AMD Radeon Pro 5300M vs NVIDIA GeForce MX350 Comparison

NVIDIA GeForce MX350 and AMD Radeon Pro 5300M are both end-of-life mobile graphics solutions, but they target very different performance strata. The data shows a clear hierarchy: the AMD Radeon Pro 5300M is the substantially faster part, winning both head-to-head benchmark comparisons by wide margins. The NVIDIA GeForce MX350, while efficient, sits in a lower performance class, as reflected in its average benchmark score and the company it keeps among its nearest rivals.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The benchmark results are unambiguous. In the two shared tests, the AMD Radeon Pro 5300M dominates the NVIDIA GeForce MX350. The largest margin comes in Geekbench OpenCL, where the AMD part scores 29,252 against the NVIDIA's 8,689. That is a 70.3% advantage for the Radeon Pro 5300M, meaning it delivers over three times the raw compute throughput in this API. This is not a marginal win; it is a generational gap in performance.

The second shared test, Geekbench Vulkan, shows a similar story, though with a slightly narrower gap. The AMD Radeon Pro 5300M scores 27,912, while the NVIDIA GeForce MX350 manages 13,077. The delta here is 53.1% in favor of the AMD part. While the percentage is lower than in OpenCL, the absolute difference of 14,835 points is still massive. The MX350's Vulkan result is less than half of what the Radeon Pro 5300M achieves.

Looking at the broader benchmark picture, the NVIDIA GeForce MX350 has an average benchmark score of 10,883 across all its tested workloads. The AMD Radeon Pro 5300M, despite having fewer total benchmark submissions, posts an average of 10,013. This is a curious inversion — the AMD part wins the head-to-head tests but has a lower average score. The explanation lies in the benchmark mix. The Radeon Pro 5300M's average is dragged down by its Passmark DirectX 10, 11, and 12 scores, which are 36, 37, and 25 respectively. These are likely legacy or specific tests where the architecture does not excel. In contrast, the MX350's average is based solely on its two Geekbench results, which are more consistent.

The nearest rival data confirms the positioning. The NVIDIA GeForce MX350 sits at the 49th percentile of all GPUs, with its closest competitor being the AMD Radeon Pro 450 at a 0.7% delta. The AMD Radeon Pro 5300M is at the 48th percentile, with its nearest rival being the NVIDIA Quadro K5100M at a -0.3% delta. Both cards are in the same performance tier according to aggregate scores, but the head-to-head results reveal that the Radeon Pro 5300M has a much higher ceiling in modern compute APIs.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Radeon Pro 5300M wins in every direct comparison available. Its victories in both Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Vulkan are decisive, with margins of 70.3% and 53.1% respectively. This makes it the clear choice for any workload that leverages general-purpose GPU compute, such as rendering, video encoding, or scientific simulations. The Vulkan result also suggests strong performance in modern games that use this API, though the card is not marketed as a gaming part.

The NVIDIA GeForce MX350 has no benchmark wins against the Radeon Pro 5300M. However, its strengths lie elsewhere. With a TDP of just 20 W compared to the AMD's 85 W, the MX350 is designed for ultra-thin laptops where power draw and heat are critical constraints. It is not faster, but it is far more efficient. The MX350's average benchmark score of 10,883 is actually higher than the Radeon Pro 5300M's 10,013, which suggests that in the specific mix of tests that contribute to that average, the NVIDIA part is more consistent. This could translate to steadier performance across a wider variety of older or less compute-intensive applications.

For use-case split, the data points to the Radeon Pro 5300M for any task that demands raw throughput. Its 3.200 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is a hard number to ignore. The MX350, with 1.879 TFLOPS, is not in the same league for compute-heavy jobs. The Radeon Pro 5300M also has a significant memory advantage, with 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus delivering 192.0 GB/s of bandwidth, versus the MX350's 2 GB of GDDR5 on a 64-bit bus at 56.06 GB/s. That bandwidth differential is critical for large textures and datasets. The MX350 is better suited for light productivity, basic photo editing, and casual gaming at low settings, where its lower power draw is an asset.

FAQ

Q: How much faster is the AMD Radeon Pro 5300M in Geekbench OpenCL?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro 5300M scores 29,252, which is 70.3% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce MX350's score of 8,689 in that test.

Q: Does the NVIDIA GeForce MX350 win any of the head-to-head benchmarks?

A: No. The data shows the AMD Radeon Pro 5300M winning both shared tests, with the MX350 trailing by 70.3% in OpenCL and 53.1% in Vulkan.

Q: Which card has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce MX350 has a higher average benchmark score of 10,883, compared to the AMD Radeon Pro 5300M's 10,013. This is due to the AMD part's low scores in several Passmark DirectX tests.

Q: What is the memory bandwidth difference between the two?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro 5300M has a memory bandwidth of 192.0 GB/s, while the NVIDIA GeForce MX350 has a memory bandwidth of 56.06 GB/s. The AMD part offers more than three times the bandwidth.

