NVIDIA RTX A5500 Mobile vs NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB Comparison

The NVIDIA RTX A5500 Mobile and the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB represent two distinct eras of NVIDIA’s professional GPU lineup, separated by a significant architectural leap and a mobile-versus-server form factor divide. The data shows a clear performance hierarchy, but the decision is not purely about raw speed; it hinges on the specific workload requirements, feature set, and system integration constraints of the user. The RTX A5500 Mobile emerges as the overwhelmingly more capable and modern option, offering a substantial performance advantage and a feature set that is fundamentally aligned with contemporary compute and rendering demands. The Tesla P100, while historically significant and still competitive in its niche, is functionally obsolete for many modern tasks due to its lack of dedicated ray tracing and tensor hardware. The verdict, based strictly on the provided data, is that the RTX A5500 Mobile is the superior choice for nearly all current workloads, while the Tesla P100 remains relevant only for legacy compute tasks that do not require modern API support or dedicated AI acceleration.

The Verdict

The data presents a decisive outcome. In the only head-to-head benchmark available, the Geekbench OpenCL test, the RTX A5500 Mobile scores 124,287 points, which is a 56.1% improvement over the Tesla P100's score of 79,605. This is not a marginal win; it is a dominant performance lead that places the A5500 Mobile in a different performance class. The A5500 Mobile also holds a 94th percentile ranking among all GPUs, compared to the P100's 92nd percentile, reinforcing its higher standing in the broader market. For users requiring the latest DirectX 12 Ultimate features, Vulkan 1.4 support, and dedicated RT and Tensor cores, the A5500 Mobile is the only viable option of the two. The Tesla P100, with its older Pascal architecture, lacks these features entirely. Therefore, the RTX A5500 Mobile is the recommended pick for any workload involving modern game engines, ray-traced rendering, AI inference, or deep learning. The Tesla P100 should only be considered for very specific, legacy compute tasks that are optimized for its HBM2 memory architecture and do not benefit from the newer features, and even then, its lower raw performance makes it a difficult sell.

Architecture Differences

The fundamental difference between these two GPUs lies in their underlying architectures, which dictate their respective capabilities. The RTX A5500 Mobile is built on the Ampere architecture, fabricated on an 8 nm process at Samsung. It uses the GA103 chip, which contains 22,000 million transistors on a die size of 496 mm². This modern design results in a transistor density of 44.4 million transistors per square millimeter. Crucially, the Ampere architecture integrates 58 dedicated ray tracing cores and 232 tensor cores, enabling hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI processing. The Tesla P100, in contrast, is a Pascal architecture product from NVIDIA’s Tesla generation. It uses the GP100 chip, fabricated on a 16 nm process at TSMC, with 15,300 million transistors on a larger 610 mm² die, leading to a lower transistor density of 25.1 million per square millimeter. The Pascal architecture does not include any dedicated RT or Tensor cores, meaning it relies entirely on standard shader units for compute. This architectural gap is the primary reason for the massive performance differential in modern workloads. The A5500 Mobile also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, while the P100 is limited to DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.3, further highlighting the generational divide.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The head-to-head data contains a single benchmark result, but it is highly illustrative. In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the RTX A5500 Mobile achieves a score of 124,287, while the Tesla P100 manages 79,605. This represents a delta of 56.1% in favor of the A5500 Mobile. To contextualize this, the A5500 Mobile's average benchmark score is 113,944, which is 0.4% behind the Tesla V100 SXM2 16 GB and 2.7% behind the RTX 4000 SFF Ada Generation, yet 2.9% ahead of the AMD Radeon PRO W7900. The Tesla P100's average score of 79,605 places it in a much lower tier, with its nearest rival, the Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB, scoring 79,396 (a 0.3% difference). The performance gap between the two cards is so large that the P100's score is closer to the GeForce RTX 5090's score of 79,842 (a -0.3% delta) than it is to the A5500 Mobile's score. This single data point confirms that the A5500 Mobile is not just a little faster; it is a generational leap ahead in raw compute throughput, offering more than double the FP32 performance (22.27 TFLOPS vs. 9.526 TFLOPS).

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has a higher raw compute performance in FP32 operations?

A: The NVIDIA RTX A5500 Mobile is significantly faster, with an FP32 performance of 22.27 TFLOPS compared to the Tesla P100's 9.526 TFLOPS, a difference that is directly reflected in the 56.1% higher Geekbench OpenCL score for the A5500 Mobile.

