NVIDIA RTX A5500 Mobile vs NVIDIA Tesla P40 Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded data shows a decisive performance gap between the NVIDIA RTX A5500 Mobile and the NVIDIA Tesla P40, with the RTX A5500 Mobile winning both benchmark tests in the database. The largest margin appears in the Geekbench OpenCL test, where the RTX A5500 Mobile scores 124,287 against the Tesla P40’s 62,017. That is a 100.4% delta, meaning the RTX A5500 Mobile doubles the Tesla P40’s raw compute output in this workload. The Vulkan test narrows the gap slightly, but the RTX A5500 Mobile still leads with 103,601 versus 68,172, a 52% advantage.

These deltas are substantial, and they align with the broader percentile rankings. The RTX A5500 Mobile sits in the 94th percentile of all GPUs in the database, while the Tesla P40 ranks in the 89th percentile. That five-point percentile gap may sound modest, but the average benchmark scores tell a clearer story: the RTX A5500 Mobile averages 113,944 across its recorded tests, whereas the Tesla P40 averages 65,095. That is roughly a 75% difference in average score, driven primarily by the OpenCL result.

Looking at the nearest rivals for each card provides additional context. The RTX A5500 Mobile’s average score of 113,944 places it just 0.4% behind the NVIDIA Tesla V100 SXM2 16 GB (114,395), and 2.7% behind the NVIDIA RTX 4000 SFF Ada Generation (117,088). It also outperforms the AMD Radeon PRO W7900 (110,725) by 2.9% and trails the NVIDIA GB10 (117,393) by 2.9%. The Tesla P40, by contrast, sits in a much lower performance tier. Its average of 65,095 is 1.4% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100 (64,212), 1.4% behind the AMD Radeon VII (66,004), and 2% ahead of both the NVIDIA CMP 30HX (63,842) and the AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT LP (63,830). In other words, the Tesla P40 competes with midrange cards from several generations ago, while the RTX A5500 Mobile competes with high-end workstation and datacenter parts.

The head-to-head benchmark results are unambiguous: the RTX A5500 Mobile wins both tests, and the margin is large in both cases. The OpenCL gap of 100.4% is especially telling, as it suggests that the Ampere architecture’s compute capabilities far outstrip the older Pascal design in raw floating-point workloads. The Vulkan gap of 52% is narrower but still decisive, indicating that the RTX A5500 Mobile’s newer driver stack and hardware features provide a meaningful advantage in graphics-oriented APIs as well.

The Verdict

The data points to a clear winner for almost any workload: the NVIDIA RTX A5500 Mobile. It doubles the Tesla P40 in OpenCL and leads by more than half in Vulkan. Its average benchmark score of 113,944 versus 65,095 means that, on average, the RTX A5500 Mobile delivers roughly 75% more performance across the recorded tests. For users who need compute throughput, ray tracing support, or modern API features, the RTX A5500 Mobile is the obvious choice.

The Tesla P40 does have one notable advantage: memory capacity. It offers 24 GB of GDDR5 memory, compared to the RTX A5500 Mobile’s 16 GB of GDDR6. That extra capacity could matter for workloads that are memory-bound rather than compute-bound, such as large model inference or datasets that exceed 16 GB. However, the Tesla P40’s memory bandwidth is lower at 347.1 GB/s versus 512.0 GB/s, so even when the capacity is sufficient, the P40 will move data more slowly.

Another consideration is form factor. The RTX A5500 Mobile is a mobile GPU with no display outputs of its own (portable device dependent), while the Tesla P40 is a dual-slot PCIe card with no display outputs at all. Neither is designed for desktop graphics output. The Tesla P40 requires an 8-pin EPS power connector and a 600 W suggested PSU, while the RTX A5500 Mobile has no power connectors listed, reflecting its mobile design with a 165 W TDP versus the Tesla P40’s 250 W TDP.

For most users, the RTX A5500 Mobile is the better performer. The only scenario where the Tesla P40 makes sense is one where 24 GB of memory is absolutely required and the user accepts a significant compute penalty. Even then, the RTX A5500 Mobile’s higher bandwidth and far better compute scores suggest that for many memory-heavy workloads, the extra capacity may not compensate for the slower processing.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from different architectural eras. The RTX A5500 Mobile uses the GA103 chip on the Ampere architecture, built on Samsung’s 8 nm process. It packs 22,000 million transistors into a 496 mm² die, resulting in a transistor density of 44.4 million per square millimeter. The Tesla P40 uses the GP102 chip on the Pascal architecture, fabricated by TSMC on a 16 nm process. It has 11,800 million transistors on a 471 mm² die, for a density of 25.1 million per square millimeter. The Ampere chip is denser and newer, which explains part of its performance advantage.

Core counts differ dramatically. The RTX A5500 Mobile has 7,424 shading units, 232 texture mapping units, 96 raster output units, 58 ray tracing cores, and 232 tensor cores. The Tesla P40 has 3,840 shading units, 240 TMUs, and 96 ROPs, but no ray tracing cores and no tensor cores. The RTX A5500 Mobile’s shading unit count is nearly double, and it adds dedicated hardware for ray tracing and tensor operations that the Pascal GPU simply lacks. This explains the RTX A5500 Mobile’s support for DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the Tesla P40 only supports DirectX 12 (12_1).

