Wednesday, March 19th, 2025Posted by Jim ThackerNVIDIA unveils Blackwell RTX PRO GPUs with up to 96GB VRAMhtml PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"NVIDIA has unveiled the RTX PRO Blackwell series, its new range of professional workstation, laptop and data center GPUs based on its current Blackwell GPU architecture.The first two desktop GPUs, the 96GB RTX PRO 6000 Workstation Edition and RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q Workstation Edition, will be available through distribution partners next month.NVIDIA pitches the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Workstation Edition the larger, more power-hungry version of the card as the most powerful desktop GPU ever created.The other desktop cards the RTX PRO 5000, RTX PRO 4500 and RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell GPUs will be available later in the year, along with the laptop and data center GPUs.NVIDIA describes the RTX PRO Blackwell series, which is being marketed at agentic AI, simulation, 3D design and VFX, as a revolutionary generation of GPUs with breakthrough accelerated computing, AI inference, ray tracing and neural rendering technologies.Below, weve rounded up their key specs for DCC work, and what we know about their likely performance in CG software.The first professional GPUs based on NVIDIAs new Blackwell architectureThe new cards are the first professional GPUs based on NVIDIAs Blackwell architecture, following the rollout of their consumer counterparts, the GeForce RTX 50 Series, earlier this year.All feature the latest iterations of NVIDIAs key hardware core types: CUDA cores for general GPU compute, Tensor cores for AI operations, and RT cores for hardware ray tracing.NVIDIA claims that their fifth-gen Tensor cores and fourth-gen RT cores offer up to 3x and up to 2x the performance of their counterparts in its previous GPU Ada Lovelace architecture.Their Streaming Multiprocessors, into which the CUDA cores are grouped, have up to 1.5x faster throughput than their predecessors, and feature new Neural Shaders that integrate small neural networks into programmable shaders.The new GPUs use GDDR7 memory and PCIe 5.0 buses, increasing data transfer bandwidth over the Ada Generation cards, and support the current DisplayPort 2.1b display standard.The RTX PRO 6000 and 5000 cards also support NVIDIAs Multi-Instance GPU (MIG) technology for partitioning a single GPU into smaller instances.NVIDIA Blackwell workstation GPUs and their previous-generation counterpartsRTX PRO6000 BlackwellW/ERTX PRO6000 BlackwellMaxQ W/ERTX 6000RTX PRO5000BlackwellRTX 5000RTX PRO4500BlackwellRTX 4500RTX PRO4000BlackwellRTX 4000ArchitectureBlackwellBlackwellAda LovelaceBlackwellAda LovelaceBlackwellAda LovelaceBlackwellAda LovelaceCUDA cores24,06424,06418,17614,08012,80010,4967,6808,9606,144Tensor cores(752)(752)568TBC400TBC240TBC192RT cores(188)(188)142TBC100TBC60TBC48Compute performanceFP32 (Tflops)125 TFlops110 TFlops91.1 TflopsTBC65.3 TflopsTBC39.6 TflopsTBC26.7 TflopsGPU memory96GBGDDR796GBGDDR748GBGDDR648GBGDDR732GB GDDR632GBGDDR724GB GDDR624GBGDDR720GB GDDR6Memory bandwidth1,792 GB/s1,792 GB/s960 GB/s1,344 GB/s576 GB/s896 GB/s432 GB/sTBC360 GB/sGraphics busPCIe 5.0 x16PCIe 5.0 x16PCIe 4.0 x16PCIe 5.0 x16PCIe 4.0 x16PCIe 5.0 x16PCIe 4.0 x16PCIe 5.0 x16PCIe 4.0 x16TDP600W300W300 W300W250 W200W210 W140W130 WDisplay connectors4 x DP 2.14 x DP 2.14 x DP 1.44 x DP 2.14 x DP 1.44 x DP 2.14 x DP 1.44 x DP 2.14 x DP 1.4Size (H x L)5.4 x 12.0Dual slot4.4 x 10.5Dual slot4.4 x 10.5Dual slot4.4 x 10.5Dual slot4.4 x 10.5 Dual slot4.4 x 10.5Dual slot4.4 x 10.5 Dual slot4.4 x 9.5 Single slot4.4 x 9.5 Single slotLaunch date2025(April)2025(April)20222025(Summer)20232025(Summer)20232025(Summer)2023Launch MSRPTBCTBC$6,799TBC$4,000TBC$2,250TBC$1,250Figures in brackets are taken from third-party websites. W/E refers to the Workstation Edition.Key specifications for CG workNVIDIA has only released full specs for the top-of-the-range RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell cards so far, but they are a clear step up from the previous-gen RTX 6000 Ada Generation.Hardware core counts and compute performance are significantly higher, while GPU memory doubles to 96GB, and memory bandwidth almost doubles.Power consumption is unchanged at least for the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q Workstation Edition, which features the same standard cooling design as its predecessor.That figure doubles to 600W in the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Workstation Edition, which uses a double flow-through design, although the increase in compute performance is much smaller.The specs for the lower-end cards, which also use standard cooling designs, still contain a number of TBCs, although we would expect them to follow a similar pattern.What we dont yet know is how the Blackwell cards will stack up in terms of price-performance, since NVIDIA hasnt announced recommended pricing.NVIDIAs spec chart for the RTX PRO Blackwell laptop GPUs. Click the image to view it full-size.Also available as data center and laptop GPUsNVIDIA has also announced its RTX PRO Blackwell series laptop and data center GPUs.We dont usually cover either on CG Channel, but you can see NVIDIAs summary chart for the laptop GPUs above: as well as counterparts for the desktop RTX PRO 5000 and 4000 Blackwell, there are four lower-end cards, the RTX PRO 3000, 2000, 1000 and 500 Blackwell.Specs for the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition can be found on NVIDIAs website.How will the RTX PRO Blackwell GPUs perform with CG software?The new RTX PRO Blackwell series cards mark a change of branding from the current RTX Ada Generation GPUs, with the new PRO tag clearly targeting them at professional users.What constitutes a professional user is perhaps less clear, since NVIDIA now acknowledges in its marketing for its Blackwell consumer cards, the GeForce RTX 50 Series, that they are used by both gamers and creators, with many CG artists using them for rendering.Rather than video production or VFX, the use cases cited in NVIDIAs release announcement for the RTX PRO Blackwell cards are computational AI, health care, and design visualization.As a result, its hard to assess how the new GPUs specs will translate into real-world performance in CG applications.Of the examples given, the closest to DCC work is Cyclops, architecture firm Foster + Partners GPU ray tracing product for view analysis, which is described as running at 5x the speed on the new RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q Workstation Edition as on the NVIDIA RTX A6000 its counterpart from two GPU generations ago, which is now over four years old.Electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian is also quoted as saying that the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Workstation Edition delivers the most stunning visuals we have ever experienced in VR in Autodesks VRED visualization software, but no actual performance figures are given.Prices and release datesThe RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Workstation Edition and Max-Q Workstation Edition will be available via PNY and TD SYNNEX in April 2025, and via workstation manufacturers in May 2025.The RTX PRO 5000, 4500 and 4000 Blackwell desktop GPUs will be available in the summer.RTX PRO Blackwell laptop GPUs will be available via Dell, HP, Lenovo and Razer later this year.NVIDIA hasnt announced recommended prices for the new GPUs yet.Read NVIDIAs announcement of the RTX PRO Blackwell server, desktop and laptop GPUsFind specifications for the RTX PRO Blackwell desktop GPUs on NVIDIAs websiteHave your say on this story by following CG Channel on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). 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