AMD Radeon R5 M335 vs NVIDIA Quadro K2100M Comparison

Where Each One Wins

The benchmark data splits cleanly along API lines. The AMD Radeon R5 M335 wins both recorded head-to-head tests, taking Geekbench OpenCL with a score of 4745 against the Quadro K2100M's 4587, and dominating the Vulkan test with 4758 versus 4343. That is a 3.4% lead in OpenCL and a much larger 9.6% margin in Vulkan. For any workload that leverages Vulkan, the R5 M335 is clearly the stronger choice.

The NVIDIA Quadro K2100M does not win a single recorded benchmark in this comparison. However, it does have one notable advantage in the database: it has three recorded benchmark scores (Metal, OpenCL, Vulkan) while the AMD part only has two (OpenCL, Vulkan). The Quadro's Metal score of 3524 is not directly comparable to anything the R5 M335 offers, since the AMD card has no Metal result recorded. In an Apple ecosystem context, the Quadro at least has a measurable Metal footprint.

For raw compute throughput, the data favors AMD in the two shared tests. The R5 M335's Vulkan advantage of 9.6% is substantial enough to matter in Vulkan-based games and compute applications. The OpenCL gap is smaller, but still consistently in AMD's favor.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon R5 M335 has an average benchmark score of 4752, while the NVIDIA Quadro K2100M averages 4151. That puts the AMD part at the 28th percentile among all GPUs, versus the 25th percentile for the Quadro.

Q: How large is the Vulkan performance gap?

A: In the Geekbench Vulkan test, the R5 M335 scores 4758 compared to the Quadro's 4343, a 9.6% advantage for AMD. This is the largest performance difference recorded in the head-to-head data.

Q: Is the Quadro K2100M competitive in OpenCL?

A: It is close but not ahead. The Quadro scores 4587 in OpenCL versus 4745 for the R5 M335, a 3.4% deficit. The gap is small enough that real-world OpenCL applications could see near-parity, but the recorded data still favors AMD.

Q: What are the closest rivals for each card?

A: The R5 M335's nearest rival is the AMD Radeon R8 M445DX, which averages 4727, just 0.5% behind. The Quadro K2100M's closest rival is the AMD Radeon R5 M330 at 4170, only 0.4% behind the Quadro.

Q: Does the Quadro have any benchmark that the AMD card lacks?

A: Yes. The Quadro K2100M has a recorded Geekbench Metal score of 3524. The R5 M335 has no Metal benchmark in the database, so the Quadro is the only one of the two with measurable Metal performance.

Q: How do these cards compare to much newer hardware?

A: The R5 M335 sits within 0.8% of an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB in average score (4791), which shows how the database normalizes across very different product tiers. The Quadro K2100M is within 1.4% of an AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 8 GB (4093), and 1.9% above the Intel HD Graphics 630 (4075).

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The two shared tests tell a consistent story, but with different magnitudes. Starting with Geekbench OpenCL, the AMD Radeon R5 M335 posts 4745 against 4587 for the Quadro K2100M. The 3.4% delta is modest, suggesting that in OpenCL-heavy workloads, the two cards are in the same performance class. The R5 M335 has a slight edge, but it is not transformative.

The Vulkan test is where the separation becomes obvious. The R5 M335 scores 4758, while the Quadro K2100M falls to 4343. That 9.6% gap is more than double the OpenCL margin. For any application built on Vulkan, the AMD part is meaningfully faster. The Quadro's Vulkan score is also its lowest recorded number outside of Metal, which further underscores that NVIDIA's Kepler architecture in this implementation does not handle Vulkan as well as AMD's GCN 1.0 silicon does.

Looking at the broader database context, the R5 M335's nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon R8 M445DX at 4727 (0.5% behind), the AMD Radeon R5 M255 at 4788 (0.7% ahead of the R5 M335), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB at 4791 (0.8% ahead). The Quadro K2100M's context shows it trailing the AMD Radeon R5 M330 by 0.4% (4170 vs 4151), behind the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti by 1% (4193 vs 4151), and ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 8 GB by 1.4% (4093 vs 4151) and Intel HD Graphics 630 by 1.9% (4075 vs 4151).

These rival clusters place the R5 M335 in a higher overall performance neighborhood than the Quadro, despite both cards being end-of-life mobile parts. The average benchmark score difference of 601 points (4752 vs 4151) is roughly a 14.5% gap in the AMD part's favor, a figure that is consistent with the head-to-head OpenCL result but smaller than the Vulkan gap.

