As you’d expect from Nvidia’s new ‘Ampere’ architecture, the Nvidia RTX A4000 also offers a significant improvement in processing. This can be seen in all areas of the GPU with more CUDA cores for general processing, third-generation Tensor Cores for AI operations and second-generation RT Cores for hardware-based ray tracing. It leads to a substantial performance increase in many different applications (see later on). Our designers need tools that unleash their creative freedom to design amazing buildings. Real-time rendering with the new Quadro RTX 4000 is unbelievably fast and smooth right out of the gate — no latency and the quality and accuracy of the lighting is outstanding. It will enable us to accelerate our workflow and let our designers focus on the design process without the technology slowing them down.” See the Quadro RTX 4000 at Autodesk University In preparation for the emerging VirtualLink standard, Turing GPUs have implemented hardware support according to the “VirtualLink Advance Overview.” To learn more about VirtualLink, please see https://www.virtuallink.org. Nvidia’s new Ampere-based pro GPUs, the Nvidia RTX A4000 and RTX A5000, offer a big step up from the Turing-based Quadro RTX family. With more memory and significantly enhanced processing, they promise to make light work of demanding real-time ray tracing, GPU rendering and VR workflows.

Another potential use case for high-density multi-GPU is workstation virtualisation using GPU passthrough, where each user gets a dedicated GPU. Again, this workflow looks well suited to the Lenovo ThinkStation P620, which can be configured with up to 64 CPU cores and 2TB of memory. As touched on earlier, there are no commercially available applications that fully support Nvidia RTX, so for this review we tested with a range of professional applications for 3D CAD, real time visualisation, VR and ray trace rendering. Wherever possible we used real world design and engineering datasets. Interactive 3D Nvidia has launched four Quadro RTX GPUs, from the mid-range to the high-end. We imagine Nvidia will launch lower-end Quadro RTX GPUs later this year but we don’t know this for sure.

Similar GPU comparisons

RT Cores — enable real-time ray tracing of objects and environments with physically accurate shadows, reflections, refractions and global illumination. The board features four DisplayPort 1.4a ports and can drive up to four displays at 5K resolution. It is cooled by a single ‘blower’ type fan, which draws in cool air from the top and bottom of the card, pushes it through a radiator and then directly out of the rear of the workstation chassis. This is in contrast to most consumer GeForce GPUs which use axial fans that recirculate air inside the machine. Redshift - support for Redshift RT, a real time rendering feature that allows 3D artists to visualize scenes in real time, omitting unnecessary wait times for renders to finalize Which is the best CPU for design-centric workflows – from CAD and BIM to reality modelling and rendering

Producing a single ray traced quality photoreal image used to take seconds or even minutes, but this was now being done in a fraction of a second on a desktop workstation, albeit one with two very powerful GPUs. Nvidia had shown it could make photorealistic visualisation completely interactive and while there was almost certainly some smoke and mirrors, it was a massive advancement. GPU rendering is nothing new; we’ve been writing about it in this magazine for ten years now. But 2019 could be the year that it really comes of age. While most of the renderers built into CAD applications still rely on the CPU, there are a growing number of impressive GPU renderers. These include SolidWorks Visualize, V-Ray NEXT GPU, Siemens Lightworks, Lumiscaphe, Catia Live Rendering or any renderer that uses Nvidia Iray. Even Luxion KeyShot, a die hard CPU renderer and one that is particuarly popular with product designers, was recently demonstrated running on Nvidia GPUs. Nvidia Quadro RTX 4000 – SolidWorks Visualize Supporting Models :P400, P600, P620, P1000, P2000, P4000, P5000, P6000, GP100, K420, K620, K1200, K2200, M4000, M5000 Furthermore, as the Nvidia RTX A4000 is a single slot GPU with a max power consumption of 140W delivered through a single 6-pin PCIe connector, it’s available in a wide range of desktop workstation form factors. This includes compact towers like the HP Z2 Tower G8 and Dell Precision 3650. The compact HP Z2 Tower can host the Nvidia RTX A4000 or Nvidia RTX A5000 GPU

