AMD Radeon R5 M430 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670MX Comparison

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670MX and AMD Radeon R5 M430 are both end-of-life mobile GPUs from different eras, and the recorded data shows a clear gap between them. Both chips come from TSMC's 28 nm node, but they occupy very different tiers: the GTX 670MX sits at the 33rd percentile of all GPUs in the database, while the R5 M430 lands at the 30th. That small percentile difference understates the hardware divide, because the benchmark results and the underlying specifications both favor NVIDIA decisively.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The GTX 670MX wins both head-to-head tests in the database, and it wins by margins that matter.

In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the GTX 670MX scores 6125 against the R5 M430's 5152, an 18.9 percent advantage. That is a wide gap, large enough that the R5 M430 would need a generational jump, not a driver update, to close it. The Vulkan test narrows the gap but does not flip it: 5316 for the GTX 670MX versus 4884 for the R5 M430, an 8.8 percent lead. The Vulkan result is interesting because it shows the R5 M430 holding relatively closer in a modern, lower-overhead API, but closer is not close.

The average benchmark scores tell the same story: 5721 for the GTX 670MX versus 5018 for the R5 M430. Context from each card's rival circle reinforces the picture. The GTX 670MX performs almost identically to the Intel Iris Pro Graphics P6300 (5712, a 0.2 percent difference), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti (5731, 0.2 percent behind), and the AMD Radeon HD 8790M (5691, 0.5 percent ahead), while sitting 2.1 percent ahead of the NVIDIA Quadro M500M. The R5 M430 clusters with the AMD FirePro W4170M (0.3 percent behind), the AMD Radeon R7 Graphics (0.4 percent ahead), the NVIDIA Quadro 4000 (0.8 percent ahead), and the AMD Radeon R7 M340 (0.9 percent behind). Both cards live in the entry-level segment of the database, but the GTX 670MX consistently sits above its immediate peers by slightly more than the R5 M430 sits above its own.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster overall?

A: The GTX 670MX. It wins both recorded head-to-head benchmarks, leading by 18.9 percent in Geekbench OpenCL and 8.8 percent in Geekbench Vulkan, with a higher average benchmark score (5721 vs 5018).

Q: Which has more memory?

A: The R5 M430, with 4 GB, but it is DDR3 on a 64 bit bus delivering 16.00 GB/s. The GTX 670MX has 3 GB of GDDR5 on a 192 bit bus delivering 67.20 GB/s, which is the more useful memory subsystem in practice.

Q: How do their compute capabilities compare?

A: The GTX 670MX delivers 1153.9 GFLOPS of FP32 compute against 547.2 GFLOPS for the R5 M430, more than double the throughput.

Q: Which supports the newer DirectX feature level?

A: The R5 M430, technically. It lists DirectX 12 (11_1) while the GTX 670MX lists DirectX 12 (11_0). Both support OpenGL 4.6, and their Vulkan support is nearly identical (1.2.175 vs 1.2.170).

Q: How power-hungry is each?

A: The GTX 670MX has a recorded TDP of 75 W and needs no power connectors. The R5 M430's TDP is not recorded, and it is classified as an IGP-slot part, so the data is inconclusive on its power draw.

Q: Are either of these still in production?

A: No. Both are marked end-of-life in the database.

Architecture Differences

Both GPUs were fabbed at TSMC on 28 nm, and their transistor densities are nearly identical (12.0M/mm² for the GTX 670MX, 12.3M/mm² for the R5 M430). Everything else about their silicon diverges sharply.

The GTX 670MX uses NVIDIA's Kepler architecture on the GK104 chip, part of the GeForce 600M generation, sandwiched between the GeForce 500M predecessor and the GeForce 700M successor. The R5 M430 uses AMD's GCN 1.0 architecture on the "Jet" chip, part of the R5 M400 generation, following "Solar System" and preceding Polaris Mobile.