Q: How do their power draws compare?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce MX350 has a TDP of 20 W, while the AMD Radeon Pro 5300M has a TDP of 85 W. The MX350 requires significantly less power.

Q: Which card has a higher pixel fill rate?

A: The AMD Radeon Pro 5300M has a pixel rate of 40.00 GPixel/s, which is higher than the NVIDIA GeForce MX350's 23.49 GPixel/s.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ in almost every major specification. The NVIDIA GeForce MX350 is built on a 14 nm process at Samsung, with a die size of 132 mm² and 3,300 million transistors. The AMD Radeon Pro 5300M uses a 7 nm process at TSMC, with a die size of 158 mm² and 6,400 million transistors. This means the AMD chip has nearly twice the transistor count in a slightly larger package.

Memory configurations are starkly different. The MX350 has 2 GB of GDDR5 on a 64-bit bus, yielding 56.06 GB/s of bandwidth. The Radeon Pro 5300M has 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, yielding 192.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The AMD part has double the memory capacity and over three times the bandwidth.

Compute resources also favor the AMD part. The Radeon Pro 5300M has 1,280 shading units, 80 texture mapping units (TMUs), and 32 render output units (ROPs). The MX350 has 640 shading units, 32 TMUs, and 16 ROPs. This translates to a pixel rate of 40.00 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 100.0 GTexel/s for the AMD part, versus 23.49 GPixel/s and 46.98 GTexel/s for the NVIDIA part.

Clock speeds tell a different story. The MX350 has a higher base clock of 1354 MHz and a boost clock of 1468 MHz, while the Radeon Pro 5300M has a base clock of 1000 MHz and a boost clock of 1250 MHz. The AMD part compensates with more cores and a wider memory bus. The MX350's memory runs at 1752 MHz (7 Gbps effective), while the Radeon Pro 5300M's memory runs at 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective). The bus interface differs as well: the MX350 uses PCIe 3.0 x4, while the Radeon Pro 5300M uses PCIe 4.0 x8. The TDP gap is significant: 20 W for the MX350 versus 85 W for the Radeon Pro 5300M.

Architecture Differences

The NVIDIA GeForce MX350 is based on the GP107S chip using the Pascal architecture. This is an older design from NVIDIA, originally intended for low-power mobile graphics. It supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The Pascal architecture is known for its efficiency but lacks some of the newer features found in later NVIDIA designs.

The AMD Radeon Pro 5300M uses the Navi 14 chip based on the RDNA 1.0 architecture. This is a more modern design that also supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. RDNA 1.0 was designed to improve performance per clock over older GCN-based parts, and it introduces a different shader arrangement that is more efficient for gaming and compute workloads.

The process node difference is significant: 14 nm for the NVIDIA chip versus 7 nm for the AMD chip. This allows the AMD part to pack 6,400 million transistors into a 158 mm² die, resulting in a transistor density of 40.5M / mm². The NVIDIA chip has a density of 25.0M / mm². The AMD part also supports FP16 at a 2:1 ratio, offering 6.400 TFLOPS, while the NVIDIA part has a severely limited FP16 rate of 29.36 GFLOPS (1:64). This makes the Radeon Pro 5300M far more capable for workloads that can use half-precision arithmetic.

The memory types differ as well, with GDDR6 on the AMD part providing higher bandwidth and better power efficiency per bit compared to the GDDR5 on the NVIDIA part. Both cards rely on portable device-dependent display outputs and have no power connectors, as they are designed for mobile systems.

The Verdict

The data is clear: the AMD Radeon Pro 5300M is the superior performer in every shared benchmark. Its 70.3% lead in Geekbench OpenCL and 53.1% lead in Geekbench Vulkan make it the logical choice for any user who prioritizes raw compute power. Its 3.200 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, 192.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth, and 4 GB of VRAM provide a substantial foundation for demanding applications like 3D rendering, video editing, and GPU-accelerated computation. The higher TDP of 85 W is a trade-off, but it buys a significant amount of performance.

The NVIDIA GeForce MX350 is the card for a different audience. Its 20 W TDP makes it suitable for ultra-portable laptops where battery life and thermals are paramount. Its higher average benchmark score of 10,883, driven by consistent Geekbench results, suggests it may handle a wider range of lighter tasks without the performance dips seen in the Radeon Pro 5300M's Passmark scores. However, its 2 GB of VRAM and 56.06 GB/s of bandwidth are severe limitations for modern workloads.

For a user who needs to run compute-heavy software on a laptop, the AMD Radeon Pro 5300M is the only real choice from these two. The benchmark margins are too large to ignore. For a user who wants a basic graphics solution for everyday tasks and light gaming in a thin-and-light chassis, the NVIDIA GeForce MX350 offers adequate performance with far less power draw. The verdict hinges on whether you need the AMD part's raw power or the NVIDIA part's efficiency. The benchmark data strongly favors the former for performance, but the latter has a clear place in low-power systems.