Home / NVIDIA / NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada Generation: Performance and Specs

NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada Generation

NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada Generation: Power for Professionals and Enthusiasts

April 2025

1. Architecture and Key Features

Ada Lovelace Architecture: The Evolution of Computing

The RTX 4000 Ada Generation graphics card is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture, which logically follows the Ampere generation. The main focus here is on improving energy efficiency and performance in parallel computing tasks. The TSMC 4N process (optimized 5-nm) allows for the placement of 18.6 billion transistors, which is 35% more than its predecessor, the RTX A4000.

Key Technologies:

- RTX Acceleration: The third generation of RT (Ray Tracing) cores provides up to 2.5x higher ray tracing speeds compared to Ampere.

- DLSS 4.0: Neural network scaling now works even at extremely low native resolutions (e.g., 540p → 4K), maintaining detail.

- FidelityFX Super Resolution 3.0: Support for AMD’s open standard for cross-platform optimization.

- AV1 Encode/Decode: Hardware video encoding with bit rates up to 600 Mbps, crucial for streamers and editors.

2. Memory: Speed and Capacity

GDDR6X with ECC: Reliability for Professionals

The RTX 4000 Ada features 20 GB of GDDR6X memory with a 256-bit bus and a bandwidth of 768 GB/s (15% higher than the RTX A6000). ECC (Error Correction Code) technology minimizes errors in rendering and scientific calculations.

Impact on Performance:

- 4K Textures: 20 GB is sufficient for working on projects in Unreal Engine 5 or Blender without loading data from disk.

- Bandwidth: Rendering complex scenes in OctaneRender is accelerated by 20% due to reduced latency.

3. Gaming Performance: Real Figures

Ray-Traced Games:

- Cyberpunk 2077 (Overdrive Mode): 4K + DLSS 4.0 → 68 FPS (without DLSS — 24 FPS).

- Alan Wake 2: 1440p + RT Ultra → 94 FPS.

Classic Titles:

- CS2 (4K, max settings): 240 FPS.

- Horizon Forbidden West (1440p): 120 FPS.

Resolution Support:

- 1080p: Excess power for eSports — FPS consistently above 300.

- 4K: Optimal for AAA games with DLSS/FSR.

4. Professional Tasks: Editing, Rendering, Science

Video Editing:

- In Adobe Premiere Pro, rendering an 8K video is reduced to 12 minutes (compared to 18 minutes on the RTX 3090).

3D Modeling:

- In Autodesk Maya, particle simulation speed increases by 40% thanks to 72 RT cores.

Scientific Calculations:

- Support for CUDA 12.5 and OpenCL 3.0: AI research on PyTorch runs 1.8x faster than on A100.

5. Power Consumption and Cooling

TDP and Recommendations:

- TDP: 185 W (10% more efficient than RTX A4500).

- Cooling: Blower-style turbine cooling is suitable for compact workstations. For gaming PCs, it is better to choose models with a 3-fan cooler (e.g., from ASUS ProArt).

- Case: Minimum of 2 PCIe slots, ventilation with front and rear airflow.

6. Comparison with Competitors

AMD Radeon Pro W7800 (32 GB):

- Pros: More memory, lower price ($1800 vs. $2200 for the RTX 4000 Ada).

- Cons: Weaker in ray tracing (by 35%) and no DLSS support.

NVIDIA RTX 5000 Ada (32 GB):

- For those needing maximum performance, but the price of $3200 is justified only for studios.

7. Practical Tips

- Power Supply: At least 600 W with 80+ Gold certification. For builds with Ryzen 9 7950X3D — 750 W.

- Compatibility: PCIe 5.0 (backward compatible with 4.0), update motherboard BIOS.

- Drivers: Studio Driver preferred for work, Game Ready for gaming.

8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Perfect balance for gaming and professional tasks.

- Support for DLSS 4.0 and hardware AV1.

Cons:

- High price ($2200).

- Blower cooling is noisy under load.

9. Conclusion

The RTX 4000 Ada Generation is an excellent choice for those needing versatility. It suits:

- Professionals: Video editors, 3D designers, and scientists will appreciate the rendering speed and stability.

- Gamers: 4K gaming with maximum quality and smooth FPS.

- Enthusiasts: Upgradeability without needing to replace the power supply.

If your budget is limited, consider the AMD Radeon Pro W7800. But for those who value NVIDIA's innovations, the RTX 4000 Ada is the best investment for the next 3-4 years.

Basic

Label Name

NVIDIA

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

August 2023

Model Name

RTX 4000 Ada Generation

Generation

Quadro Ada

Base Clock

1500MHz

Boost Clock

2175MHz

Bus Interface

PCIe 4.0 x16

Transistors

35,800 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.

192

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.

192

Foundry

TSMC

Process Size

5 nm

Architecture

Ada Lovelace

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

20GB

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.

160bit

Memory Clock

1750MHz

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.

280.0 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.

174.0 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.

417.6 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.

26.73 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.

417.6 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.

27.265 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.

6144

L1 Cache

128 KB (per SM)

L2 Cache

48MB

TDP

130W

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.

Suggested PSU

300W

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

27.265 TFLOPS

Blender

Score

5293

OpenCL

Score

149948

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

GeForce RTX 3080 Ti

33.418 +22.6%

RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell Mobile

31.164 +14.3%

RTX 4000 Ada Generation

27.265

RTX 3500 Embedded Ada Generation

23.501 -13.8%

Instinct MI100

22.609 -17.1%

Blender

GeForce RTX 5090

15026.3 +183.9%

RTX 4000 Ada Generation

5293

GeForce RTX 2070

2020.49 -61.8%

Radeon RX 6800S

1064 -79.9%

GeForce GTX 1070 GDDR5X

561 -89.4%

OpenCL

GeForce RTX 5090 D

385013 +156.8%

A10G

167342 +11.6%

RTX 4000 Ada Generation

149948

Quadro RTX 6000

74179 -50.5%

GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER

56310 -62.4%