AMD Radeon HD 8730M vs NVIDIA Quadro 4000M Comparison

# AMD Radeon HD 8730M vs NVIDIA Quadro 4000M

The mobile workstation GPU space has long been a contest between AMD's Radeon lineup and NVIDIA's Quadro family. In this comparison, the database pits the AMD Radeon HD 8730M against the NVIDIA Quadro 4000M. Both are end-of-life mobile parts aimed at professional laptops and mobile workstations, but they take very different approaches to delivering graphics performance. The recorded data shows a clear winner in raw compute, though the two products target different use cases.

The AMD Radeon HD 8730M is built on the GCN 1.0 architecture, a 28 nm TSMC part packing 950 million transistors on a 77 mm² die. The NVIDIA Quadro 4000M uses the older Fermi architecture on a 40 nm TSMC process, with 1,950 million transistors on a 332 mm² die. The AMD chip has a higher transistor density at 12.3M per mm² versus 5.9M per mm² for the NVIDIA part. These architectural differences show up directly in the benchmark results.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster in the database's OpenCL benchmark?

A: The AMD Radeon HD 8730M is faster. It scores 5,955 points in the geekbench_opencl test, while the NVIDIA Quadro 4000M scores 5,211. That is a 14.3% advantage for the AMD part.

Q: How do their benchmark scores compare to their nearest rivals?

A: The AMD Radeon HD 8730M sits at the 34th percentile among all GPUs, with an average score of 5,955. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA Quadro K620M, which scores 5,957 (a 0% difference), and the AMD Radeon HD 8750M at 5,970 (0.3% slower). The NVIDIA Quadro 4000M is at the 30th percentile, with an average score of 5,211. Its closest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760M at 5,236 (0.5% faster) and the AMD Radeon R7 M260 at 5,161 (1% slower).

Q: What is the memory configuration of the AMD Radeon HD 8730M?

A: It has 2 GB of DDR3 memory on a 128-bit bus, delivering 28.80 GB/s of bandwidth. Memory clocks run at 900 MHz, which yields 1800 Mbps effective.

Q: What is the memory setup of the NVIDIA Quadro 4000M?

A: The NVIDIA part uses 2 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus, for 80.00 GB/s of bandwidth. Its memory clock is 625 MHz, which works out to 2500 Mbps effective.

Q: How many shading units and ROPs does each GPU have?

A: The AMD Radeon HD 8730M includes 384 shading units and 8 ROPs. The NVIDIA Quadro 4000M packs 336 shading units and 32 ROPs.

Q: What APIs do these mobile GPUs support?

A: The AMD part supports DirectX 12 (11_1) and OpenGL 4.6, plus Vulkan 1.2.170. NVIDIA supports DirectX 12 (11_0), OpenGL 4.6, and no Vulkan entry is recorded.

Architecture Differences

The two chips come from different design philosophies. AMD's GCN 1.0 architecture uses a scalar ALU approach with a 28 nm process, but NVIDIA's Fermi architecture is older, a 40 nm design with a different layout. The AMD part has 384 shading units, while the NVIDIA part has 336. AMD has 24 texture mapping units and 8 ROPs, while NVIDIA has 56 TMUs and 32 ROPs. That disparity in texture and pixel throughput is significant.

Clock behavior is also different. The AMD GPU lists a base clock of 650 MHz and a boost clock of 700 MHz. The NVIDIA part does not list base or boost clocks in the database, but its memory runs at 625 MHz. Shading rates tell the rest of the story: the AMD chip delivers 5.600 GPixel/s and 16.80 GTexel/s, while the NVIDIA part reaches 6.650 GPixel/s and 26.60 GTexel/s. Single-precision compute is rated at 537.6 GFLOPS for the AMD and 638.4 GFLOPS for the NVIDIA part.

