AMD Radeon HD 8730M vs NVIDIA Quadro M500M Comparison

AMD Radeon HD 8730M and NVIDIA Quadro M500M are both end-of-life mobile graphics solutions aimed at entry-level laptops and workstations, but they represent very different design philosophies and eras. The AMD part is a GCN 1.0 product from the Solar System generation, while the NVIDIA part is a Maxwell-based Quadro from the Mx000M series. Benchmark data shows the two are remarkably close in raw OpenCL performance, yet their architectural blueprints and feature sets diverge significantly, making each suited to different workloads.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only direct benchmark comparison available is the Geekbench OpenCL test, and the results are extraordinarily tight. The AMD Radeon HD 8730M scores 5955 points, while the NVIDIA Quadro M500M scores 5986 points. This gives the NVIDIA part a narrow victory with a delta of just -0.5% relative to the AMD card. In practical terms, this is a statistical tie — a difference of only 31 points out of nearly 6000 is well within run-to-run variance for OpenCL workloads. Neither card can claim a meaningful performance advantage in compute tasks that scale with raw shader throughput.

What makes this near-tie interesting is how each card achieves it. The AMD Radeon HD 8730M operates at a base clock of 650 MHz with a boost up to 700 MHz, while the Quadro M500M runs at a much higher 1029 MHz base and 1124 MHz boost. Despite the NVIDIA card having roughly 60% higher clock speeds, the AMD card compensates with a wider 128-bit memory bus and double the memory bandwidth — 28.80 GB/s versus just 14.40 GB/s for the Quadro. This balance of clock speed versus memory throughput explains why the final OpenCL scores are almost identical.

Looking at the nearest rivals for each card provides additional context. The AMD Radeon HD 8730M sits at the 34th percentile of all GPUs, sandwiched between the NVIDIA Quadro K620M (5957, a 0% delta) and the Intel UHD Graphics 730 (5929, a 0.4% delta). The Quadro M500M, meanwhile, sits at the 32nd percentile, with its closest competitor being the AMD FirePro M4000 (5537, a 1.2% delta). Notably, the Quadro M500M also has a Vulkan benchmark score of 5222, which the AMD card lacks entirely — suggesting NVIDIA's driver stack provides broader API coverage for modern compute interfaces.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two GPUs is substantial, reflecting their different release timelines. The AMD Radeon HD 8730M uses the Mars chip built on GCN 1.0 architecture, a design that debuted in 2013. The NVIDIA Quadro M500M uses the GM108S chip on the Maxwell architecture, released in 2016. Both are fabricated on the same 28 nm process at TSMC, but that is where the similarities end.

Transistor counts differ slightly: the AMD chip packs 950 million transistors into a 77 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 12.3M per mm². The NVIDIA chip contains 1,020 million transistors in the same 77 mm² die, giving it a slightly higher density of 13.2M per mm². This extra density reflects Maxwell's more efficient compute unit design, which delivers higher per-clock performance than GCN 1.0.

The compute configurations are surprisingly similar in one respect: both cards have 384 shading units. However, the rest of the pipeline diverges. The AMD card has 24 texture mapping units (TMUs) and 8 render output units (ROPs), while the NVIDIA card has only 16 TMUs but the same 8 ROPs. This difference in texture units explains why the NVIDIA card achieves a texture rate of 17.98 GTexel/s versus 16.80 GTexel/s for AMD — the higher clocks overcome the fewer TMUs. Pixel rates tell a similar story: 8.992 GPixel/s for NVIDIA versus 5.600 GPixel/s for AMD, a 60% advantage for the Quadro.

Floating-point performance heavily favors the NVIDIA card. The Quadro M500M delivers 863.2 GFLOPS of FP32 compute, while the AMD Radeon HD 8730M manages just 537.6 GFLOPS — a 60% gap that mirrors the clock speed difference. Neither card supports FP16 or has dedicated ray tracing or tensor cores, so both are limited to traditional rasterization and general-purpose compute.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has higher raw compute performance in OpenCL?

A: The NVIDIA Quadro M500M edges out the AMD Radeon HD 8730M with a Geekbench OpenCL score of 5986 versus 5955, a delta of -0.5% in NVIDIA's favor. This is essentially a tie within margin of error.

Q: Do these cards support modern graphics APIs?

A: Both support DirectX 12 and OpenGL 4.6, but with caveats. The AMD card supports DirectX 12 (11_1) and Vulkan 1.2.170, while the NVIDIA card supports DirectX 12 (11_0) and Vulkan 1.4. The NVIDIA card also has a measured Vulkan benchmark score of 5222, while no Vulkan score exists for the AMD card.

Q: How do their memory systems differ?

A: Both have 2 GB of DDR3 memory, but the AMD card uses a 128-bit bus for 28.80 GB/s bandwidth, while the NVIDIA card uses a 64-bit bus for 14.40 GB/s. The AMD card has exactly double the memory bandwidth.

Q: Which card has higher clock speeds?