The scale difference is the real story. The GTX 670MX packs 3,540 million transistors onto a 294 mm² die. The R5 M430 manages 690 million transistors on a 56 mm² die. That is roughly a fifth of the transistors on roughly a fifth of the silicon area. Kepler's budget bought 960 shading units, 80 TMUs, and 24 ROPs, versus 320 shading units, 20 TMUs, and 8 ROPs on the R5 M430. Three times the shaders, four times the ROPs.

Neither card has RT cores or tensor cores, as expected for GPUs of this class and vintage.

Specification Differences

The fields where these two differ:

• Clocks: The R5 M430 actually clocks higher, at 780 MHz base and 855 MHz boost, versus a flat 601 MHz base and boost on the GTX 670MX. Memory also clocks higher on paper (1000 MHz, 2 Gbps effective) versus the GTX 670MX's 700 MHz (2.8 Gbps effective), but the memory type and bus width erase that advantage.
• Memory: The GTX 670MX uses 3 GB of GDDR5 on a 192 bit bus for 67.20 GB/s of bandwidth. The R5 M430 uses 4 GB of DDR3 on a 64 bit bus for 16.00 GB/s. The R5 M430's extra gigabyte cannot compensate for roughly a quarter of the bandwidth.
• Throughput: Pixel rate is 12.02 GPixel/s versus 6.840 GPixel/s, and texture rate is 48.08 GTexel/s versus 17.10 GTexel/s, both heavily favoring the GTX 670MX.
• Compute: FP32 output is 1153.9 GFLOPS versus 547.2 GFLOPS.
• TDP: 75 W recorded for the GTX 670MX; not recorded for the R5 M430.
• Bus interface: PCIe 3.0 x16 for the GTX 670MX, PCIe 3.0 x8 for the R5 M430.
• API support: DirectX 12 (11_0) versus 12 (11_1) in the R5 M430's favor; Vulkan 1.2.175 versus 1.2.170 in the GTX 670MX's favor; OpenGL 4.6 on both.
• Release date: The GTX 670MX's recorded release date is 2012-09-30; the R5 M430 has no release date in the database.
• Slot classification: The R5 M430 is listed as IGP-width; the GTX 670MX's slot width is not recorded.

Where Each One Wins

The GTX 670MX wins every performance category the database measures. It wins OpenCL compute by 18.9 percent, Vulkan by 8.8 percent, and it wins on every structural spec: shading units (960 vs 320), TMUs (80 vs 20), ROPs (24 vs 8), pixel rate (12.02 vs 6.840 GPixel/s), texture rate (48.08 vs 17.10 GTexel/s), FP32 compute (1153.9 vs 547.2 GFLOPS), and memory bandwidth (67.20 vs 16.00 GB/s). For any gaming, rendering, or compute workload reflected in these numbers, the GTX 670MX is the stronger part.

The R5 M430's wins are narrower and largely theoretical. It has 4 GB of memory instead of 3 GB, though on much slower DDR3. It clocks higher (780/855 MHz versus a flat 601 MHz). It claims a slightly newer DirectX feature level (11_1 versus 11_0). And as an IGP-classified part with no recorded TDP and a tiny 56 mm² die, it is the smaller, more integrated design of the two. None of these translate into benchmark wins, but they describe a part built for efficiency and integration rather than throughput.

The Verdict

Based strictly on the recorded data, the GTX 670MX is the pick for anyone choosing between these two on performance. It swept both head-to-head benchmarks, it more than doubles the R5 M430's FP32 compute, it delivers over four times the memory bandwidth, and it renders pixels nearly twice as fast. Its peer group (GTX 550 Ti, HD 8790M, Iris Pro P6300) also sits slightly higher in the database than the R5 M430's peer group.

The R5 M430 only makes sense where its specific characteristics matter more than speed: a machine that needs the integrated-class form factor, or a workload that leans on its extra gigabyte of memory despite the slow DDR3 bus. As a pure performance choice between the two, the data points one direction, and it is not close.