AMD Radeon R7 240 vs NVIDIA Quadro M500M Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database contains a single direct benchmark comparison between the NVIDIA Quadro M500M and the AMD Radeon R7 240, recorded under Geekbench OpenCL. In this test, the NVIDIA Quadro M500M scores 5,986 points against 5,063 points for the AMD Radeon R7 240. That is a decisive 18.2% advantage for the Quadro M500M, a gap that places the two cards in clearly different performance tiers despite their similar thermal envelopes.

The OpenCL result is not an isolated outlier. Looking at the broader average benchmark scores, the Quadro M500M holds a composite average of 5,604 points, while the Radeon R7 240 averages 5,063 points. This works out to a roughly 10.7% overall lead for the NVIDIA part across the recorded measurements. The Quadro also has a second recorded benchmark, a Geekbench Vulkan score of 5,222, which provides additional evidence of its compute capabilities beyond the single head-to-head test.

Context from the nearest rivals list reinforces the picture. The Quadro M500M sits 1.2% above the AMD FirePro M4000 (5,537 points), 1.7% above the NVIDIA GeForce MX130 (5,508 points), and 1.9% above the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M (5,501 points). It trails the AMD Radeon HD 8790M by 1.5% (5,691 points). These are tight margins, indicating that the Quadro M500M clusters with a group of mid-range mobile and entry desktop parts, none of which can run away from it by more than a couple of percent.

The Radeon R7 240, by contrast, sits at the very bottom of its own rival cluster. It is exactly level with the AMD Radeon R7 M340 (5,063 points, 0% delta), 0.6% ahead of the AMD FirePro W4170M (5,034 points), 0.9% ahead of the AMD Radeon R5 M430 (5,018 points), and 1.3% ahead of the AMD Radeon R7 Graphics (4,998 points). The R7 240 is effectively the baseline for this segment, with every rival either matching it or slightly exceeding it. The Quadro M500M, by comparison, sits near the top of its peer group.

The magnitude of the head-to-head delta matters more than the raw point difference might suggest. An 18.2% gap in a synthetic compute workload typically translates to visible real-world differences in GPU-accelerated tasks, especially those that scale with shading throughput and memory bandwidth. The Quadro M500M delivers 863.2 GFLOPS of FP32 compute against 499.2 GFLOPS for the R7 240, a 72.9% theoretical advantage. The OpenCL score understates this raw compute gap, likely because the R7 240's wider memory bus helps it feed its shaders more efficiently relative to its compute ceiling.

Both cards are limited to 30 W TDP, which makes the performance difference particularly notable. The Quadro M500M extracts substantially more compute throughput from the same power budget, a result of both its higher clock speeds and its more efficient architecture. The R7 240 compensates with a wider 128-bit memory bus, which doubles its memory bandwidth to 28.80 GB/s against the Quadro's 14.40 GB/s, but that bandwidth advantage does not translate into a benchmark win in the recorded data.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster in the direct benchmark comparison?

A: The NVIDIA Quadro M500M wins the only head-to-head benchmark, Geekbench OpenCL, with a score of 5,986 against 5,063 for the AMD Radeon R7 240, an 18.2% advantage.

Q: How close are the two cards in overall average performance?

A: The Quadro M500M has an average benchmark score of 5,604 across its recorded tests, while the R7 240 averages 5,063. The Quadro leads by roughly 10.7% in the aggregate.

Q: Does the Radeon R7 240 have any memory bandwidth advantage?

A: Yes, the R7 240 uses a 128-bit memory bus with DDR3 memory, delivering 28.80 GB/s of bandwidth. The Quadro M500M has a 64-bit bus and delivers 14.40 GB/s, exactly half the bandwidth.

Q: How does the Radeon R7 240 compare to its own nearest rivals?

A: It is exactly matched with the AMD Radeon R7 M340 at 5,063 points, and it leads the AMD FirePro W4170M by 0.6%, the AMD Radeon R5 M430 by 0.9%, and the AMD Radeon R7 Graphics by 1.3%.

Q: What is the Vulkan performance of the Quadro M500M?

A: The Quadro M500M records a Geekbench Vulkan score of 5,222. The Radeon R7 240 has no Vulkan benchmark entry in the database, so no direct comparison is available for that API.

Q: Which card has a higher pixel fill rate?

A: The Quadro M500M achieves 8.992 GPixel/s, while the R7 240 achieves 6.240 GPixel/s. The Quadro leads by roughly 44% in pixel throughput.

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA Quadro M500M is the clear winner in raw compute performance. It takes the only direct head-to-head benchmark, the Geekbench OpenCL test, by 18.2%. It also holds substantial leads in shading power, with 863.2 GFLOPS against 499.2 GFLOPS, and in pixel fill rate, at 8.992 GPixel/s versus 6.240 GPixel/s. Its texture rate of 17.98 GTexel/s also edges out the R7 240's 15.60 GTexel/s. Any workload that stresses general-purpose compute, pixel throughput, or texture filtering will favor the Quadro M500M. Its Vulkan score of 5,222 further demonstrates that it handles modern compute APIs competently. The Quadro's higher boost clock of 1,124 MHz against the R7 240's 780 MHz boost gives it a clock speed advantage of more than 44%, which helps explain its compute dominance.

The AMD Radeon R7 240 wins in memory bandwidth and bus width. Its 128-bit memory interface delivers 28.80 GB/s, exactly double the Quadro's 14.40 GB/s. For workloads that are bandwidth-bound rather than compute-bound, such as certain image processing filters or memory-heavy OpenCL kernels, the R7 240's wider pipe could narrow the gap or potentially reverse it in specific scenarios, even though the recorded benchmark shows no such case. The R7 240 also has more texture mapping units, 20 against 16, which gives it a higher theoretical texture unit count even though its lower clock speed results in a lower overall texture rate.

