NVIDIA RTX A1000 and RTX A400 vs GeForce RTX 3050 and RTX 3060 in published figures

RTX A1000 and RTX A400 vs RTX 3050 in NVIDIA's published figures

NVIDIA names no GeForce equivalent of the NVIDIA RTX A1000 or the NVIDIA RTX A400. By NVIDIA's published figures the GeForce card of the same generation closest in CUDA cores to the RTX A1000 is the RTX 3050 with 6 GB (2,304 cores, 6 GB, 70 W), against 2,304 cores, 8 GB and 50 W for the professional card. The RTX A400 has 768 cores, 4 GB and 50 W, and no GeForce RTX desktop card on NVIDIA's comparison page is near it: the smallest one listed has three times the cores and 6 GB.

All five cards in the table are built on NVIDIA's Ampere architecture, so their core counts can be compared. The pairing is ours: no NVIDIA document we read sets these cards next to each other, and none names the chip on either side.

NVIDIA RTX A1000 datasheet (April 2024) and RTX A400 datasheet 3279761 (May 2024); NVIDIA's "Compare Current and Previous GeForce Series of Graphics Cards" page, read 10 November 2026, for the GeForce cards; GeForce encoder and decoder counts from NVIDIA's Video Encode and Decode GPU Support Matrix of 16 October 2026.

Three cards carry the name RTX 3050

The name RTX 3050 stands for three cards on NVIDIA's page, and the comparison with the RTX A1000 comes out differently for each of them.

• RTX 3050 with 6 GB. 2,304 CUDA cores, 6 GB and 70 W. NVIDIA lists no supplementary power connector for it and a Required System Power of 300 W.
• RTX 3050 with 8 GB. 2,560 cores, 8 GB and 130 W, with one 8-pin PCIe connector and a Required System Power of 550 W.
• RTX 3050 (OEM). A footnote on the page gives this version 2,304 cores.

Against the 6 GB card the RTX A1000 has the same number of cores, 2 GB more memory, 20 W less card power and a second video decoder. Against the 8 GB card the memory is equal, and the GeForce card has 11 per cent more cores at 2.6 times the card power, by our arithmetic. The identical count of 2,304 is a published figure and nothing more: NVIDIA does not describe the two boards as the same product. With 50 W on one board and 70 W on the other, the count settles nothing about speed, and no published test does either.

The 300 W and 550 W are NVIDIA's "Required System Power": a figure for the test system NVIDIA names (for the RTX 30 Series a PC with an Intel Core i9-10900K processor) and no general recommendation for a power supply. NVIDIA prints no comparable figure for the RTX A1000 or the RTX A400.

The name RTX A1000 is not unique either. NVIDIA also uses it for two laptop GPUs with 4 GB and 6 GB, which our RTX A1000 specs set apart from the 8 GB desktop card of this page.

RTX A400 vs RTX 3050 6 GB, the smallest GeForce RTX card listed

The RTX A400 has 768 CUDA cores, 24 Tensor Cores and 6 RT Cores, with 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 64-bit interface at 96 GB/s. The smallest GeForce RTX desktop row on NVIDIA's comparison page is the RTX 3050 with 6 GB, at 2,304 cores and 70 W. A search for the consumer equivalent of the RTX A400 therefore ends without a result in that line: nothing listed there is close in cores, and nothing has as little as 4 GB.

NVIDIA's own reference for the card is a professional one. Its test notes measure the RTX A400 against the T400 4GB, a card that NVIDIA's datasheet of November 2021 lists with 384 CUDA cores and 30 W, and NVIDIA's product page speaks of "light AI workloads" for the RTX A400. What stands out on the 50 W single-slot board is the row of four Mini DisplayPort connectors; NVIDIA's blog of 16 April 2024 calls four outputs a first for its series. The full sheet is in our RTX A400 specs, and the order is described on the page to buy the RTX A400.

