New cards, familiar GPUs

NVIDIA has announced a pair of workstation graphics cards – the RTX A400 and RTX A1000 – and while the cards are new they are based on the previous generation Ampere architecture. And while the Ampere isn’t as exciting as the Ada, these are single-socket – and slotted – cards that draw 50 watts, max.

When the RTX 2000 Ada Generation was released, I commented on how confusing it can be to have them all at the same time ONEda and ONEpere product lines with similar product names, but we all know that the only “ONE“What matters this year is what’s inside ONEMe (and of course these are marketed as AI integration products).

Features include (via NVIDIA):

Second generation RT cores: Real-time ray tracing, photorealistic, physical rendering and visualization for all professional workflows, including architectural design, 3D design and content creation, where accurate lighting and shadow simulations can significantly improve the quality of work.

Third generation Tensor kernels: It accelerates augmented artificial intelligence tools and applications, such as Generative AI, image rendering damping, and deep learning supersampling to improve the speed and quality of image generation.

CUDA kernels based on Ampere architecture: Up to 2x the previous generation single-precision floating-point performance for significant speedups in graphics and compute workloads.

4 GB or 8 GB of GPU memory: 4 GB of GPU memory with the A400 GPU and 8 GB with the A1000 GPU satisfy a range of professional needs, from basic graphic design and photo editing to more demanding 3D models with textures or high-resolution processing and data analysis. The GPUs also feature increased memory bandwidth over the previous generation for faster data processing and smoother handling of larger datasets and scenes.

Machine encoding and decoding: With seventh-generation encoding (NVENC) and fifth-generation decoding (NVDEC) engines, the GPUs offer efficient video processing to support ultra-low-latency high-resolution video processing, streaming, and playback. The inclusion of AV1 decoding allows for higher performance and smoother playback of more video formats.