The NVIDIA part does have a higher TDP at 100 W, while the AMD chip has no TDP listed. Both are MXM modules, the AMD uses PCIe 3.0 x8 and the NVIDIA uses MXM-B (3.0). Neither has additional power connectors. Display outputs are portable and dependent on the device for both. The AMD part is listed as End-of-life, released on 2013-03-31. The NVIDIA part is End-of-life and was released on 2011-02-21.

Where Each One Wins

The benchmark data shows a split decision, but the margins are not large. The AMD Radeon HD 8730M wins one of the head-to-head tests in the database. In the geekbench_opencl test, the AMD scores 5,955 against the NVIDIA's 5,211, a 14.3% difference. That is the AMD part's standout result.

The NVIDIA Quadro 4000M does not have a direct head-to-head win in the database, but its positioning is different. It sits for the higher end of the mobile workstation stack with a large memory bus and much higher ROP count. The data suggests the NVIDIA part is not about raw compute in this particular OpenCL test, but about other characteristics, such as its 32 ROPs versus 8 for the AMD, which can matter in geometry-bound workloads that the OpenCL test does not isolate.

The AMD part is the better raw compute part. The NVIDIA part is the more balanced professional component. If the workload is a compute-bound OpenCL task, the AMD is the right choice. If the workload is pixel-bound or memory-bound, the NVIDIA part holds the advantage with its wider memory interface and double the ROP count.

Specification Differences

| Field | AMD Radeon HD 8730M | NVIDIA Quadro 4000M |

|---|---|---|

| Chip | Mars | GF104 |

| Architecture | GCN 1.0 | Fermi |

| Process | 28 nm | 40 nm |

| Foundry | TSMC | TSMC |

| Transistors | 950 million | 1,950 million |

| Die size | 77 mm² | 332 mm² |

| Transistor density | 12.3M / mm² | 5.9M / mm² |

| Memory size | 2 GB | 2 GB |

| Memory type | DDR3 | GDDR5 |

| Memory bus width | 128 bit | 256 bit |

| Memory bandwidth | 28.80 GB/s | 80.00 GB/s |

| Shading units | 384 | 336 |

| TMUs | 24 | 56 |

| ROPs | 8 | 32 |

| Pixel rate | 5.600 GPixel/s | 6.650 GPixel/s |

| Texture rate | 16.80 GTexel/s | 26.60 GTexel/s |

| FP32 | 537.6 GFLOPS | 638.4 GFLOPS |

| Bus interface | PCIe 3.0 x8 | MXM-B (3.0) |

| TDP | not listed | 100 W |

The rest of the specifications are identical or not listed in the database: no game clocks, no RT cores, no tensor cores, no FP16 entry, no slot width, no suggested PSU, no dimensions, and no launch MSRP for either part.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database includes one head-to-head OpenCL test between these two mobile graphics chips. It is the geekbench_opencl workload, and the result is decisive for the AMD part. The AMD Radeon HD 8730M returns a score of 5,955, while the NVIDIA Quadro 4000M scores 5,211. That is a 14.3% margin in favor of the AMD in this particular test.

Looking at their standing in the wider database, the AMD Radeon HD 8730M has one win in the head-to-head comparison, the NVIDIA Quadro 4000M has zero. The AMD sits at the 34th percentile among all GPUs with an average 5,955. The NVIDIA part sits at the 30th percentile with an average 5,211. The AMD has a closer set of rivals, with the NVIDIA Quadro K6200 averaging 5,955 and the AMD Radeon HD 8750M at 5,970 within 0.3%. The NVIDIA's nearest rivals include the GeForce GTX 760M at 5,236, one 1% higher, and the Radeon R7 M260 at 5,161, one 1% lower.

The data indicates a specialization split. The AMD Radeon HD 8730M is optimized for raw compute throughput in a low power package. The NVIDIA Quadro 4000M is oriented to a broader professional feature set, with double the texture units, four times the ROPs, and a much wider memory bus. In the context of an OpenCL compute workload, the AMD is the faster part. In a workload that stresses memory bandwidth, pixel fill rate or geometry throughput, the NVIDIA part has the structural edge.