NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile vs NVIDIA RTX A5000 Mobile Comparison

FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster in the database benchmarks?

A: The NVIDIA RTX A5000 Mobile wins all nine recorded head-to-head benchmark comparisons against the RTX A4000 Mobile. Its average benchmark score is 24,763 versus 21,379 for the A4000 Mobile.

Q: How large is the performance gap between the two in compute workloads?

A: The A5000 Mobile leads by 14.1% in Geekbench OpenCL and 8.6% in Passmark GPU Compute. The largest single margin is in Geekbench Vulkan, where it leads by 20.7%.

Q: Do both GPUs use the same underlying architecture?

A: Yes, both are built on the Ampere architecture using the GA104 chip, fabricated by Samsung on an 8 nm process. Both have 17,400 million transistors on a 392 mm² die.

Q: How do their memory configurations differ?

A: The A5000 Mobile has 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus with 448.0 GB/s bandwidth. The A4000 Mobile has 8 GB of GDDR6 on the same 256-bit bus, but bandwidth drops to 384.0 GB/s.

Q: What is the percentile ranking of each GPU against all GPUs in the database?

A: The A5000 Mobile sits at the 70th percentile, while the A4000 Mobile sits at the 66th percentile.

Q: Which GPU has higher clock speeds?

A: The A4000 Mobile has the higher base and boost clocks: 1140 MHz base and 1680 MHz boost, compared to 900 MHz base and 1575 MHz boost for the A5000 Mobile. The A5000 Mobile still wins all benchmarks despite the lower clocks.

Architecture Differences

Both GPUs come from the same Ampere generation and share the GA104 chip, the 8 nm Samsung process, and identical transistor counts of 17,400 million on a 392 mm² die. The architectural differences are purely in the number of active execution units and the clock configuration, not in the fundamental design.

The A5000 Mobile carries 6144 shading units, 192 texture mapping units, and 96 ROPs. The A4000 Mobile scales down to 5120 shading units, 160 TMUs, and 80 ROPs. This translates to a 20% reduction in shading units and a similar cut in TMUs, while ROPs drop by 16.7%. The ray tracing and tensor core counts follow the same pattern: the A5000 Mobile has 48 RT cores and 192 tensor cores, while the A4000 Mobile has 40 and 160 respectively.

Clock behavior is counterintuitive. The A4000 Mobile runs at a 1140 MHz base and 1680 MHz boost, which is higher than the A5000 Mobile's 900 MHz base and 1575 MHz boost. Despite this, the A5000 Mobile delivers more raw throughput because its larger execution resource pool more than compensates for the lower clocks. The A5000 Mobile's FP32 throughput is 19.35 TFLOPS versus 17.20 TFLOPS for the A4000 Mobile, and FP16 runs at the same 1:1 ratio for both.

Memory architecture differs in capacity and speed but not in bus width. Both use a 256-bit bus with GDDR6, but the A5000 Mobile operates its memory at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective) for 448.0 GB/s, while the A4000 Mobile runs at 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective) for 384.0 GB/s. The A5000 Mobile's 16 GB capacity is double the A4000 Mobile's 8 GB.

Both GPUs share the same API support: DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. Both use PCIe 4.0 x16, have no power connectors, and list their display outputs as portable device dependent. Both were released on the same date, share the same predecessor (Quadro Turing-M), same successor (Ada-MW), and are both marked end-of-life.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The A5000 Mobile wins every recorded benchmark category, but the margins vary considerably by workload. The largest differential is in Geekbench Vulkan, where the A5000 Mobile scores 88,144 against 73,002, a 20.7% advantage. This is the clearest signal that the A5000 Mobile's additional execution resources matter most in a modern graphics API workload.

Geekbench OpenCL shows a 14.1% lead, with scores of 110,877 versus 97,178. Compute performance in the Passmark suite is closer but still favors the A5000 Mobile: 6,945 versus 6,394, an 8.6% gap.

DirectX 10, 11, and 12 results all favor the A5000 Mobile by single-digit margins. Passmark DirectX 10 gives 115 versus 105 (9.5%), DirectX 11 gives 133 versus 127 (4.7%), and DirectX 12 gives 72 versus 66 (9.1%). The DirectX 9 result is 169 versus 157, a 7.6% gap. Passmark G2D (2D graphics) shows 629 versus 585, a 7.5% lead, and Passmark G3D shows 15,779 versus 14,796, a 6.6% lead.

The narrowest margin is in DirectX 11 at 4.7%, which suggests that the A4000 Mobile's higher clocks partially offset its smaller execution resource pool in that specific workload. The widest margin in Vulkan at 20.7% indicates that the A5000 Mobile's resource advantage is most fully utilized in Vulkan.

The average benchmark score difference is larger than any single test would suggest: the A5000 Mobile averages 24,763 while the A4000 Mobile averages 21,379, a difference of 3,384 points. The A5000 Mobile's nearest rivals in the database are the AMD Radeon RX 590 (24,744, 0.1% behind), Intel Arc A350M (24,647, 0.5% behind), AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT (24,442, 1.3% behind), and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1630 (24,277, 2% behind). The A4000 Mobile's nearest rivals are the AMD Radeon HD 8970M (21,237, 0.7% behind), AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL (21,153, 1.1% behind), NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000 (21,629, 1.2% ahead), and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 (21,035, 1.6% behind).

Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ in the following recorded specifications:

• Base clock: 900 MHz (A5000) vs 1140 MHz (A4000)
• Boost clock: 1575 MHz (A5000) vs 1680 MHz (A4000)
• Memory clock: 1750 MHz / 14 Gbps effective (A5000) vs 1500 MHz / 12 Gbps effective (A4000)
• Memory size: 16 GB (A5000) vs 8 GB (A4000)
• Memory bandwidth: 448.0 GB/s (A5000) vs 384.0 GB/s (A4000)
• Shading units: 6144 (A5000) vs 5120 (A4000)
• TMUs: 192 (A5000) vs 160 (A4000)
• ROPs: 96 (A5000) vs 80 (A4000)
• RT cores: 48 (A5000) vs 40 (A4000)
• Tensor cores: 192 (A5000) vs 160 (A4000)
• Pixel rate: 151.2 GPixel/s (A5000) vs 134.4 GPixel/s (A4000)
• Texture rate: 302.4 GTexel/s (A5000) vs 268.8 GTexel/s (A4000)
• FP32 throughput: 19.35 TFLOPS (A5000) vs 17.20 TFLOPS (A4000)
• FP16 throughput: 19.35 TFLOPS (A5000) vs 17.20 TFLOPS (A4000)
• TDP: 150 W (A5000) vs 115 W (A4000)

Identical specifications include the GA104 chip, Ampere architecture, 8 nm Samsung process, 17,400 million transistors, 392 mm² die, 44.4M transistors per mm², GDDR6 memory type, 256-bit memory bus, PCIe 4.0 x16 interface, DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, Vulkan 1.4, no power connectors, portable device dependent display outputs, and the same release date of 2021-04-11.

Where Each One Wins

The A5000 Mobile wins all nine head-to-head benchmark categories, so the use-case split is about degrees of advantage rather than outright wins. The strongest case for the A5000 Mobile is in Vulkan workloads, where the 20.7% lead over the A4000 Mobile is the largest recorded margin. Any application that uses Vulkan for rendering or compute will see the most benefit from choosing the A5000 Mobile.

Compute-heavy workloads also favor the A5000 Mobile. Geekbench OpenCL shows a 14.1% advantage, and Passmark GPU Compute shows 8.6%. The combination of 6,144 shading units, 192 tensor cores, 48 RT cores, and double the memory capacity makes the A5000 Mobile the better fit for machine learning, rendering, and simulation tasks that can use the full memory pool.

The A4000 Mobile is not without its arguments. Its higher base and boost clocks (1140 MHz and 1680 MHz versus 900 MHz and 1575 MHz) mean that in workloads that are latency-bound or clock-sensitive, the A4000 Mobile narrows the gap. The DirectX 11 result, where the A5000 Mobile leads by only 4.7%, is the clearest example of this. The A4000 Mobile also draws less power at 115 W versus 150 W, which matters in thermally constrained mobile chassis.

For 2D and legacy DirectX workloads, the A5000 Mobile still wins but by margins in the 6.6% to 9.5% range. These are not workloads that stress the GPU heavily, so the lower-clocked A5000 Mobile's resource advantage is less decisive. The A4000 Mobile is the more reasonable pick if the workload is primarily older DirectX titles or 2D applications and the power budget is tight.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous: the NVIDIA RTX A5000 Mobile outperforms the NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile in every recorded benchmark. The A5000 Mobile holds a 9-of-9 win record, an average benchmark score of 24,763 against 21,379, and a 70th percentile ranking versus 66th. The largest gaps are in Vulkan (20.7%) and OpenCL (14.1%), which are the workloads most likely to reflect real-world professional use.

The A5000 Mobile is the choice for users who need maximum compute throughput, ray tracing capability, and memory capacity. The 16 GB frame buffer is double the A4000 Mobile's 8 GB, and the bandwidth advantage (448.0 GB/s versus 384.0 GB/s) compounds the capacity benefit. The higher TDP of 150 W versus 115 W means the A5000 Mobile needs a chassis that can dissipate that heat, but the performance return is consistent across every category.

The A4000 Mobile is the choice for users who are power-constrained or who run workloads that are not heavily parallel. The higher clocks (1140 MHz base, 1680 MHz boost) and lower TDP make it a plausible option for slim mobile workstations, but the benchmark data shows that even in the A4000 Mobile's best category, DirectX 11, it still trails by 4.7%. The A4000 Mobile's closest rival in the database, the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000, actually beats it by 1.2%, which puts it in a crowded performance tier.

For anyone making a selection strictly from the recorded data, the A5000 Mobile is the superior GPU in every measured dimension. The only reason to choose the A4000 Mobile is a hard power or thermal limit that the 150 W A5000 Mobile cannot satisfy. If the chassis can handle it, the A5000 Mobile delivers a lead that ranges from 4.7% to 20.7% depending on the workload, with an 8.6% advantage in compute and a 6.6% advantage in 3D graphics.