Specification Differences

The memory subsystems are the most obvious divergence. The AMD Radeon R5 M335 uses 2 GB of DDR3 on a 64-bit bus, yielding 14.40 GB/s of bandwidth. The NVIDIA Quadro K2100M also has 2 GB, but it is GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus, delivering 48.13 GB/s. That is more than three times the memory bandwidth for the Quadro. The Quadro's memory clock is 752 MHz (3 Gbps effective), while the R5 M335 runs at 900 MHz (1800 Mbps effective). Despite a lower memory clock, the wider bus gives NVIDIA the bandwidth advantage.

Compute resources also differ significantly. The R5 M335 has 320 shading units, 20 TMUs, and 8 ROPs. The Quadro K2100M has 576 shading units, 48 TMUs, and 16 ROPs. That is 80% more shading units, 140% more TMUs, and double the ROPs for the Quadro. Despite this hardware advantage, the Quadro's pixel rate of 8.004 GPixel/s is slightly below the R5 M335's 8.240 GPixel/s. The texture rate tells a different story: the Quadro hits 32.02 GTexel/s versus 20.60 GTexel/s for AMD, a 55% advantage. FP32 compute is also higher on the Quadro at 768.4 GFLOPS versus 659.2 GFLOPS, a 16.6% lead.

Power and physical specs separate them further. The Quadro K2100M has a listed TDP of 55 W and uses an MXM Module slot with an MXM-A (3.0) bus interface. The R5 M335 has no TDP listed, uses PCIe 3.0 x8, and draws power through "None" connectors. Both are portable-device dependent for display outputs. The R5 M335 supports DirectX 12 (11_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.170. The Quadro supports DirectX 12 (11_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.175. The Vulkan revision is slightly newer on the NVIDIA side, but the DirectX feature level is lower (11_0 vs 11_1).

Architecture Differences

The AMD Radeon R5 M335 is built on the GCN 1.0 architecture, using the Exo chip, and belongs to the Gem System (R5 M300) generation. It is fabricated on TSMC's 28 nm process with 690 million transistors on a 56 mm² die. That yields a transistor density of 12.3 million per square millimeter.

The NVIDIA Quadro K2100M uses the Kepler architecture with the GK106S chip, part of the Quadro Kepler-M (Kx100M) generation. It is also on TSMC's 28 nm process, but with 2,540 million transistors on a 221 mm² die. The density is 11.5 million per square millimeter. The transistor count is nearly 3.7 times higher than the AMD chip, and the die is almost four times larger.

These architectural differences explain the benchmark outcomes. Kepler packs far more hardware resources, which shows in texture rate and FP32, but the R5 M335's GCN 1.0 design appears to extract better efficiency in the actual recorded API workloads. The R5 M335's higher pixel rate despite far fewer ROPs suggests that the AMD architecture handles rasterization differently in this configuration. The lack of RT cores and tensor cores on either part means neither card offers ray tracing or tensor acceleration, which is expected for these older mobile GPUs.

The release timeline also differs. The Quadro K2100M came out on 2013-07-22, while the R5 M335 arrived later on 2015-10-20. The AMD part's predecessor is listed as Solar System and its successor as Polaris Mobile. The Quadro's predecessor is Quadro Fermi-M and its successor is Quadro Maxwell-M. Both are end-of-life products.

The Verdict

The data points to the AMD Radeon R5 M335 as the better choice for Vulkan and OpenCL workloads. It wins both head-to-head tests, holds a higher average benchmark score (4752 vs 4151), and sits at a higher percentile (28th vs 25th). If your application uses Vulkan, the 9.6% lead is decisive. Even in OpenCL, where the gap narrows to 3.4%, the AMD card still comes out ahead.

The NVIDIA Quadro K2100M should be the pick only if you specifically need Metal performance, since it is the sole card with a recorded Metal score (3524), or if you value the substantially higher memory bandwidth (48.13 GB/s vs 14.40 GB/s) and raw compute throughput (768.4 GFLOPS vs 659.2 GFLOPS). The Quadro's 55 W TDP and MXM form factor also make it a specific mobile workstation part, whereas the R5 M335 is a more generically integrated mobile GPU.

For most buyers choosing between these two in a legacy laptop, the benchmark record favors the R5 M335. The Vulkan margin alone justifies that verdict. The Quadro is not without merit, particularly in bandwidth-bound tasks, but the recorded head-to-head results are unambiguous: AMD wins 2, NVIDIA wins 0.