Where the GeForce rows are ahead or level on paper

For these two cards NVIDIA's documents do not support several items that usually appear on a list of professional advantages.

NVENC sessions. NVIDIA's Video Encode and Decode GPU Support Matrix of 16 October 2026 lists the RTX A1000 and the RTX A400 with at most 8 concurrent NVENC sessions and every GeForce desktop row with 12. The entry "Unrestricted" belongs to the RTX Ada and RTX PRO Blackwell rows of the same matrix, which our article on NVENC session limits goes through.

ECC. NVIDIA's desktop line-up page of 8 September 2026 writes "GDDR6 with ECC" for the RTX Ada cards and plain "8 GB GDDR6" and "4 GB GDDR6" for these two. The GeForce comparison page does not contain the word ECC. NVIDIA therefore states error correction for neither side of this comparison.

AV1. The matrix lists no AV1 encoding for the RTX A1000, the RTX A400 or the GeForce RTX 30 Series. AV1 decoding is listed on both sides, in the datasheets of the two professional cards and in the matrix for the GeForce cards.

HDMI. The GeForce RTX 30 cards have an HDMI 2.1 output next to their DisplayPort 1.4a outputs. The professional cards have Mini DisplayPort 1.4a outputs only.

Power, size and outputs of the 50 W cards and the RTX 3050

NVIDIA RTX A1000 datasheet (April 2024) and RTX A400 datasheet 3279761 (May 2024); NVIDIA's GeForce comparison page, read 10 November 2026; session limits from NVIDIA's Video Encode and Decode GPU Support Matrix of 16 October 2026. "Not given" stands for empty cells on NVIDIA's page.

For each of the two professional cards, NVIDIA's datasheet gives a maximum power consumption of 50 W and names no auxiliary power connector. The lowest GeForce row on the comparison page is the RTX 3050 with 6 GB at 70 W.

The size is published for one side only. NVIDIA gives 2.7 in of height and 6.4 in of length in a single slot for both professional cards, about 69 by 163 mm when converted, and its datasheet calls the RTX A1000 a "low-profile GPU". The cells for length, width and slots of the RTX 3050 and the RTX 3060 are empty on NVIDIA's page, so for those cards the dimensions have to be taken from the individual board.

The outputs differ in kind and in number. Each professional card has four Mini DisplayPort 1.4a outputs, one per display, and the datasheets list four displays at 4096 × 2160 and 120 Hz or at 5120 × 2880 and 60 Hz. NVIDIA lists the RTX 3050 with one HDMI and two DisplayPort connectors. Desks with three or four screens are the subject of our article on four monitors with the RTX A400 and RTX A1000.

We supply the RTX A1000 and the RTX A400 across the EU; tell us the workstation model and the number of seats and we reply with a written quote within one business day.

Drivers, certification lists and the licence clause

Three differences lie outside the specification tables.

Driver branch. NVIDIA's release notes list both cards in the newest release of each current branch of the NVIDIA RTX Enterprise Production Branch driver, R580, R595 and R620; on Windows that is 621.14 of 4 November 2026 in R620. NVIDIA's driver page calls this driver a rebrand of the Quadro Optimal Driver for Enterprise that offers the same ISV certification, long life-cycle support and regular security updates. GeForce cards get Game Ready and Studio drivers. The branches are explained in our guide to the RTX Enterprise driver on Windows 10 and 11.

Lists of the software makers. Dassault's SOLIDWORKS 2026 certification list, read 10 November 2026, has rows with desktop workstations for the RTX A400 and the RTX A1000, and the NVIDIA part of its card filter contains no GeForce name. Each row certifies one computer model with one card and one driver. The supported list of D5 Render 3.1 names both cards too, but that is no difference from GeForce: D5 Render gives a GeForce card, the GTX 1060, as its minimum.

Driver licence. Section 2.8 of NVIDIA's driver licence agreement, as read on 10 November 2026, says GeForce or Titan software "is not licensed for datacenter deployment"; the clause concerns the driver licence, not the hardware. Our article on GeForce in a server and the driver licence sets out the text.

