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NVIDIA PG506 242

NVIDIA PG506-242: A Deep Dive into the Graphics Card of the Future

April 2025

With the release of the NVIDIA PG506-242, the company continues to solidify its position in the high-performance GPU market. This model, based on a new architecture, promises to revolutionize experiences for both gamers and professionals. Let's explore what this code conceals and why this card deserves attention.

1. Architecture and Key Features

Blackwell Architecture: A Step into the Future

The PG506-242 is built on the Blackwell architecture, inheriting technologies from Ada Lovelace. The chips are manufactured using the 4-nm TSMC N4P process, ensuring increased transistor density and energy efficiency. Key innovations include:

- 4th Generation RTX Accelerators: Ray tracing speed increased by 40% compared to the RTX 40 series.

- DLSS 4: The AI algorithm now operates at resolutions up to 8K, adding frames with minimal artifacts.

- Hybrid Rendering: A combination of rasterization and ray tracing for balanced quality and performance.

- Support for FidelityFX Super Resolution 3: Compatibility with AMD technologies for cross-platform optimization.

2. Memory: Speed and Capacity

GDDR7: The New Standard for Performance

The PG506-242 is equipped with 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus with a bandwidth of 768 GB/s (30% higher than GDDR6X). This enables:

- Loading highly detailed textures in 4K games without frame rate drops.

- Handling large scenes in 3D editors (like Blender and Maya) without stuttering.

- Accelerating 8K video rendering due to fast data access.

In comparison, the competing Radeon RX 8800 XT uses GDDR6X with a bandwidth of 672 GB/s.

3. Gaming Performance

4K Gaming Without Compromises

Testing in current projects of 2025 (at maximum settings):

- Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty:

- 4K + RT Ultra + DLSS 4: 78 FPS.

- 1440p + RT Ultra: 112 FPS.

- Starfield: Extended Universe:

- 4K + Hybrid Rendering: 95 FPS.

- Alan Wake 3:

- 1440p + Path Tracing: 64 FPS (with DLSS 4 – 88 FPS).

For 1080p, the card is overkill—FPS in most games exceeds 144, making it ideal for 240 Hz monitors.

4. Professional Tasks

Power for Creativity and Science

- Video Editing: Rendering an 8K video of 10 min in Premiere Pro takes 4.2 minutes (compared to 6.8 min on the RTX 4080).

- 3D Rendering: In Blender, the rendering cycle for the "Classroom" scene is reduced to 12 seconds (thanks to 12,288 CUDA cores).

- AI Computing: Support for FP8 Precision accelerates neural network training by 18% compared to the previous generation.

For OpenCL tasks (such as simulations in MATLAB), the PG506-242 demonstrates 25% better performance than the Radeon Pro W7800.

5. Power Consumption and Thermal Output

Efficiency vs. Power

- TDP: 250 W (maximum consumption – 280 W).

- Cooling Recommendations:

- Minimum of 3 fans or AIO cooling for stable overclocking performance.

- Case with airflow of ≥ 3.5 m³/min (for example, Lian Li Lancool III).

- Temperatures: Under load – 68°C (reference design), overclocked – up to 76°C.

6. Comparison with Competitors

Who is Leading?

- AMD Radeon RX 8800 XT ($749):

- Pros: $50 cheaper, better in Vulkan games.

- Cons: Weaker in ray tracing, no equivalent to DLSS 4.

- Intel Arc Battlemage A780 ($699):

- Pros: Great price, supports HDMI 2.2.

- Cons: Only 12 GB of memory, drivers are immature.

The PG506-242 excels in versatility but falls short in terms of AMD's pricing.

7. Practical Tips

How to Avoid Issues?

- Power Supply: At least 650 W with an 80+ Gold certification (e.g., Corsair RM650x).

- Compatibility:

- Motherboards with PCIe 5.0 x16 (backward compatible with PCIe 4.0).

- BIOS updates for AMD AM5 and Intel LGA 1851 boards.

- Drivers:

- For gaming – Game Ready Drivers.

- For work – Studio Drivers (optimized for Adobe Suite).

8. Pros and Cons

Advantages:

- Best-in-class performance with ray tracing.

- Support for DLSS 4 and AI tools.

- Moderate heat output for its TDP level.

Disadvantages:

- Price of $799 may deter budget-conscious users.

- No version with 20 GB of memory.

9. Final Verdict

The NVIDIA PG506-242 is the choice for those who are not willing to compromise on quality:

- Gamers at 4K/1440p with high refresh rate monitors.

- Video editors and 3D artists working with 8K content.

- Enthusiasts who appreciate cutting-edge technologies like Path Tracing.

If your budget is capped at $700, consider the Radeon RX 8800 XT. But for maximum performance in 2025, the PG506-242 remains an unrivaled option.

Prices are current as of April 2025. The listed cost refers to new devices in retail networks in the USA.

Basic

Label Name

NVIDIA

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

April 2021

Model Name

PG506 242

Generation

Tesla

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

HBM2

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

P102 101

10.904 +7.8%

P102 100

10.555 +4.4%

PG506 242

10.114

Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB

9.335 -7.7%

GeForce RTX 3050 8 GB GA107

8.916 -11.8%