I can't stop laughing at how small Nvidia's new graphics card is

Nvidia RTX A2000 workstation graphics card in Nvidia employee's hand
(Image credit: Nvidia)

It's not often nowadays that we end up with a GPU that's comically small, but here we are: the Nvidia RTX A2000. It's hilariously petit for a workstation graphics card, although one look under the hood and you'll realise it's because this compact card is fairly closely related to the GeForce RTX 3060.

I appreciate it doesn't look that small without a point of reference for scale. That's why you really need to watch Richard Kerris, VP of Omniverse development at Nvidia, show it off in this SIGGRAPH announcement.

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It's so small and cute, and I absolutely love it. 

Yet while it may look like a children's toy, this graphics card is actually only a touch behind an RTX 3060 in its specifications, which isn't a slouch in GPU terms. Here's what's going on inside:

  • CUDA Cores: 3,328
  • Tensor Cores: 104
  • RT Cores: 26
  • Memory: 6 GB GDDR6
  • Memory interface: 192-bit
  • Memory bandwidth: 288 GB/s
  • Interface: PCIe 4.0 x16
  • Total Board Power (TBP): 70W

That's only a touch off the core count of the RTX 3060, although I'd suspect the A2000 to run at significantly slower clock speeds to hit its impressively minute 70W power envelope.

The clear distinction between the two is in VRAM. The A2000 comes with just 6GB of GDDR6, which also has ECC, or error-correcting code, due to it being a workstation Quadro card. While the RTX 3060 comes with 12GB of GDDR6, sans ECC.

Screen queens

(Image credit: Future)

Best gaming monitor: pixel-perfect panels for your PC
Best high refresh rate monitor: screaming quick screens
Best 4K monitor for gaming: when only high-res will do
Best 4K TV for gaming: big-screen 4K PC gaming

A workstation card with less memory than its gaming counterpart? That feels off, but I'm sure Nvidia has its reasons. Those which definitely go deeper than 'we wanted the RTX 3060 to one up AMD's RX 6600 XT and RX 6700 XT'. Definitely.

But back to the A2000, and I have to say I'm really enjoying this compact approach to graphics card tech. I doubt gamers are quite so thirsty for a low-power graphics card with a compact chassis, but there's a part of me that would love to see a tiny GeForce card ready for a supremely small Mini-ITX build. 

There have been a few compact, or even passive GTX 16-series and 10-series cards over the years, but nothing I'm aware of when it comes to the Ampere generation. Is it about time that changed?

The A2000 will be available in October if you are in the market for a new thimble-sized workstation. There's no pricing information available, but I expect it will set you back a fair bit more than the $329 RTX 3060.

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Jacob Ridley
Managing Editor, Hardware

Jacob earned his first byline writing for his own tech blog. From there, he graduated to professionally breaking things as hardware writer at PCGamesN, and would go on to run the team as hardware editor. He joined PC Gamer's top staff as senior hardware editor before becoming managing editor of the hardware team, and you'll now find him reporting on the latest developments in the technology and gaming industries and testing the newest PC components.

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