Q: Does the Tesla P100 support hardware-accelerated ray tracing?

A: No. The Tesla P100 is based on the Pascal architecture, which does not include dedicated ray tracing cores. The RTX A5500 Mobile, based on Ampere, includes 58 RT cores.

Q: Are there any differences in memory bandwidth that could affect performance?

A: Yes. The Tesla P100 uses HBM2 memory with a 4096-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 732.2 GB/s. The RTX A5500 Mobile uses GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a lower bandwidth of 512.0 GB/s. Despite the P100's higher bandwidth, the A5500 Mobile's superior architecture and compute power give it the overall performance advantage.

Q: What is the difference in their supported graphics APIs?

A: The RTX A5500 Mobile supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, while the Tesla P100 supports the older DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.3. This means the A5500 Mobile is compatible with the latest features and applications.

Q: Which card has a higher number of shading units?

A: The RTX A5500 Mobile has 7,424 shading units, which is more than double the 3,584 shading units found on the Tesla P100.

Q: How do their average benchmark scores compare to their nearest rivals?

A: The RTX A5500 Mobile's average score of 113,944 makes it 2.9% faster than the AMD Radeon PRO W7900, but 2.7% slower than the RTX 4000 SFF Ada Generation. The Tesla P100's average score of 79,605 makes it 0.8% faster than the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT, but 1.7% slower than the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X.

Where Each One Wins

Based on the data, the RTX A5500 Mobile wins in nearly every category that matters for modern computing. Its victory in the single benchmark test is complemented by its architectural advantages. The A5500 Mobile is the clear winner for workloads that leverage its dedicated hardware: ray-traced rendering, AI inference, deep learning training, and any application that uses DirectX 12 Ultimate features. Its higher shading unit count (7,424 vs. 3,584) and tensor cores provide a massive advantage in parallel compute tasks. The Tesla P100's only potential area of advantage is in memory bandwidth, where its 732.2 GB/s HBM2 implementation exceeds the A5500 Mobile's 512.0 GB/s. This could theoretically benefit specific high-bandwidth, memory-bound compute tasks that do not utilize the newer architectural features, though the P100's significantly lower compute throughput and lack of modern API support make this a narrow and shrinking niche. The P100 is a dual-slot, 250 W card with no display outputs, designed for server installations, while the A5500 Mobile is a portable device-dependent part, indicating a clear difference in intended use cases.

Specification Differences

The following table outlines the key specifications where the two GPUs differ, based exclusively on the provided data.

| Specification | NVIDIA RTX A5500 Mobile | NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB |

| :--- | :--- | :--- |

| Architecture | Ampere | Pascal |

| Generation | Ampere-MW (Ax000) | Tesla Pascal (Pxx) |

| Process Node | 8 nm | 16 nm |

| Foundry | Samsung | TSMC |

| Transistors | 22,000 million | 15,300 million |

| Die Size | 496 mm² | 610 mm² |

| Transistor Density | 44.4M / mm² | 25.1M / mm² |

| Base Clock | 975 MHz | 1190 MHz |

| Boost Clock | 1500 MHz | 1329 MHz |

| Memory Type | GDDR6 | HBM2 |

| Memory Bus Width | 256 bit | 4096 bit |

| Memory Bandwidth | 512.0 GB/s | 732.2 GB/s |

| Shading Units | 7424 | 3584 |

| TMUs | 232 | 224 |

| ROPs | 96 | 96 |

| RT Cores | 58 | null |

| Tensor Cores | 232 | null |

| Pixel Rate | 144.0 GPixel/s | 127.6 GPixel/s |

| Texture Rate | 348.0 GTexel/s | 297.7 GTexel/s |

| FP32 Performance | 22.27 TFLOPS | 9.526 TFLOPS |

| FP16 Performance | 22.27 TFLOPS (1:1) | 19.05 TFLOPS (2:1) |

| TDP | 165 W | 250 W |

| Slot Width | null | Dual-slot |

| Power Connectors | None | 1x 8-pin |

| Suggested PSU | null | 600 W |

| Bus Interface | PCIe 4.0 x16 | PCIe 3.0 x16 |

| Display Outputs | Portable Device Dependent | No outputs |

| DirectX Support | 12 Ultimate (12_2) | 12 (12_1) |

| Vulkan Support | 1.4 | 1.3 |

| Length | null | 267 mm (10.5 inches) |

| Release Date | 2022-03-21 | 2016-06-19 |

| Launch MSRP | null | 5,699 USD |