Nvidia unveils RTX A5500 and six new RTX laptop GPUs

Nvidia has launched the RTX A5500, the latest in its RTX Axxxx Series of Ampere-based workstation GPUs.

The 24GB card slots in to the top end of the RTX Axxxx product line, effectively superseding the existing RTX A5000, and is intended to alleviate the difficulty of getting hold of high-end RTX cards.

The firm has also announced six new Ampere cards for mobile graphics workstations, the RTX A500, RTX A1000, RTX A2000, RTX A3000, RTX A4500, and a laptop version of the RTX A5500 itself.

The RTX A5500: a new successor to the existing A5000
The latest card to use Nvidia’s Ampere GPU architecture, the RTX A5500 slots into the top end of the RTX Axxxx series, Nvidia’s current generation of workstation GPUs.

The new card effectively supersedes the existing RTX A5000, itself only launched last April, and is intended to alleviate the difficulty of getting hold of high-end RTX cards at their original recommended prices.

In its press briefing, the firm told journalists that “given some of the supply chain issues and [increased home working during COVID-19] we’ve really had to jump through hoops … to meet the unprecedented demand”.

*Estimated street price

Specifications, benchmark performance and expected price
The RTX A5500 is a step up from the RTX A5000, with CUDA core counts – and attendant GPU compute performance – and RT ray tracing core counts both approaching that of the top-of-the-range RTX A6000.

GPU memory capacity remains unchanged at 24GB, as does display connectivity and power consumption.

Although Nvidia hasn’t released any benchmark figures for the RTX A5500, on paper, we’d expect its viewport and 3D modeling performance in DCC and CAD software to approach that of the RTX A6000.

You can see how the A6000 performed in our recent group test of professional AMD and Nvidia GPUs.

According to Nvidia, ray traced rendering with the RTX A5500 is “2x faster than the previous generation” – presumably than the Quadro RTX 5000, the equivalent card – although it doesn’t specify in which app.

The RTX A5500 is already available through Nvidia’s partner firms like PNY, although at the time of writing, the cards don’t seem to have filtered through to e-tailers.

However, AEC Magazine is estimating the street price of the A5500 at $3,600, which, if accurate, will also be quite a step up from the A5000, which is available online for around $2,500 at the time of writing.

Key specifications for Nvidia’s new RTX Axxxx series laptop GPUs. Click the image to view it at full size.

Six new laptop cards bring the RTX Axxxx series to mobile workstations
In addition, Nvidia has brought the RTX Axxxx series to laptops as well as desktop systems, announcing six new Ampere-based RTX GPUs for mobile workstations.

The cards range from the 4GB RTX A500 to the laptop counterpart of the RTX A5500 itself.

We don’t historically cover laptop GPUs on CG Channel, but you can see their key specifications in the table above: as you would expect, they’re significantly lower than for the corresponding desktop cards.

The new cards will be available in laptops from Nvidia partners like BOXX, Dell, HP and Lenovo this spring.

Pricing and release dates
The RTX A5500 is available now through Nvidia channel partners, and through workstation system builders worldwide later in Q2 2022. You can see estimated street pricing in the story above.

The new RTX Axxxx series laptop GPUs will become available via laptop system builders later this spring.

Read Nvidia’s official announcement of the RTX A5500 and the new RTX Axxxx series laptop GPUs

Find full specifications for the RTX A5500 on Nvidia’s website