A: The NVIDIA Quadro M500M runs at 1029 MHz base and 1124 MHz boost, compared to the AMD Radeon HD 8730M's 650 MHz base and 700 MHz boost. The NVIDIA card is roughly 60% faster in clock speed.

Q: What is the power consumption of each card?

A: The NVIDIA Quadro M500M has a TDP of 30 W and uses an MXM module slot with no power connectors. No TDP figure is available for the AMD Radeon HD 8730M in the data.

Q: When were these cards released?

A: The AMD Radeon HD 8730M was released in 2013, while the NVIDIA Quadro M500M was released in 2016. Both are now end-of-life products.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ across nearly every measurable specification except for memory size, shading unit count, and ROP count.

Process Node: Both use 28 nm TSMC fabrication, but the AMD card has 950 million transistors versus 1,020 million for NVIDIA, giving densities of 12.3M/mm² and 13.2M/mm² respectively. Die size is identical at 77 mm².

Clock Speeds: The AMD card runs at 650 MHz base and 700 MHz boost, while the NVIDIA card runs at 1029 MHz base and 1124 MHz boost. Memory clock is identical at 900 MHz (1800 Mbps effective) for both.

Memory Subsystem: Both have 2 GB DDR3, but the AMD card uses a 128-bit bus for 28.80 GB/s bandwidth, while the NVIDIA card uses a 64-bit bus for 14.40 GB/s.

Compute Pipeline: Both have 384 shading units and 8 ROPs, but the AMD card has 24 TMUs versus 16 for NVIDIA. This yields pixel rates of 5.600 GPixel/s (AMD) and 8.992 GPixel/s (NVIDIA), and texture rates of 16.80 GTexel/s (AMD) and 17.98 GTexel/s (NVIDIA).

FP32 Performance: The AMD card delivers 537.6 GFLOPS, while the NVIDIA card delivers 863.2 GFLOPS — a 60% advantage for NVIDIA.

API Support: The AMD card supports DirectX 12 (11_1) and Vulkan 1.2.170, while the NVIDIA card supports DirectX 12 (11_0) and Vulkan 1.4. Both support OpenGL 4.6.

Form Factor and Power: The AMD card uses PCIe 3.0 x8, while the NVIDIA card uses MXM-A (3.0). The NVIDIA card has a 30 W TDP, no power connectors, and its display outputs are portable-device dependent. No TDP, power connector, or display output data exists for the AMD card.

Release Timeline: The AMD card launched in 2013 with predecessor London and successor Gem System. The NVIDIA card launched in 2016 with predecessor Quadro Kepler-M and successor Quadro Pascal-M.

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA Quadro M500M wins in every direct compute benchmark and in raw throughput metrics. Its 60% higher FP32 performance (863.2 GFLOPS versus 537.6 GFLOPS) makes it the clear choice for any workload that is compute-bound, such as OpenCL general-purpose processing, physics simulations, or GPU-accelerated filters. The higher pixel rate of 8.992 GPixel/s versus 5.600 GPixel/s also gives it an edge in fill-rate-limited scenarios like high-resolution texturing or multi-sampled anti-aliasing. Its Vulkan 1.4 support and measured Vulkan score of 5222 indicate better forward compatibility with modern compute and graphics APIs. The 30 W TDP also makes it a predictable power envelope for mobile workstation designs.

The AMD Radeon HD 8730M wins in memory bandwidth, with 28.80 GB/s versus just 14.40 GB/s for the NVIDIA card. This makes it better suited to workloads that are memory-latency-sensitive or that stream large datasets, such as certain image processing algorithms or database-style compute tasks. Its 128-bit bus is a structural advantage that the NVIDIA card cannot overcome with clock speeds alone. Additionally, its 24 TMUs versus 16 provide more texture fetch parallelism per clock, which can benefit certain texture-heavy rendering paths despite the lower overall texture rate. For users constrained to PCIe 3.0 x8 rather than MXM, the AMD card offers a more standard integration path.

The percentile rankings add nuance. The AMD card sits at the 34th percentile of all GPUs, slightly higher than the NVIDIA card's 32nd percentile. This is because the AMD card's nearest rivals include the NVIDIA Quadro K620M at essentially the same score (5957, 0% delta) and it outperforms the Intel UHD Graphics 730 by 0.4%. The NVIDIA card's closest rival is the AMD FirePro M4000, which it beats by 1.2%, but it also trails the AMD Radeon HD 8790M by 1.5%. In practical terms, the AMD card is more competitive within its immediate performance class, while the NVIDIA card's higher clock speeds give it more headroom in compute-heavy tasks despite its lower overall percentile.

For a mobile workstation user, the choice comes down to workload type. The Quadro M500M is the better all-rounder for modern compute and graphics due to its higher clocks, superior FP32 throughput, and Vulkan support. The Radeon HD 8730M remains viable for memory-bandwidth-bound applications and offers double the memory bandwidth, which can be a decisive factor in specific scientific or data-processing workloads. Both cards are end-of-life, but the NVIDIA part's later release date and higher transistor density suggest a more refined implementation of the same 28 nm process.