NVIDIA L40S vs NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell, AI & Machine Learning Comparison
NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell wins 10 of 12 benchmarks, averaging 20% faster.
Both cards were measured first-party on our bench, same suite, same test rig.
What the numbers say
The gap is widest in LTX-Video (distilled), where NVIDIA L40S leads by 75% (8.01 vs 4.58 frames/s); the closest fight is Stable Diffusion XL (3% apart); VRAM decides part of this one: NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell runs 152 of our 12 AI workloads while the other card runs 12, models that don't fit score zero.
Benchmark results head-to-head
| Benchmark | NVIDIA L40S | NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen3-4B tok/s | 212.05 | 298.78 | -29% |
| Llama-3.1-8B tok/s | 135.51 | 208.3 | -35% |
| Qwen2.5-Coder-14B tok/s | 74.6 | 114.63 | -35% |
| Qwen3-32B tok/s | 34.44 | 54.27 | -37% |
| Llama-3.3-70B tok/s | 16.49 | 26.29 | -37% |
| Stable Diffusion XL images/min | 17.02 | 17.46 | -3% |
| Z-Image Turbo images/min | 8.325 | 9.075 | -8% |
| FLUX.1 dev images/min | 3.836 | 4.2 | -9% |
| FLUX.1 Kontext dev images/min | 1.693 | 1.8 | -6% |
| Qwen-Image-Edit images/min | 1.06 | 0.8 | +33% |
| LTX-Video (distilled) frames/s | 8.01 | 4.58 | +75% |
| Wan 2.2 5B (720p) frames/s | 0.49 | 0.56 | -13% |
Whole-job comparison
How long each card takes to finish a complete pipeline, not just one model. NVIDIA L40S is faster on 1 of 9; NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell on 8.
| Workflow | NVIDIA L40S | NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 24-frame storyboard | 4.1 min | 3.4 min | NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell 1.20x faster |
| 60-second AI short film | 4.9 min | 6.7 min | NVIDIA L40S 1.36x faster |
| 6-panel comic page | 6.5 min | 5.6 min | NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell 1.16x faster |
| Character sheet, 12 poses | 8.4 min | 7.6 min | NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell 1.11x faster |
| Full codebase review | 13.5 min | 8.7 min | NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell 1.54x faster |
| 10 short social clips | 19.1 min | 16.5 min | NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell 1.15x faster |
| 40-product photo shoot | 26.7 min | 25.1 min | NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell 1.07x faster |
| 20 long-form articles | 28.5 min | 17.8 min | NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell 1.60x faster |
| 100-photo restoration batch | 59.6 min | 55.9 min | NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell 1.07x faster |
Specifications compared
| NVIDIA L40S | NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell | |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 48GB | 48GB |
| Architecture | Ada Lovelace | Blackwell |
| Memory bandwidth | 864 GB/s | 1344 GB/s |
| Boost clock | 2,520 MHz | 2,377 MHz |
| TDP | 350 W | 300 W |
| Launch MSRP | $7,500 | $4,500 |
| Release | 2023-08-08 | 2025-08-01 |
FAQ
- Which is better for ai & machine learning: NVIDIA L40S or NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell?
- NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell performs better for ai & machine learning, winning 10 of 12 benchmarks in our suite with an average 20% advantage.
- What are the main hardware differences between NVIDIA L40S and NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell?
- NVIDIA L40S has 48GB VRAM and a 350W TDP, while NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell has 48GB VRAM and a 300W TDP.
- Does VRAM matter more than speed between NVIDIA L40S and NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell?
- For AI, yes, NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell fits 8 more of our 12 workloads than NVIDIA L40S. A model that exceeds VRAM doesn't run slower, it doesn't run at all, so the card that fits the model wins that workload outright.
- Where is the biggest performance difference between NVIDIA L40S and NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell?
- LTX-Video (distilled): NVIDIA L40S leads by roughly 75% (8.01 vs 4.58 frames/s) in our testing.
NVIDIA L40S full review · NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell full review · All AI & Machine Learning rankings