Intel Arc A350M vs NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile Comparison

FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster in the Geekbench OpenCL benchmark?

A: The NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile is significantly faster, scoring 97,178 compared to the Intel Arc A350M's 24,546. This represents a 74.7% advantage for the NVIDIA GPU in this test.

Q: How do the two GPUs compare in Vulkan performance?

A: The NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile also wins in Vulkan, with a score of 73,002 versus 24,747 for the Intel Arc A350M. The delta is 66.1% in favor of the RTX A4000 Mobile.

Q: What is the average benchmark score for each GPU?

A: The Intel Arc A350M has an average benchmark score of 24,647, while the NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile averages 21,379. Despite the RTX A4000 Mobile winning both head-to-head tests, its average is lower due to additional Passmark benchmark results included in its record.

Q: How do these GPUs rank against all other GPUs in the database?

A: The Intel Arc A350M sits at the 70th percentile, while the NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile is at the 66th percentile. The Arc A350M's higher percentile reflects its more consistent scores across fewer tests.

Q: Which GPU has more memory and bandwidth?

A: The NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 384.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The Intel Arc A350M has 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 64-bit bus, offering 112.0 GB/s.

Q: What are the TDP ratings for these mobile GPUs?

A: The Intel Arc A350M is rated at 25 W, while the NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile is rated at 115 W. This substantial difference in power draw correlates with the performance gap.

Architecture Differences

The Intel Arc A350M is built on Intel's Xe-HPG architecture, specifically the DG2-128 chip, manufactured on a 6 nm process at TSMC. It features 7,200 million transistors on a 157 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 45.9M per mm². The GPU belongs to the Alchemist generation (Arc 3 Mobile) and uses a PCIe 4.0 x8 interface.

The NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile uses the Ampere architecture with the GA104 chip, fabricated on Samsung's 8 nm process. It packs 17,400 million transistors on a 392 mm² die, with a slightly lower transistor density of 44.4M per mm². This GPU is part of the Ampere-MW (Ax000) generation and employs a PCIe 4.0 x16 interface.

Core configuration differs dramatically. The Arc A350M has 768 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, 24 ROPs, and 6 ray tracing cores. It has no dedicated tensor cores. The RTX A4000 Mobile offers 5,120 shading units, 160 TMUs, 80 ROPs, 40 ray tracing cores, and 160 tensor cores. These are massive differences in raw compute resources.

Clock speeds tell part of the story. The Intel GPU boosts to 2200 MHz from a 1150 MHz base, while the NVIDIA GPU boosts to only 1680 MHz from a 1140 MHz base. However, the NVIDIA GPU's far larger core count more than compensates for its lower clock speed.

Both GPUs support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, so API compatibility is identical. The Intel part is described as an IGP (integrated graphics processor) slot width, while the NVIDIA part has no power connectors listed and relies on the mobile platform for power delivery.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded data includes two head-to-head comparisons, and the NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile wins both decisively. The most striking result is in Geekbench OpenCL, where the RTX A4000 Mobile scores 97,178 against the Arc A350M's 24,546. This is a 74.7% lead for the NVIDIA part, which translates to nearly four times the raw compute output in this workload.

In Geekbench Vulkan, the gap narrows slightly but remains substantial. The RTX A4000 Mobile posts 73,002, while the Arc A350M manages 24,747. The delta here is 66.1% in favor of NVIDIA. Vulkan tends to stress driver efficiency and async compute, and while the Arc A350M improves its absolute score slightly compared to OpenCL, it still trails by a wide margin.

The Arc A350M's nearest rivals in the database give context to its performance level. It sits within 0.5% of the NVIDIA RTX A5000 Mobile (24,763 average) and 0.4% below the AMD Radeon RX 590 (24,744). It is 0.8% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT (24,442) and 1.5% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1630 (24,277). This places the Arc A350M in a performance tier typical of mid-range desktop GPUs from several generations ago.

The RTX A4000 Mobile's nearest rivals paint a different picture. It is 0.7% above the AMD Radeon HD 8970M (21,237), 1.1% above the AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL (21,153), and 1.6% above the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 (21,035). It trails the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000 (21,629) by 1.2%. These rivals are mostly older mobile or professional parts, suggesting the RTX A4000 Mobile's average score is dragged down by its Passmark results, which are not available for the Arc A350M.

Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ in nearly every measurable specification. Process node: the Arc A350M uses 6 nm TSMC, while the RTX A4000 Mobile uses 8 nm Samsung. Transistor count: 7,200 million versus 17,400 million. Die size: 157 mm² versus 392 mm².

