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NVIDIA A30 PCIe

NVIDIA A30 PCIe: Power for Professionals and Enthusiasts

April 2025

Since the launch of the Ampere architecture, NVIDIA has continued to expand its GPU lineup, offering solutions for both gamers and professionals. The A30 PCIe, introduced in 2023, has filled the role of a versatile tool for workstations, servers, and enthusiasts who need a balance between computational power and support for modern technologies. In this article, we will explore what makes the A30 unique, how it performs in gaming and professional tasks, and who should pay attention to it.

Architecture and Key Features

Ampere Next-Gen Architecture

The NVIDIA A30 is built on an enhanced version of the Ampere architecture (codenamed Ampere Next-Gen), which utilizes a 5nm TSMC manufacturing process. This has allowed for a 30% increase in transistor density compared to the previous generation, improving energy efficiency and performance.

Unique Features

- RTX Accelerators: Support for real-time ray tracing and DLSS 3.5 (Deep Learning Super Sampling) with Frame Generation technology to boost FPS.

- 4th Generation CUDA Cores: Optimized cores for machine learning and scientific computations.

- Multi-Instance GPU (MIG): Allows the GPU to be divided into 7 isolated instances for parallel tasks.

Difference from Gaming Models

Unlike the GeForce RTX 40 series, the A30 focuses on precise calculations and stability rather than maximum clock speeds. However, it retains compatibility with NVIDIA's gaming technologies, including Nvidia Reflex for reduced latency.

Memory: Speed and Capacity

24 GB GDDR6X with ECC

The A30 features GDDR6X memory with error correction (ECC), which is critical for scientific tasks and rendering. The 24 GB capacity supports the handling of heavy scenes in 3D editors and neural networks.

Bandwidth

With a 384-bit bus and a speed of 1125 GB/s (15% higher than the A100), latency is minimized during data processing. For gaming, this means stable performance at 4K, while for professional applications, it results in quick texture and model loading.

Gaming Performance: Not Just for Work

Testing in 2025

Despite its professional orientation, the A30 handles modern games well thanks to DLSS 3.5. Here are the average FPS figures (with DLSS enabled in "Quality" mode):

- Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty (4K, RT Ultra): 58-62 FPS.

- Starfield: Enhanced Edition (1440p, Ultra): 90 FPS.

- Unreal Engine 5 Demos (4K, Nanite + Lumen): 45-50 FPS.

Ray Tracing

The 3rd generation RTX cores provide a 40% higher ray tracing speed compared to the RTX 4080. However, due to less optimization of drivers for games, the A30 sometimes falls short of specialized GeForce cards in FPS.

Professional Tasks: Main Strength

3D Rendering and Modeling

In tests using Blender (Cycles), the A30 completes rendering of the "Classroom" scene in 4.2 minutes, compared to 5.8 minutes for the RTX 4090. This is achieved through double precision (FP64) optimization.

Video Editing and AI

- DaVinci Resolve: Real-time editing of 8K footage with AI filters.

- Tensor Core: Accelerating neural networks in PyTorch and TensorFlow — training the ResNet-50 model takes 11 minutes (compared to 15 for the A100).

Scientific Computing

Support for CUDA 12.5 and OpenCL 3.5 makes the A30 ideal for simulations in MATLAB and CFD programs.

Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation

TDP 250W

The A30 requires quality cooling. Recommendations include:

- Cases with ≥ 3 fans.

- Liquid cooling (LC) for prolonged workloads.

Platform Compatibility

The card operates in servers and PCs that support PCIe 5.0 but is also backward compatible with PCIe 4.0.

Comparison with Competitors

NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada Generation

- Pros of the A30: Better price/performance ratio ($3500 vs. $6800).

- Cons: RTX 6000 offers 48 GB of memory and higher clock speeds.

AMD Radeon Pro W7800

- Pros of AMD: Support for FidelityFX Super Resolution for gaming.

- Cons: Weaker position in AI tasks due to lack of a Tensor Core equivalent.

Practical Tips

- Power Supply: At least 750W with 80+ Gold certification.

- Drivers: Use Studio Drivers for professional work and Game Ready Drivers for gaming.

- Platform: Best compatibility with Intel Xeon W-3400 and AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7000 processors.

Pros and Cons

✅ Pros:

- Versatility: Gaming + professional tasks.

- Reliability of ECC memory.

- Support for MIG for virtualization.

❌ Cons:

- Price starting from $3500 — expensive for average users.

- Lack of specialized optimization for games.

Final Conclusion

The NVIDIA A30 PCIe is a choice for those who need maximum flexibility. It is suitable for:

- 3D designers and engineers working with rendering.

- Scientists engaged in AI and Big Data.

- Enthusiasts who want to play in 4K without compromises while using the GPU for neural network training.

If your goal is strictly gaming, consider the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super or 4080. But if you are looking for a "workhorse" with future-proofing, the A30 will be a reliable investment.

Basic

Label Name

NVIDIA

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

April 2021

Model Name

A30 PCIe

Generation

Tesla Ampere

Base Clock

930MHz

Boost Clock

1440MHz

Bus Interface

PCIe 4.0 x16

Transistors

54,200 million

Tensor Cores

Tensor Cores are specialized processing units designed specifically for deep learning, providing higher training and inference performance compared to FP32 training. They enable rapid computations in areas such as computer vision, natural language processing, speech recognition, text-to-speech conversion, and personalized recommendations. The two most notable applications of Tensor Cores are DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) and AI Denoiser for noise reduction.

224

TMUs

Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.

224

Foundry

TSMC

Process Size

7 nm

Architecture

Ampere

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

24GB

Memory Type

HBM2e

Memory Bus

The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.

3072bit

Memory Clock

1215MHz

Bandwidth

Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.

933.1 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate

Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.

138.2 GPixel/s

Texture Rate

Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.

322.6 GTexel/s

FP16 (half)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy.

10.32 TFLOPS

FP64 (double)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy, while single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

5.161 TFLOPS

FP32 (float)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

10.114 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

SM Count

Multiple Streaming Processors (SPs), along with other resources, form a Streaming Multiprocessor (SM), which is also referred to as a GPU's major core. These additional resources include components such as warp schedulers, registers, and shared memory. The SM can be considered the heart of the GPU, similar to a CPU core, with registers and shared memory being scarce resources within the SM.

Shading Units

The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.

3584

L1 Cache

192 KB (per SM)

L2 Cache

24MB

TDP

165W

Vulkan Version

Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.

N/A

OpenCL Version

3.0

OpenGL

N/A

DirectX

N/A

CUDA

8.0

Power Connectors

8-pin EPS

Shader Model

N/A

ROPs

The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.

Suggested PSU

450W

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

10.114 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

Radeon Pro V340

10.965 +8.4%

Radeon Pro W6600M

10.608 +4.9%

A30 PCIe

10.114

Radeon RX Vega 56 Mobile

9.513 -5.9%

RTX 2000 Max-Q Ada Generation

9.119 -9.8%