree varies by API and application type.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two cards spans multiple generations. The A5500 is built on the Ampere architecture using the GA102 chip, fabricated on an 8 nm process at Samsung. The P6000 uses the older Pascal architecture with the GP102 chip, manufactured on a 16 nm process at TSMC. This process shrink allows the A5500 to pack 28,300 million transistors into a 628 mm² die, achieving a transistor density of 45.1 million per square millimeter. The P6000's 11,800 million transistors occupy 471 mm², yielding just 25.1 million per square millimeter.

The compute resources differ dramatically. The A5500 features 10,240 shading units, 320 texture mapping units, and 96 render output units. The P6000 has 3,840 shading units, 240 TMUs, and 96 ROPs. This explains the A5500's raw throughput advantages: 34.10 TFLOPS FP32 against 12.63 TFLOPS FP32 for the P6000. The texture rate shows a similar story: 532.8 GTexel/s for the A5500 versus 394.8 GTexel/s for the P6000.

Pixel rates are closer, with the A5500 at 159.8 GPixel/s and the P6000 at 157.9 GPixel/s. This modest difference aligns with the similar ROP counts on both cards. The P6000's higher base clock of 1506 MHz cannot compensate for the A5500's superior architecture, as evidenced by the benchmark results.

The A5500 introduces dedicated hardware features that the P6000 lacks entirely. The A5500 includes 80 RT cores for hardware-accelerated ray tracing and 320 tensor cores for AI-accelerated workloads. The P6000 has neither RT cores nor tensor cores listed, indicating these features are absent from the Pascal design. This makes the A5500 compatible with DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, while the P6000 supports DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.4. Both cards support OpenGL 4.6.

Memory subsystems differ in speed, if not capacity. Both offer 24 GB of VRAM on a 384-bit bus, but the A5500 uses GDDR6 with 768.0 GB/s of bandwidth, while the P6000 uses GDDR5X with 432.8 GB/s. The A5500's memory clock runs at 2000 MHz, translating to 16 Gbps effective on the A5500, compared to 1127 MHz and 9 Gbps effective on the P6000.

The Verdict

The data is clear that the NVIDIA RTX A5500 is the superior workstation GPU in nearly every way that matters for modern workloads. Its OpenCL performance is 163.0% higher than the A P6000, placing it in a competitive tier with other modern workstation cards. The A5500's average benchmark score of 165,217 puts it in the top 3% of all GPUs tracked, a remarkable position for a workstation-focused product.

The Quadro P6000, with its 90th percentile ranking, served its purpose in an earlier era, but the data shows it now falls significantly behind not just the A5500, but also newer rivals like the RTX 4500 Ada Generation and the AMD Radeon PRO W7800 in its weight class. The performance gap between the A5500 and P6000 is so large that users would need to consider the A5500's class entirely to see meaningful improvement.

For those currently using a P6000, the upgrade path to the A5500 delivers more than double the performance in both OpenCL and Vulkan workloads, along with modern API support and RT and tensor core capabilities the P6000 lacks. For users with workloads that benefit from ray tracing or AI acceleration, and that extended memory bandwidth, the A5500 is the clear choice. For workloads that rely solely on legacy rasterization, the P6000's 90th percentile ranking may still suffice for some tasks, but the A5500's 97th percentile position indicates it handles a broader range of demanding workloads.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster in Geekbench OpenCL? The NVIDIA RTX A5500 scores 174,637 in OpenCL, a 163.1% improvement over the Quadro P6000's 66, making it the faster card by a wide margin.

**Do both cards support ray tracing hardware acceleration? No, only the RTX A5500 has 80 RT cores for ray tracing. The Quadro P6000 has no RT cores, as it predates the introduction of dedicated ray tracing hardware.

**What API level does each card support? The RTX A5500 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, while the Quadro P6000 supports DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.4. Both offer OpenGL 4.6.

**What is the memory capacity of each card? Both cards have 24 GB of VRAM, but the RTX A5500 uses GDDR6 with 768.0 GB/s bandwidth, while the Quadro P6000 uses GDDR5X with 432.8 GB/s bandwidth.

**Which card draws more power? The Quadro P6000 has a rated TDP of 250 W, while the RTX A5500 has a lower TDP of 230 W. The P6000 also requires a 600 W power supply, while the A5500 suggests a 550 W unit.

**Does the Quadro P6000 support 8-pin or 6-pin power? Both cards use a single 8-pin power connector, but the P6000 is rated for 250 W, requiring a 600 W power supply.

**What is the average benchmark score of each card? The RTX A5500 averages 165,217 across all tests, while the Quadro P6000 averages 69,986. These scores place the A5500 in the 97th percentile of all GPUs and the P6000 in the 90th percentile.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ in several key specifications. The RTX A5500 uses the GA102 chip on an 8 nm Samsung process with 28,300 million transistors and a 628 mm² die, while the Quadro P6000 uses the GP102 chip on a 16 nm TSMC process with 11,800 million transistors and a 471 mm² die. The A5500 has 10,240 shading units, 320 TMUs, and 80 RT cores, while the P6000 has 3,840 shading units, 240 TMUs, and no RT cores. The A5500 also features 320 tensor cores, which the P6000 lacks entirely. The A5500's boost clock of 1665 MHz is slightly higher than the P6000's 1645 MHz boost, but the P6000 has a higher base clock of 1506 MHz compared to 1080 MHz on the A5500. Memory bandwidth is 768.0 GB/s on the A5500 versus 432.8 GB/s on the P6000, with GDDR6 versus GDDR5X memory types, respectively. The A5500 offers PCIe 4.0 x16 interface, while the P6000 uses PCIe 3.0 x16. The A5500 has a TDP of 230 W with a 550 W suggested PSU, while the P6000 has a TDP of 250 W with a 600 W suggested PSU. Display outputs differ: the A5500 offers 4x DisplayPort 1.4a, while the P6000 provides 1x DVI and 4x DisplayPort 1.4a. The P6000 has a launch MSRP of 5,999 USD; the A5500 has no listed launch MSRP.