Memory configuration is starkly different. The Arc A350M has 4 GB GDDR6 on a 64-bit bus, while the RTX A4000 Mobile has 8 GB GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus. Effective memory speed: 14 Gbps for Intel versus 12 Gbps for NVIDIA. Bandwidth: 112.0 GB/s versus 384.0 GB/s, a 3.4x advantage for NVIDIA.

Compute resources diverge sharply. Shading units: 768 versus 5,120. TMUs: 48 versus 160. ROPs: 24 versus 80. Ray tracing cores: 6 versus 40. Tensor cores: none versus 160. The RTX A4000 Mobile has 4.9x the pixel rate (134.4 GPixel/s versus 52.80 GPixel/s) and 2.5x the texture rate (268.8 GTexel/s versus 105.6 GTexel/s).

Floating point performance shows the largest gap. FP32: 17.20 TFLOPS versus 3.379 TFLOPS, a 5.1x difference. FP16: 17.20 TFLOPS for NVIDIA versus 6.758 TFLOPS for Intel. The NVIDIA GPU uses 1:1 FP16/FP32 ratio, while Intel uses 2:1, meaning Intel's FP16 output is only double its FP32 rather than equal.

Power draw: 25 W for Intel versus 115 W for NVIDIA. Bus interface: PCIe 4.0 x8 versus PCIe 4.0 x16. Release dates: the RTX A4000 Mobile launched on 2021-04-11, while the Arc A350M launched on 2022-03-29. Both are end-of-life products. The RTX A4000 Mobile has a predecessor (Quadro Turing-M) and successor (Ada-MW) listed; the Arc A350M has neither.

Where Each One Wins

The Intel Arc A350M wins in efficiency metrics. At 25 W TDP, it delivers its performance at less than a quarter of the RTX A4000 Mobile's 115 W power draw. For thin-and-light laptops where battery life and thermal constraints dominate, the Arc A350M is the only viable choice between these two.

The Arc A350M also wins on transistor density, with 45.9M transistors per mm² versus 44.4M for NVIDIA. This reflects the advanced 6 nm TSMC process and shows Intel's design efficiency per area, even if the absolute transistor count is far lower.

The NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile wins every performance benchmark in the database. Its Geekbench OpenCL score of 97,178 is nearly four times the Arc A350M's 24,546. Its Vulkan score of 73,002 is nearly three times the Arc A350M's 24,747. For any compute-heavy workload, including ray tracing, AI inference via tensor cores, or professional 3D rendering, the RTX A4000 Mobile is categorically superior.

The RTX A4000 Mobile also wins on memory capacity and bandwidth. With 8 GB versus 4 GB, and 384.0 GB/s versus 112.0 GB/s, it can handle larger datasets and higher-resolution textures without bottlenecking. The 256-bit bus versus 64-bit bus is a fundamental architectural advantage.

For gaming at high resolutions or with ray tracing enabled, the RTX A4000 Mobile's 40 ray tracing cores and 160 tensor cores provide hardware acceleration that the Arc A350M cannot match, as the Arc A350M lacks tensor cores entirely and has only 6 ray tracing cores.

The Verdict

The benchmark data is unambiguous: the NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile is the far more powerful GPU. It wins both head-to-head tests with margins of 74.7% and 66.1%, and its specification sheet shows overwhelming advantages in shader count, memory bandwidth, and compute throughput. Anyone needing maximum graphics performance in a mobile workstation should choose the RTX A4000 Mobile without hesitation.

The Intel Arc A350M serves a completely different purpose. Its 25 W TDP makes it suitable for ultra-portable devices where battery life and thermals are critical. Its 70th percentile ranking versus the RTX A4000 Mobile's 66th percentile shows that when normalized across all database results, the Arc A350M actually performs more consistently relative to its peers. But this is a statistical artifact of the RTX A4000 Mobile including additional Passmark tests, not evidence of real-world superiority.

For professional workloads such as 3D rendering, video editing, scientific computing, or AI development, the RTX A4000 Mobile is the only rational choice. Its 17.20 TFLOPS FP32 performance, 8 GB memory, and 384.0 GB/s bandwidth provide the headroom these tasks demand. The Arc A350M's 3.379 TFLOPS and 4 GB memory would bottleneck immediately.

For basic productivity, light media consumption, or entry-level gaming on a thin laptop, the Arc A350M is adequate. Its performance sits within 1.5% of the GeForce GTX 1630 and within 0.8% of the Radeon RX 6600 XT in average scores, so it is not a weak part. It simply occupies a much lower performance tier.

The release timeline shows the RTX A4000 Mobile came first (April 2021) and has a clear successor (Ada-MW), while the Arc A350M arrived later (March 2022) with no successor listed. Both are end-of-life products, so buyers should focus on current availability and platform compatibility rather than future upgrade paths. The verdict is clear: choose the RTX A4000 Mobile for performance, choose the Arc A350M only when power constraints are absolute.