For desktop integration, the R7 240 offers a standard single-slot form factor with fixed display outputs (1x DVI, 1x HDMI 1.4a, 1x VGA) and a PCIe 3.0 x8 interface. The Quadro M500M uses an MXM module form factor, which is designed for laptops and workstations, with display outputs described as portable device dependent. Users building a desktop system with a standard expansion slot will find the R7 240 far easier to install. Users upgrading a mobile workstation will have no choice but the MXM form factor.

The R7 240 also claims a slightly newer DirectX feature level, 12 (11_1) against the Quadro's 12 (11_0), though both support DirectX 12. The R7 240 supports Vulkan 1.2.170, while the Quadro supports Vulkan 1.4, a newer API version. Neither card supports hardware ray tracing or tensor cores, as both lack those units entirely.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ across nearly every major specification category. The Quadro M500M uses a 64-bit memory bus with 2 GB of DDR3 memory and 14.40 GB/s bandwidth. The R7 240 uses a 128-bit bus with the same 2 GB of DDR3 memory but doubles the bandwidth to 28.80 GB/s. The Quadro has 384 shading units, 16 texture mapping units, and 8 ROPs. The R7 240 has 320 shading units, 20 texture mapping units, and 8 ROPs. The Quadro has more shaders, the R7 240 has more TMUs, and they match on ROPs.

Clock speeds diverge sharply. The Quadro runs at a 1,029 MHz base clock and 1,124 MHz boost, while the R7 240 runs at 730 MHz base and 780 MHz boost. Both cards use 900 MHz memory with 1,800 Mbps effective data rate. The Quadro's higher clocks give it a 44% boost clock advantage.

Compute rates follow the clock gap. The Quadro delivers 863.2 GFLOPS of FP32 performance, 17.98 GTexel/s of texture rate, and 8.992 GPixel/s of pixel rate. The R7 240 delivers 499.2 GFLOPS, 15.60 GTexel/s, and 6.240 GPixel/s. The Quadro leads by 72.9% in FP32, 15.3% in texture rate, and 44.1% in pixel rate.

Form factors differ completely. The Quadro is an MXM Module with no power connectors and no suggested PSU rating. The R7 240 is a single-slot card measuring 168 mm (6.6 inches) in length and 69 mm (2.7 inches) in height, with no power connectors and a suggested PSU of 200 W. The Quadro's display outputs are portable device dependent, while the R7 240 offers fixed outputs: 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 1.4a, and 1x VGA. The bus interfaces also differ: MXM-A (3.0) for the Quadro and PCIe 3.0 x8 for the R7 240.

Both cards carry a 30 W TDP, are built on a 28 nm process at TSMC, and are end-of-life products. The Quadro was released on 2016-04-26, while the R7 240 was released on 2013-10-07, a gap of roughly two and a half years. The R7 240 has a launch MSRP of 69 USD. The Quadro has no recorded launch MSRP.

Architecture Differences

The NVIDIA Quadro M500M is built on the Maxwell architecture with the GM108S chip. It uses 1,020 million transistors on a 77 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 13.2 million transistors per square millimeter. The R7 240 uses AMD's GCN 1.0 architecture with the Oland chip, packing 950 million transistors on the same 77 mm² die size, for a density of 12.3 million transistors per square millimeter. The Quadro crams about 7.4% more transistors into the same silicon area.

Both chips are fabricated by TSMC on a 28 nm process node, so the differences come down to architectural design rather than manufacturing technology. The Maxwell architecture in the Quadro represents NVIDIA's second-generation of its unified shader design, optimized for higher clock speeds and better power efficiency per shader. The GCN 1.0 architecture in the R7 240 is AMD's first-generation Graphics Core Next design, which emphasizes parallel compute through a different scheduling model.

The Quadro's higher transistor count and transistor density reflect Maxwell's more compact shader design. With 384 shading units running at a 1,124 MHz boost clock, the Quadro achieves 863.2 GFLOPS. The R7 240's 320 shading units at 780 MHz boost produce only 499.2 GFLOPS. The Quadro extracts more than 72% more compute throughput from just 7.4% more transistors, a signal of Maxwell's per-shader efficiency advantage over GCN 1.0.

Memory subsystems differ in width but not in type. Both use DDR3 memory, but the R7 240's 128-bit bus doubles the Quadro's 64-bit bus width. This gives the R7 240 28.80 GB/s of bandwidth against 14.40 GB/s for the Quadro. The R7 240's wider bus compensates for its lower clock speeds and compute throughput, suggesting AMD designed the card to prioritize memory-heavy workloads while NVIDIA focused on shader throughput.

The Quadro belongs to the Quadro Maxwell-M generation (Mx000M series) and succeeds the Quadro Kepler-M line, with the Quadro Pascal-M as its successor. The R7 240 belongs to the Volcanic Islands generation (R7 200 series), succeeding Sea Islands and preceding Pirate Islands. These generational placements reflect different product strategies: the Quadro targets professional mobile workstations, while the R7 240 targets entry-level desktop consumers.

API support differs in detail. The Quadro supports DirectX 12 (11_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The R7 240 supports DirectX 12 (11_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.170. The Quadro's newer Vulkan version suggests better long-term support for modern compute APIs, despite the R7 240 having a marginally higher DirectX feature level. Neither card includes any ray tracing cores or tensor cores, as those technologies arrived in later generations for both vendors.