AMD Radeon 880M vs AMD Radeon Vega 8 Mobile Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database records two direct head-to-head comparisons between the AMD Radeon 880M and the AMD Radeon Vega 8 Mobile, and in both cases the 880M dominates by a wide margin. In Geekbench OpenCL, the 880M scores 31,285 against 7,435 for the Vega 8 Mobile, a delta of 320.8% in favor of the newer part. That is not a marginal improvement; it represents a fourfold increase in raw compute throughput as measured by this workload.

The gap is even larger in Geekbench Vulkan. The 880M posts 40,006 points, while the Vega 8 Mobile manages only 6,970. This yields a 474% advantage for the 880M, meaning the newer architecture delivers more than five times the Vulkan performance of the older mobile IGP. Both results share the same system-shared memory configuration, so the difference is attributable to the GPU cores themselves rather than a dedicated memory pool.

Looking beyond the direct head-to-head, the average benchmark score reinforces the same conclusion. The 880M averages 8,436 across all recorded tests, while the Vega 8 Mobile averages 7,203. That is a smaller relative gap than the Geekbench numbers suggest, because the 880M's average includes several Passmark tests with lower scores, such as 31 in DirectX 10 and 32 in DirectX 12, which pull its overall average down. Even so, the 880M still sits ahead by roughly 17% in aggregate.

Percentile rankings place the 880M at the 43rd percentile of all GPUs in the database, whereas the Vega 8 Mobile sits at the 39th percentile. The 880M's nearest rivals by average score are the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675MX at 8,427, the NVIDIA GeForce MX330 at 8,458, the AMD Radeon HD 8870M at 8,462, and the AMD Radeon R9 M375X at 8,325. The 880M is within 0.3% of the MX330 and HD 8870M, and it leads the R9 M375X by 1.3% and the GTX 675MX by 0.1%. For the Vega 8 Mobile, its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 at 7,222, the GTX 560 SE at 7,171, the Intel Iris Pro Graphics P580 at 7,170, and the GTX 970 at 7,157. The Vega 8 Mobile trails the GTX 750 by 0.3% but leads the other three by margins from 0.4% to 0.6%.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Radeon 880M wins every recorded benchmark in the head-to-head set, so the use-case split is heavily one-sided. In compute-oriented workloads, Geekbench OpenCL shows the 880M at 31285, which is 320.8% ahead of the Vega 8 Mobile. This makes the 880M the clear choice for OpenCL-based applications such as video encoding, physics simulation, and other general-purpose GPU compute tasks.

For graphics APIs, the Geekbench Vulkan result of 40006 versus 6970, a 474% lead, indicates that the 880M is substantially stronger in Vulkan workloads. This matters for modern games that use Vulkan as their rendering backend, as well as for emulation and other Vulkan-centric applications. The Vega 8 Mobile, by contrast, does not have a single benchmark where it records a win over the 880M. Its wins in the database are limited to its nearest rival comparisons, where it leads the GTX 560 SE by 0.4%, the Iris Pro Graphics P580 by 0.5%, and the GTX 970 by 0.6%. Those are narrow margins and do not suggest any workload category where the Vega 8 Mobile is particularly strong.

The 880M also benefits from a much higher boost clock, 2900 MHz versus 1101 MHz, and a higher base clock, 400 MHz versus 300 MHz. These clock advantages contribute directly to its lead in both compute and graphics benchmarks. The Vega 8 Mobile, with its lower clocks and older architecture, remains competitive only against much older discrete GPUs from roughly the GTX 700 and 900 series era, and even then only by fractions of a percent.

Architecture Differences

The AMD Radeon 880M is built on the Strix Point chip using the RDNA 3.5 architecture, manufactured on a 4 nm process at TSMC. The Vega 8 Mobile uses the Raven-M chip with GCN 5.0 architecture, built on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries. The process node difference is significant: 4 nm allows far denser transistor packing than 14 nm, which is reflected in the transistor counts. The 880M contains 34,000 million transistors on a 233 mm² die, giving it a density of 145.9 million transistors per square millimeter. The Vega 8 Mobile has 4,940 million transistors on a 210 mm² die, with a density of 23.5 million per square millimeter.

The 880M has 768 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 16 render output units. The Vega 8 Mobile has 512 shading units, 32 TMUs, and 8 ROPs. These are large structural differences: the 880M has 50% more shading units, 50% more TMUs, and double the ROPs. The 880M also includes 12 ray tracing cores, while the Vega 8 Mobile has none. Neither part has tensor cores.

