New card, familiar GPU
NVIDIA has announced two workstation graphics cards – the RTX A400 and RTX A1000 – and while they’re new, they’re based on the previous generation Ampere architecture. While Ampere isn’t as exciting as Ada, these cards are single-slot, slot-powered cards with a maximum power draw of 50 watts.
When the RTX 2000 Ada Generation launched, I commented on how confusing it was to run concurrently Adahe AThe mpere product line has similar product names, but we all know the only “A“The most important thing this year is AMe (of course these are being marketed as AI integrated products).
Features include (via NVIDIA):
Second generation RT core: Real-time ray tracing, photorealistic, physically based rendering and visualization for all professional workflows, including architectural drawing, 3D design and content creation, where accurate lighting and shadow simulation can greatly improve the quality of your work.
Third generation tensor core: Accelerate AI enhancement tools and applications such as generative AI, image rendering denoising, and deep learning supersampling to increase image generation speed and quality.
CUDA core based on Ampere architecture: Up to 2x the single-precision floating point throughput of the previous generation, significantly accelerating graphics and computing workloads.
4GB or 8GB GPU memory: The 4GB GPU memory of the A400 GPU and the 8GB GPU memory of the A1000 GPU meet a variety of professional needs, from basic graphic design and photo editing to more demanding textured 3D modeling or high-resolution editing and data analysis. GPUs also have higher memory bandwidth than previous generations, allowing them to process data faster and handle larger data sets and scenes more smoothly.
Encoding and decoding engine: With seventh-generation encoding (NVENC) and fifth-generation decoding (NVDEC) engines, the GPU delivers efficient video processing to support high-resolution video editing, streaming, and playback with ultra-low latency. The inclusion of AV1 decoding improves efficiency and smooth playback of more video formats.