RTX A40 vs Apple M1 8-Core GPU

Primary details

GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.

Place in the ranking356not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Architectureno dataAmpere (2020−2024)
GPU code nameno dataGA102
Market segmentLaptopWorkstation
Release date10 November 2020 (4 years ago)5 October 2020 (4 years ago)

Detailed specifications

General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores810752
Core clock speed1278 MHz1305 MHz
Boost clock speedno data1755 MHz
Number of transistorsno data28,300 million
Manufacturing process technology5 nm8 nm
Power consumption (TDP)no data300 Watt
Texture fill rateno data589.7
Floating-point processing powerno data37.74 TFLOPS
ROPsno data112
TMUsno data336
Tensor Coresno data336
Ray Tracing Coresno data84

Form factor & compatibility

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).

Interfaceno dataPCIe 4.0 x16
Lengthno data267 mm
Widthno data2-slot
Supplementary power connectorsno data8-pin EPS

VRAM capacity and type

Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory typeno dataGDDR6
Maximum RAM amountno data48 GB
Memory bus widthno data384 Bit
Memory clock speedno data1812 MHz
Memory bandwidthno data695.8 GB/s
Shared memory+-

Connectivity and outputs

Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.

Display Connectorsno data3x DisplayPort

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectXno data12 Ultimate (12_2)
Shader Modelno data6.5
OpenGLno data4.6
OpenCLno data2.0
Vulkan-1.2
CUDA-8.6

Pros & cons summary


Recency 10 November 2020 5 October 2020
Chip lithography 5 nm 8 nm

Apple M1 8-Core GPU has an age advantage of 1 month, and a 60% more advanced lithography process.

We couldn't decide between Apple M1 8-Core GPU and RTX A40. We've got no test results to judge.

Be aware that Apple M1 8-Core GPU is a notebook card while RTX A40 is a workstation one.


Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

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Apple M1 8-Core GPU
M1 8-Core GPU
NVIDIA RTX A40
RTX A40

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Community ratings

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