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NVIDIA L20

NVIDIA L20: A Deep Dive into the Flagship Graphics Card of 2025

Overview for Gamers and Professionals

Architecture and Key Features

Blackwell Architecture: Evolution After Ada Lovelace

The NVIDIA L20 is built on the new Blackwell architecture, named after mathematician David Blackwell. This is the company’s first GPU released using TSMC's 3nm process, providing a 20% increase in transistor density compared to its predecessors (RTX 40 series).

Unique Features

- RTX Ultra: Enhanced (3rd generation) ray tracing cores, which accelerate rendering by 35% compared to the RTX 4090.

- DLSS 4.0: AI now supports dynamic scaling up to 8K and automatic texture optimization.

- NVIDIA SynthFX: A new technology for real-time procedural animation generation, useful for game developers.

Memory: Speed and Volume

GDDR7: 24 GB and 768 Gbps

The L20 features GDDR7 memory with a 384-bit bus, providing bandwidth up to 768 Gbps—sufficient for 8K textures and complex scenes. In comparison, the RTX 4090 (GDDR6X, 24 GB, 1 Tbps) falls behind in efficiency due to the higher latency of GDDR7.

Impact on Performance

In Unreal Engine 5.3 tests, the L20 shows a 40% reduction in FPS drops thanks to optimized memory management. For open-world games (e.g., GTA VI), this means stable 90+ FPS at 4K.

Gaming Performance: Real Numbers

Tests in Popular Titles

- Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty (4K, RTX Ultra, DLSS 4.0): 112 FPS (compared to 78 FPS on RTX 4090).

- Starfield: Enhanced Edition (1440p, max settings): 144 FPS.

- Alan Wake 3 (1080p, ray tracing + path tracing): 160 FPS.

Resolutions and RTX

At 4K with ray tracing enabled, the L20 loses only 15-20% FPS thanks to DLSS 4.0. For 1440p, the card is overkill—it can render frames faster than most monitors refresh (240+ FPS).

Professional Tasks: Not Just Gaming

CUDA 5.0 and AI Acceleration

- Video Editing: In DaVinci Resolve, rendering an 8K project is reduced to 12 minutes (compared to 18 minutes on the RTX 4090).

- 3D Modeling: In Blender, the BMW Render test completes in 48 seconds (25% faster than the previous generation).

- Scientific Calculations: Support for FP8 Precision accelerates neural network training in TensorFlow by 30%.

Optimization for OpenCL 3.0

The NVIDIA profiler now automatically distributes the load between GPU and CPU, which is critical for CFD modeling tasks.

Power Consumption and Thermal Output

TDP 320W: System Requirements

The L20 consumes 10% more power than the RTX 4090 (TDP 450W), but offers higher efficiency per watt.

Recommendations

- Power Supply: At least 850W (preferably with an 80+ Platinum certification).

- Cooling: A system with three fans or liquid cooling is essential. In compact cases (e.g., NZXT H210), throttling may occur under prolonged loads.

Comparison with Competitors

AMD Radeon RX 8900 XT

- Pros of AMD: Cheaper ($899 vs. $1199 for L20), supports FSR 4.0.

- Cons: Weaker in ray tracing (Cyberpunk 2077: 68 FPS at 4K), 20 GB GDDR7.

Intel Arc Battlemage XT

- Low price ($699), but drivers are still lagging. In DX12 games (e.g., Call of Duty: Black Ops VI), the L20 is 50% faster.

Conclusion: The L20 is the choice for those needing maximum performance without compromise.

Practical Tips

PC Build

- Motherboard: PCIe 5.0 x16 is required for full compatibility.

- Processor: Minimum Intel Core i7-14700K or AMD Ryzen 9 7900X.

- Drivers: “Studio Driver” mode is more stable for professional tasks.

Details

- Using HDMI 2.2 allows for 8K@120Hz transmission only with DSC.

- In Linux, support for Wayland requires upgrading the kernel to version 6.8+.

Pros and Cons of NVIDIA L20

Pros:

- Best-in-class performance in 4K and with RTX.

- 24 GB of memory for future games and professional tasks.

- DLSS 4.0 and AI optimizations.

Cons:

- Price of $1199—more expensive than most competitors.

- Requires powerful cooling and power systems.

Final Conclusion: Who is the L20 For?

The NVIDIA L20 is a flagship for:

1. Gamers wanting to play in 4K/8K at maximum quality.

2. Professionals working with rendering and AI.

3. Enthusiasts ready to invest in "future-proofing."

If your budget is limited to $1000, consider the RTX 4070 Ti Super or RX 8900 XT. But if you're looking for an uncompromising solution— the L20 has no analogs in 2025.

Prices are current as of April 2025 and are for new devices in retail networks in the USA.

Basic

Label Name

NVIDIA

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

November 2023

Model Name

L20

Generation

Tesla Ada

Base Clock

1440MHz

Boost Clock

2520MHz

Bus Interface

PCIe 4.0 x16

Transistors

76,300 million

RT Cores

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.

368

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.

368

Foundry

TSMC

Process Size

5 nm

Architecture

Ada Lovelace

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

48GB

Memory Type

GDDR6

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.

384bit

Memory Clock

2250MHz

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.

864.0 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.

322.6 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.

927.4 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.

59.35 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.

927.4 GFLOPS

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.

59.35 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.

11776

L1 Cache

128 KB (per SM)

L2 Cache

96MB

TDP

275W

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.

1.3

OpenCL Version

3.0

OpenGL

4.6

DirectX

12 Ultimate (12_2)

CUDA

8.9

Power Connectors

1x 16-pin

Shader Model

6.7

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.

128

Suggested PSU

600W

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

59.35 TFLOPS

OpenCL

Score

262467

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

GeForce RTX 4090

80.928 +36.4%

H200 SXM 141 GB

65.572 +10.5%

L20

59.35

Radeon RX 7900 XT

50.45 -15%

RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell

45.962 -22.6%

OpenCL

GeForce RTX 5090 D

385013 +46.7%

L20

262467

Radeon RX 7800M

109617 -58.2%

Quadro RTX 6000

74179 -71.7%

GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER

56310 -78.5%