AMD Radeon R5 M330 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M Comparison

The Verdict

The data in this comparison is unambiguous. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M is in a different performance class entirely, winning both recorded head-to-head benchmarks by margins exceeding 340%. The AMD Radeon R5 M330, by contrast, occupies a much lower tier, as its average benchmark score of 4170 places it in the 25th percentile of all GPUs, while the GTX 970M sits at the 27th percentile with an average score of 4628.

For anyone choosing between these two for a laptop, the GTX 970M is the only sensible option for gaming or GPU-accelerated workloads. Its nearest rivals in the database are the NVIDIA Quadro M3000M, which scores 4621 (a 0.2% difference), and the AMD Radeon R5 M320 at 4657 (a -0.6% difference), indicating the GTX 970M sits in a tight cluster of mid-range mobile parts. The R5 M330, meanwhile, is closest to the NVIDIA Quadro K2100M at 4151 (0.4% ahead) and the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti at 4193 (0.5% behind), showing it competes with entry-level hardware.

The R5 M330 would only be appropriate for the most basic of tasks: light productivity, media playback, or legacy applications. Its 18 W TDP and IGP slot width suggest it is designed for power efficiency in thin-and-light machines, not for demanding 3D work. The GTX 970M, with its MXM module form factor, is a discrete, upgradeable component aimed at gaming notebooks. Benchmark results indicate the GTX 970M delivers roughly 4.4 times the OpenCL performance and 4.5 times the Vulkan performance of the R5 M330, a gap that no driver or optimization can bridge.

Where Each One Wins

The recorded data shows a clean sweep for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M. It wins both head-to-head tests: Geekbench OpenCL (18946 versus 4302, a 340.4% advantage) and Geekbench Vulkan (18292 versus 4037, a 353.1% advantage). There are no tests in the database where the AMD Radeon R5 M330 comes out ahead.

Looking at the broader benchmark suite, the GTX 970M has a much wider range of recorded results. It has scores for 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 (472), Passmark DirectX 10 (28), DirectX 11 (42), DirectX 12 (24), DirectX 9 (99), G2D (381), G3D (5704), and GPU Compute (2289). The R5 M330 only has two recorded benchmarks, both Geekbench tests. This disparity itself tells a story: the R5 M330 is rarely subjected to demanding 3D workloads in the database, whereas the GTX 970M is routinely tested across modern APIs.

The R5 M330's only potential advantage lies in its power draw. At 18 W TDP, it consumes far less than the GTX 970M, which has no listed TDP in the database. For a notebook where battery life and cooling are paramount, the R5 M330 is the more frugal choice. However, this advantage comes at the cost of nearly all compute performance.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from different architectural generations and design philosophies. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M uses the GM204 chip built on the Maxwell 2.0 architecture, manufactured by TSMC on a 28 nm process. It integrates 5,200 million transistors on a 398 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 13.1 million per square millimeter. The AMD Radeon R5 M330 uses the Exo chip based on GCN 1.0, also on TSMC's 28 nm node, but with only 690 million transistors on a 56 mm² die, for a density of 12.3 million per square millimeter.

The compute resources differ enormously. The GTX 970M has 1280 shading units, 80 texture mapping units, and 48 render output units. The R5 M330 has 320 shading units, 20 TMUs, and 8 ROPs. This 4:1 ratio in shading units and TMUs, and 6:1 in ROPs, directly explains the performance gap. The GTX 970M also has a much higher memory configuration: 6 GB of GDDR5 on a 192-bit bus with 120.3 GB/s bandwidth, versus 2 GB of DDR3 on a 64-bit bus with 14.40 GB/s bandwidth. That is more than 8 times the memory bandwidth.

Clock speeds are similar: the GTX 970M runs at 924 MHz base and 1038 MHz boost, while the R5 M330 runs at 955 MHz base and 1030 MHz boost. The R5 M330 actually has a slightly higher base clock, but this does not compensate for the massive difference in execution resources. The GTX 970M achieves a pixel rate of 49.82 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 83.04 GTexel/s, while the R5 M330 manages only 8.24 GPixel/s and 20.60 GTexel/s. FP32 compute is 2.657 TFLOPS for the GTX 970M versus 659.2 GFLOPS for the R5 M330.

