Disassembled pictures of NVIDIA's RTX A4000 graphics card have been published over at NVIDIA's subreddit by Snake-Robot (via Videocardz). The pictures show the extremely compact PCB design that resides underneath the single-single cooler which makes us want a half-length variant of the card.
NVIDIA RTX A4000 Features The Smallest PCB For A Full GA104 Ampere GPU, Perfect For Custom SFF & Mini PCs
The NVIDIA RTX A4000 comes in a single-slot & full-length form factor. The graphics card features a blower fan that circulates air within the cooler shroud from both the top and bottom sides. That is why the backplate extends beyond the PCB and has a cutout for the blower-fan at the bottom too. It cools a really compact aluminum fin array which makes direct contact with the GPU and VRAM modules through flat copper heat pipes. The VRMs are also covered by a singular heatsink that is also part of the frame.
Underneath the shroud is a very compact PCB, almost as small as the AMD Radeon R9 Nano. The card itself features the NVIDIA GA104 GPU core in its full-fat configuration, featuring 6144 Cores & an impressive 16 GB GDDR6 memory bus with speeds of up to 16 Gbps for a total bandwidth out-put of 448 GB/s. The card has a TDP of 140W which is supplied through a single 6-pin connector & that's located beyond the PCB with extender cables routed in the shroud. As for VRMs, the card is powered by a 6+2 phase delivery and features four Display Outputs, all of which are Display Port 1.4a.
Coming to the total horsepower of the NVIDIA RTX A4000, we are looking at around 20 TFLOPs of FP32 compute (19.2 TFLOPs to be exact). The AMD Radeon R9 Nano delivered 8.1 TFLOPs of FP32 compute at 170W. This shows just how far we have come in terms of efficiency with current-gen GPUs.
If NVIDIA wanted, they could've released a small form factor version of the GA104 GPU with a standard dual-slot, half-length board aimed at Mini ITX PCs. Even the 8 GB GDDR6 memory would have been absolutely fine and a TDP of around 150W would make it slightly higher clocked than the RTX A4000. So far, this generation has seen the least Mini ITX & small form factor graphics cards as manufacturers are putting more emphasis on bigger coolers and more power intense designs. It would be great if we had options on both sides. The GTX 1080 was the last high-end card to receive a MIni ITX treatment, that was scaled down to RTX 2070 and now a true ITX card is only available in the form of RTX 3060 Ti and below.
NVIDIA also has a really cute RTX A2000 which was launched last week and features a dual-slot, half-height form factor. The card is based on the GA106 GPU and has a TDP of just 70W & doesn't require any external power input.
NVIDIA Ampere Workstation Graphics Cards:
| Graphics Card | NVIDIA RTX A2000 | NVIDIA RTX A4000 | NVIDIA RTX A4500 | NVIDIA RTX A5000 | NVIDIA RTX A5000 | NVIDIA RTX A6000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU | Ampere GA106 GPU | Ampere GA104 GPU | Ampere GA102 GPU | Ampere GA102 GPU | Ampere GA102 GPU | Ampere GA102 GPU |
| GPU Process | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm |
| Die Size | 276 mm² | 392.5 mm² | 628mm² | 628mm² | 628mm² | 628mm² |
| GPU Cores | 3328 | 6144 | 7168 | 8192 | 10240 | 10752 |
| Tensor Cores | 104 | 192 | 224 | 256 | 320 | 336 |
| Boost Clock | 1200 MHz | 1536 MHz | 1635 MHz | 1697 MHz | TBD | 1455 MHz |
| Single Precision | 8.0 TFLOPs | 19.2 TFLOPs | 23.7 TFLOPs | 27.8 TFLOPs | TBD | 31.2 TFLOPs |
| VRAM | 6/12 GB GDDR6 | 16 GB GDDR6 | 20 GB GDDR6 | 24 GB GDDR6 | 24 GB GDDR6 | 48 GB GDDR6 |
| NVLINK VRAM | N/A | N/A | 40 GB GDDR6 | 48 GB GDDR6 | 48 GB GDDR6 | 96 GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Bus | 192-bit | 256-bit | 320-bit | 384-bit | 384-bit | 384-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth | 228 GB/s | 448 GB/s | 640 GB/s | 768 GB/s | 768 GB/s | 768 GB/s |
| TDP | 70W | 140W | 200W | 230W | 280W | 300W |
| Launch Price | TBC | TBC | TBC | TBC | TBD | $4650 US |
| Launch Date | October. 2021 | April, 2021 | Q4 2021 | April, 2021 | Q1 2022 | December, 2020 |