Clock speeds tell a different story. The Tesla P40 has a higher base clock at 1,303 MHz versus 975 MHz, and a higher boost clock at 1,531 MHz versus 1,500 MHz. But the RTX A5500 Mobile compensates with far more cores and a much higher memory clock. The RTX A5500 Mobile’s memory runs at 2,000 MHz with 16 Gbps effective speed, while the Tesla P40’s memory runs at 1,808 MHz with 7.2 Gbps effective. The RTX A5500 Mobile also has a 256-bit memory bus versus the Tesla P40’s 384-bit bus, but the faster GDDR6 memory still yields 512.0 GB/s of bandwidth versus 347.1 GB/s.

Compute throughput metrics highlight the gap. The RTX A5500 Mobile delivers 22.27 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and the same 22.27 TFLOPS of FP16 (1:1 ratio). The Tesla P40 delivers 11.76 TFLOPS of FP32 and only 183.7 GFLOPS of FP16 (1:64 ratio). That FP16 ratio is a major differentiator for AI and machine learning workloads, where the RTX A5500 Mobile can process half-precision data at full speed while the Tesla P40 is severely crippled. Pixel and texture rates are closer: the RTX A5500 Mobile posts 144.0 GPixel/s and 348.0 GTexel/s, while the Tesla P40 posts 147.0 GPixel/s and 367.4 GTexel/s. The Tesla P40 actually edges ahead in these rasterization throughput metrics, though the RTX A5500 Mobile wins decisively in compute.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has higher FP32 compute performance?

A: The NVIDIA RTX A5500 Mobile delivers 22.27 TFLOPS of FP32, while the NVIDIA Tesla P40 delivers 11.76 TFLOPS. The RTX A5500 Mobile is roughly 89% faster in this metric.

Q: Does the Tesla P40 support ray tracing?

A: No. The Tesla P40 has no ray tracing cores and no tensor cores. The RTX A5500 Mobile includes 58 ray tracing cores and 232 tensor cores.

Q: Which GPU has more memory?

A: The Tesla P40 has 24 GB of GDDR5 memory, while the RTX A5500 Mobile has 16 GB of GDDR6. However, the RTX A5500 Mobile has higher bandwidth at 512.0 GB/s versus 347.1 GB/s.

Q: How do their average benchmark scores compare?

A: The RTX A5500 Mobile averages 113,944 across its recorded tests, while the Tesla P40 averages 65,095. The RTX A5500 Mobile also ranks in the 94th percentile of all GPUs, compared to the Tesla P40’s 89th percentile.

Q: What are the power requirements for each GPU?

A: The RTX A5500 Mobile has a 165 W TDP and lists no power connectors, reflecting its mobile design. The Tesla P40 has a 250 W TDP, requires an 8-pin EPS power connector, and lists a 600 W suggested PSU.

Q: Which GPU is newer?

A: The RTX A5500 Mobile was released on 2022-03-21, while the Tesla P40 was released on 2016-09-12. The RTX A5500 Mobile is built on Ampere architecture (8 nm), while the Tesla P40 uses Pascal architecture (16 nm).

Where Each One Wins

The RTX A5500 Mobile wins in every compute benchmark recorded. OpenCL and Vulkan both favor it by wide margins, and its FP32 and FP16 throughput are far superior. For tasks like machine learning inference, scientific simulation, or any workload that stresses shader compute, the RTX A5500 Mobile is the correct pick. Its 22.27 TFLOPS of FP16 (1:1) performance is particularly valuable for AI workloads, as the Tesla P40’s FP16 performance is effectively negligible at 183.7 GFLOPS with a 1:64 ratio. The RTX A5500 Mobile also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, while the Tesla P40 is limited to DirectX 12 (12_1), which matters for modern graphics features.

The Tesla P40 does have specific advantages, though they are fewer. Its 24 GB memory capacity is 8 GB larger than the RTX A5500 Mobile’s 16 GB, which can be critical for workloads that need to hold very large datasets in VRAM without spilling to system memory. Its pixel rate of 147.0 GPixel/s and texture rate of 367.4 GTexel/s are slightly higher than the RTX A5500 Mobile’s 144.0 GPixel/s and 348.0 GTexel/s, giving it a marginal edge in pure rasterization throughput. It also has a wider 384-bit memory bus, though the slower GDDR5 memory negates that advantage in bandwidth terms.

The Tesla P40 is also a dual-slot PCIe card with a standard 8-pin EPS connector, which makes it easier to install in a server chassis compared to the RTX A5500 Mobile’s mobile form factor. The RTX A5500 Mobile uses PCIe 4.0 x16, while the Tesla P40 uses PCIe 3.0 x16, so the newer card benefits from a faster host interface where the rest of the system supports it. For users with a desktop or server environment that requires a plug-in card, the Tesla P40 is the only option here, as the RTX A5500 Mobile is designed as a mobile part with portable-device-dependent display outputs.

In summary, the RTX A5500 Mobile is the superior processor for almost every compute and graphics workload. The Tesla P40 retains niche appeal for applications that require 24 GB of memory and can tolerate lower compute throughput, but the benchmark data shows that the RTX A5500 Mobile is the stronger choice for anyone prioritizing performance.