I’ve been searching the internet for a long time to find a versatile GPU for AI and video graphics workloads that also supports vGPU and Nvidia AI Enterprise. Some of the GPUs I considered were the RTX 6000 Ada, A2, A10, L4, T4, A40, and A16. I was most drawn to the RTX 6000 Ada because I wouldn’t need to spend time figuring out how to cool the GPU, which can be a tricky task. The RTX 6000 Ada is like the Swiss Army knife of GPUs: you can use it for almost anything—vGPU, Nvidia AI Enterprise, gaming, video acceleration, heavy AI, and graphics workloads. It’s as powerful as the GF4090, uses only 300W, and doesn’t require any extra effort or money to cool it quietly—it comes all in one package. Figuring out cooling for data centers can sometimes be expensive and time-consuming.
However, the RTX 6000 Ada is too pricey at the moment, so I opted for the Nvidia L4, which is a low-power, Ada Lovelace architecture data center GPU.
Despite its small size and low power consumption, the GPU is quite powerful. Its max power is 72W, though during my tests, it exceeded 75W, and it’s possible to limit it to 30W. I tested the GPU by running games like Black Myth: Wukong, Cyberpunk 2077, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, and 3DMark benchmark tests inside a VM.
When measuring FPS inside a VM, the results can be very inaccurate. In my case, all the FPS readings were low, but the gameplay was smooth. I’ve encountered similar issues before, where FPS in a VM appears extremely low, or different FPS counters show conflicting numbers. Because of this, I can’t provide a reliable comparison based on FPS. I didn’t test the GPU on bare metal, but I’d say its performance is very close to the RTX 4070, which consumes 200W, whereas the L4 only uses a max of 72W. I played several games inside a VM at full 4K resolution with max settings while testing the cooling. The gameplay was great, though at times, I noticed color distortions or a lack of clarity in the colors and details.
Source: TechPowerUP
Overall, it’s a powerful GPU that has exceeded my expectations on many occasions. However, finding a quiet cooling solution is challenging. I’ve written another blog post about cooling and the best solutions I’ve found for this issue.
Here are a few gameplay videos:
Black Myth: Wukong
CyberPunk 2077
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End