The 880M's pixel rate is 46.40 GPixel/s, compared to 8.808 GPixel/s for the Vega 8 Mobile. Texture rate is 139.2 GTexel/s versus 35.23 GTexel/s. FP32 throughput is 4.454 TFLOPS for the 880M, while the Vega 8 Mobile delivers 1,127.4 GFLOPS. The 880M's FP16 rate is 4.454 TFLOPS at a 1:1 ratio, meaning it does not gain extra throughput in half-precision. The Vega 8 Mobile has an FP16 rate of 2.255 TFLOPS at a 2:1 ratio, so it processes FP16 at twice its FP32 rate. Even with that ratio advantage, the Vega 8 Mobile's FP16 peak is still lower than the 880M's FP32 peak.

Both parts use system-shared memory with system-dependent bandwidth, so neither has a dedicated VRAM pool. The 880M connects via PCIe 4.0 x8, while the Vega 8 Mobile uses an IGP bus interface. The 880M supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The Vega 8 Mobile supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.3. The 880M's DirectX 12 Ultimate feature set includes ray tracing support via its 12 RT cores, which the Vega 8 Mobile cannot offer.

Power characteristics differ as well. The 880M has a TDP of 15 W, while the Vega 8 Mobile has a TDP of 25 W. This means the 880M delivers far higher performance while drawing less power, a direct consequence of the 4 nm process and RDNA 3.5 architecture improvements. The Vega 8 Mobile is marked as end-of-life in the database, with a release date of January 2019, while the 880M is active and was released in July 2024. The Vega 8 Mobile's predecessor is listed as GCN 3.0 IGP, and its successor is Navi II IGP. The 880M's predecessor is Navi II IGP, and it has no successor listed.

FAQ

Q: How much faster is the AMD Radeon 880M in OpenCL compute?

A: The 880M scores 31,285 in Geekbench OpenCL, compared to 7,435 for the Vega 8 Mobile, which is a 320.8% advantage.

Q: Does the AMD Radeon 880M support ray tracing?

A: Yes, the 880M has 12 ray tracing cores. The Vega 8 Mobile has no ray tracing cores.

Q: What is the difference in shading units between the two?

A: The 880M has 768 shading units, while the Vega 8 Mobile has 512 shading units, a 50% increase for the newer part.

Q: Which GPU has the higher boost clock, and by how much?

A: The 880M boosts to 2900 MHz, while the Vega 8 Mobile boosts to 1101 MHz, a difference of 1799 MHz.

Q: How do their average benchmark scores compare?

A: The 880M averages 8,436 across all recorded benchmarks, while the Vega 8 Mobile averages 7,203.

Q: What are the process nodes for each GPU?

A: The 880M uses a 4 nm TSMC process, while the Vega 8 Mobile uses a 14 nm GlobalFoundries process.

The Verdict

The data points to a clear conclusion: the AMD Radeon 880M is the superior part in every recorded measurement. It wins both head-to-head benchmarks, posts a higher average benchmark score, and holds a higher percentile ranking. Its 320.8% lead in OpenCL and 474% lead in Vulkan are decisive enough that no workload in the database favors the Vega 8 Mobile.

Buyers or system integrators choosing between these two IGPs should choose the 880M if they expect any graphics or compute workload beyond the most basic. The 880M's 768 shading units, 12 RT cores, and 4.454 TFLOPS FP32 throughput put it in a different performance class than the Vega 8 Mobile's 512 shading units and 1,127.4 GFLOPS. The 880M also does this at a lower TDP of 15 W versus 25 W, which matters for thin-and-light laptops where thermal headroom is limited.

The Vega 8 Mobile is an end-of-life part from 2019, and its nearest rival comparisons show it trading wins only against older discrete GPUs like the GTX 560 SE and GTX 970 by margins under 1%. There is no scenario in the recorded data where the Vega 8 Mobile outperforms the 880M. For legacy systems already equipped with the Vega 8 Mobile, the data does not suggest an upgrade path based on raw performance, but for any new design, the 880M is the only defensible choice from these two options. Its DirectX 12 Ultimate support, Vulkan 1.4 compatibility, and ray tracing capability make it future-proof in ways the Vega 8 Mobile cannot match.