Render Config

It’s been just over two years since Nvidia introduced ‘Turing’ Nvidia Quadro RTX, its first pro GPUs with RTX hardware ray tracing. Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility). Interface Decode acceleration for MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Part 2 Advanced Simple Profile, H.264, HEVC, MVC, VC1, DivX (version 3.11 and The Quadro RTX 4000 was significantly faster than all of the other GPUs but its advantage over the AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 became even greater when real time AA was enabled.). In short, it looks like the RTX 4000 should be able to handle multi-tasking workflows with relative ease. V-Ray / Radeon ProRender – Nvidia Quadro RTX 4000

Improved performance of VR applications — new and enhanced technologies include Variable Rate Shading, Multi-View Rendering and VRWorks Audio. The board also features four DisplayPort 1.4a ports and is cooled by a single ‘blower’ type fan, but only draws in cool air from one side of the card. Significant performance improvements — 8GB of ultra-fast GDDR6 graphics memory technology provides over 40 percent more memory bandwidth than the previous generation Quadro P4000. There are no hard and fast rules here as to what the RTX 4000 will be able to handle in SolidWorks Visualize, but if you’re currently pushing the limits of other 8GB GPUs, such as the Quadro M4000 or P4000, then you’ll probably need to look at the 16GB Quadro RTX 5000 or even higher. Alternatively, get smarter about how you optimise your scene. Multitasking – Nvidia Quadro RTX 4000We’re working with NVIDIA at Autodesk University to showcase how Autodesk Revit, powered by NVIDIA Turing’s RTX platform, can bring the power of real-time photorealistic rendering to enable millions of designers and architects to create and visualize content in a new way,” said Nicolas Mangon, vice president of AEC strategy and marketing at Autodesk. “By reviewing models in an immersive context, teams can collaborate and interact with their data for real-time problem solving.” OEM Support But the good news is, because the new Quadro RTX GPUs are a significant improvement over previous generations, this will be reason enough for many. Then, when Quadro RTX-enabled software finally starts to ship, design viz folks will be able to generate photorealistic output even faster. The Quadro RTX family All tests were carried out using the AMD Ryzen-based Scan 3XS GWP-ME A132R workstation at 4K (3,840 x 2,160) resolution using the latest 462.59 Nvidia driver. Of course, the Nvidia RTX A6000 is complete overkill for most architects or product designers who simply want a capable GPU for real-time visualisation, GPU rendering or VR. And it’s here that the new Nvidia RTX A4000 and Nvidia RTX A5000 come into play. NVIDIA ® Quadro ® RTX™ 4000 combines the NVIDIA Turing GPU architecture with the latest memory and display technologies, to deliver the best performance and features in a single-slot PCI-e form factor. Enjoy greater fluidity with photorealistic rendering, experience faster performance with AI-enabled applications and create detailed, lifelike VR experiences more cost-effectively and across a broader range of workstation chassis configurations.

Both cards offer more memory than their consumer GeForce counterparts, are standard issue in workstations from Dell, HP and Lenovo, and come with pro drivers with ISV certification for a wide range of CAD/BIM applications. We also tested the Nvidia Quadro RTX 4000 with two other GPU rendering applications. In the V-Ray benchmark it was an impressive 25% faster than the P5000, although this is all about raw ray tracing performance as the benchmark doesn’t take advantage of the AI denoising capabilities of V-Ray NEXT. Solidworks also features more realistic display styles for viewing models in real time. SolidWorks RealView, which is only supported by pro GPUs, adds realistic materials and supports environment reflections and floor shadows. Meanwhile, ambient occlusion adds more realistic shadows and helps bring out details.

Turing SM Architecture (streaming multi-processor design that delivers greater processing efficiency) Pro driver feature dramatically increases 3D performance by dynamically reducing viewport resolution