Three features that are often credited to professional cards as a class are documented for neither side. The RTX A1000 and the RTX A400 are not in NVIDIA's MIG guide of 4 November 2026, on its vGPU list of 2 October 2026 or on its RTX PRO Sync list of 15 October 2026, and no GeForce card is there either. Mosaic is a different case. Both datasheets list NVIDIA Mosaic technology with the footnote "Windows 10 and Linux", and NVIDIA's Mosaic page names its RTX PRO, RTX and Quadro professional products. We found no sentence that explicitly excludes GeForce.

RTX A1000 vs RTX 3060, RTX 4060 and the RTX 50 Series

Searches also pair the RTX A1000 with larger and newer GeForce cards. The RTX 3060 is the only one of them from the same generation, with 3,584 CUDA cores, 56 per cent more than the RTX A1000 by our arithmetic, 12 GB or 8 GB of GDDR6, 170 W and one 8-pin PCIe connector. In its 12 GB version it has more memory than any other card in the tables of this page.

The newer cards belong to other architectures, and their core counts cannot be set against 2,304. Memory and card power can be compared.

NVIDIA RTX A1000 datasheet (April 2024); NVIDIA's GeForce comparison page, read 10 November 2026.

Each of the three newer cards has the 8 GB of the RTX A1000 at more than twice its card power. The support matrix lists AV1 encoding for the RTX 40 and 50 Series and 4:2:2 encoding for the 50 Series, and the RTX A1000 has neither. No row of the RTX 40 or 50 Series on the page is below 115 W.

Professional cards with more than 8 GB at 50 or 70 W exist one step up: the 16 GB cards of the same 2.7 in height, which we compare in RTX A1000 vs RTX 2000 Ada vs RTX PRO 2000.

Published tests and the memory budget for AI

A speed comparison is missing from this page because no measurement supports one: none of the Puget Systems and StorageReview articles we read tests the RTX A1000 or the RTX A400 against a GeForce card. For the RTX A1000 one system review exists, StorageReview's test of the Lenovo ThinkStation P3 Tiny Gen 2 of 20 November 2025, and none of its three systems had a GeForce card. For the RTX A400 we found no independent review that we could use. Crowd-sourced Blender medians for both cards are in our comparison RTX A1000 vs RTX A400.

For local AI models the comparison starts with memory. By our sizing rule an 8 GB card has a budget of 4.2 GiB for weights plus KV cache, and a 4 GB card has 0.6 GiB. The rule takes 0.9 times the memory the driver reports and subtracts 3 GiB; the reported memory is scaled from the 95.6 GiB the driver shows on the 96 GB card, which is an assumption, and the driver on the delivered card decides. The same arithmetic leaves about 2.4 GiB on a 6 GB card. Which model files fit is the subject of our article on AI on the RTX A1000 and RTX A400.

Which seats call for the professional card

• Desks with four displays. The RTX A400 and the RTX A1000 have four connectors, one per display, at 50 W in one slot; NVIDIA lists the RTX 3050 with three connectors.
• CAD seats with software that keeps a certification list. Start from the maker's list for the workstation model. For SOLIDWORKS 2026 it has rows with both professional cards.
• Compact workstations with a half-height slot. Both professional cards are 2.7 in high and take one slot. The page to buy the RTX A1000 describes the order.
• Many video streams at once. For decoding, the RTX A1000 has two decoders where every other card in the first table has one. For encoding, the limit of 8 sessions speaks against both professional cards of this page.
• A tower with a free 8-pin cable where none of the points above counts. There the RTX 3050 with 8 GB and the RTX 3060 have the higher published core counts, and the RTX 3060 up to 12 GB of memory.

We supply professional cards to companies and do not sell GeForce cards. For workstations where the card is not yet decided, send us the applications, the chassis and the displays per seat; our written quote names the professional card for each seat.

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