API support also differs. The GTX 970M supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The R5 M330 supports DirectX 12 (11_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.170. Both are end-of-life products. The GTX 970M was released in October 2014, succeeding the GeForce 800M and preceding the GeForce 10 Mobile series. The R5 M330 followed in May 2015, succeeding the Solar System generation and preceding Polaris Mobile.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster in compute benchmarks?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M is dramatically faster. In Geekbench OpenCL it scores 18946 versus 4302 for the AMD Radeon R5 M330, a 340.4% advantage. In Geekbench Vulkan, the GTX 970M scores 18292 versus 4037, a 353.1% lead.

Q: What is the memory configuration of each card?

A: The GTX 970M has 6 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 192-bit bus with 120.3 GB/s bandwidth. The R5 M330 has 2 GB of DDR3 memory on a 64-bit bus with 14.40 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: Are these GPUs still in production?

A: No. Both are listed as end-of-life in the database. The GTX 970M was released on October 6, 2014, and the R5 M330 on May 4, 2015.

Q: Which GPU supports newer APIs?

A: The GTX 970M supports DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.4, while the R5 M330 supports DirectX 12 (11_1) and Vulkan 1.2.170. Both support OpenGL 4.6.

Q: What is the power consumption of the R5 M330?

A: The R5 M330 has a TDP of 18 W. The GTX 970M has no TDP listed in the database, but its MXM module form factor and performance level indicate a much higher power draw.

Q: How do these cards compare to their nearest rivals?

A: The GTX 970M's average score of 4628 is within 0.6% of the AMD Radeon R5 M320 and the AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16 GB (both 4657), and 1.1% ahead of the AMD Radeon R5 M230. The R5 M330's average score of 4170 places it 0.4% behind the NVIDIA Quadro K2100M and 1.9% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 8 GB.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database contains exactly two head-to-head benchmark results for this pair, and both are decisive wins for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M.

Geekbench OpenCL: The GTX 970M scores 18946, while the R5 M330 scores 4302. The delta is 340.4% in favor of the GTX 970M. This test exercises general-purpose compute on the GPU, and the result reflects the massive difference in shading units (1280 versus 320), memory bandwidth (120.3 GB/s versus 14.40 GB/s), and FP32 throughput (2.657 TFLOPS versus 659.2 GFLOPS).

Geekbench Vulkan: The GTX 970M scores 18292, versus 4037 for the R5 M330. The delta is 353.1%, an even larger margin than the OpenCL test. Vulkan is a low-level graphics and compute API, and the GTX 970M's support for Vulkan 1.4, compared to the R5 M330's Vulkan 1.2.170, may contribute to the gap, though the raw hardware disparity is the primary factor.

Looking at the broader benchmark picture, the GTX 970M has a rich set of results. Its Passmark G3D score of 5704 is its strongest single result, while its Passmark G2D score of 381 indicates reasonable 2D performance. In DirectX tests, it scores 99 in DX9, 42 in DX11, 28 in DX10, and 24 in DX12. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 472 rounds out the modern API testing. The R5 M330 simply has no comparable data, with only the two Geekbench entries.

The average benchmark scores confirm the hierarchy. The GTX 970M averages 4628 across all its tests, while the R5 M330 averages 4170. That 458-point gap represents roughly an 11% difference in average performance, though the head-to-head results show the real-world variance is much larger because the R5 M330's average is dragged up by its less demanding test set. The percentile rankings tell the same story: 27th percentile for the GTX 970M versus 25th percentile for the R5 M330, though these percentiles are computed against all GPUs in the database and do not capture the scale of the delta in the tests where both cards appear.

The nearest rival data also contextualizes each card. The GTX 970M trades blows with the NVIDIA Quadro M3000M (4621, a 0.2% difference) and the AMD Radeon R5 M320 (4657, a -0.6% difference). The R5 M330 is similarly close to the NVIDIA Quadro K2100M (4151, a 0.4% difference) and the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (4193, a -0.5% difference). Notably, the GTX 1050 Ti, which is near the R5 M330 in performance, is a much newer and more capable part than the GTX 970M in other contexts, but in this database pairing, the difference is clear: the GTX 970M outperforms the R5 M330 by a factor of more than four in every shared test.