AMD Radeon R7 Graphics vs NVIDIA GeForce MX130 Comparison

The NVIDIA GeForce MX130 and AMD Radeon R7 Graphics represent two different philosophies of low-power graphics: a discrete mobile chip on one side, an integrated GPU built into AMD's Kaveri-era silicon on the other. Both are end-of-life parts, both share an identical core configuration on paper, and both sit in the lower third of the database's historical rankings. Yet the recorded data shows they trade wins depending on the API, and the gap between them in raw compute is far larger than their percentile positions suggest.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster overall according to the database?

A: The MX130 holds the higher average benchmark score, 5508 versus 4998 for the Radeon R7 Graphics, placing it in the 32nd percentile of all GPUs versus the Radeon's 29th percentile.

Q: Did either GPU win both benchmarks?

A: No. The head-to-head is split one apiece. The MX130 won Geekbench OpenCL by 52 percent, while the Radeon R7 Graphics won Geekbench Vulkan by 17.8 percent.

Q: How do the two compare in raw compute?

A: The MX130 records 913.2 GFLOPS of FP32 compute against 553.0 GFLOPS for the Radeon, a substantial advantage for the NVIDIA part.

Q: Which chip is newer?

A: The MX130, released on 16 November 2017, arrived nearly three and a half years after the Radeon R7 Graphics, which launched on 16 February 2014 as part of the GCN 2.0 Kaveri integrated lineup.

Q: Do the two GPUs have the same core counts?

A: Yes. Both have 384 shading units, 24 texture mapping units, and 8 render output units. The difference lies in clocks, memory, and architecture, not core counts.

Q: How power-hungry are these chips?

A: Both are modest: the MX130 is rated at 30 W TDP, the Radeon R7 Graphics at 25 W.

Architecture Differences

Despite matching core counts, these chips come from different lineages. The MX130 is built on NVIDIA's Maxwell architecture, fabbed by TSMC on a 28 nm process as the GM108S chip. It packs 1,020 million transistors into a 77 mm² die, yielding a density of 13.2M transistors per mm². The Radeon R7 Graphics belongs to AMD's GCN 2.0 family, branded Spectre Lite, manufactured by GlobalFoundries on the same 28 nm node. It is part of a much larger 245 mm² system die carrying 2,410 million transistors, reflecting its integrated nature as a Kaveri-generation IGP rather than a standalone mobile GPU. Its density works out to 9.8M per mm², lower than the MX130's.

The generational split shows in the API story. The Radeon lists DirectX 12 with the full 12_0 feature level, while the MX130 reports 12 with the older 11_0 feature level. Vulkan support goes deeper on the NVIDIA side: the MX130 lists Vulkan 1.4 against the Radeon's 1.2.170. Both support OpenGL 4.6. Neither GPU has ray tracing or tensor cores, as expected for parts of this class and era.

Memory handling is the sharpest architectural divide. The MX130 carries its own 2 GB of GDDR5 on a 64-bit bus, clocked at 1253 MHz for 5 Gbps effective, delivering 40.10 GB/s of dedicated bandwidth. The Radeon R7 Graphics shares system memory, with size, type, bus width, and bandwidth all dependent on the host platform. That difference matters: the MX130's bandwidth is fixed and known, while the AMD part's effective performance varies with whatever memory the host system provides.

Connectivity differs too. The MX130 connects over PCIe 3.0 x4, needs no power connectors, and its display outputs are portable-device dependent. The Radeon is a pure IGP with motherboard-dependent outputs.

The Verdict

The data favors the MX130 for most users comparing these two directly. Its average benchmark score of 5508 beats the Radeon's 4998, and its raw FP32 compute of 913.2 GFLOPS is roughly two-thirds higher than the Radeon's 553.0 GFLOPS. Pixel and texture throughput also tilt heavily NVIDIA's way: 9.512 GPixel/s versus 5.760 GPixel/s, and 28.54 GTexel/s versus 17.28 GTexel/s. For OpenCL compute workloads the choice is not close, with the MX130 ahead by 52 percent.

The Radeon R7 Graphics has one genuine claim: Vulkan performance. Its 5980 Geekbench Vulkan score beats the MX130's 4914 by 17.8 percent, a notable result given its older architecture and shared-memory design. It also runs at a slightly lower 25 W TDP versus 30 W, and sits inside the CPU die itself, requiring no discrete board, slot, or PCIe wiring. For a system that already carries the Kaveri silicon, it costs nothing extra in hardware.

The rivalry data reinforces how evenly matched these parts are against their respective peers. The MX130's nearest rivals include the GeForce GTX 765M (within 0.1 percent), Radeon R7 M440 (0.5 percent), FirePro M4000 (0.5 percent), and Quadro M4000 (0.7 percent). The Radeon's rivals are similarly clustered, from the Quadro 4000 to the FirePro W4170M, all within under a percent. Both GPUs occupy essentially the same performance neighborhood in the database, just under different names around them.

Specification Differences

The MX130 ships with base and boost clocks of 1109 MHz and 1189 MHz respectively. The database records no clocks for the Radeon R7 Graphics, whose memory is system shared rather than discrete GDDR5. Foundries differ: TSMC for the MX130, GlobalFoundries for the Radeon. Die size and transistor counts diverge sharply as detailed above, and transistor density favors NVIDIA, 13.2M per mm² against 9.8M per mm². The bus interface is PCIe 3.0 x4 on the MX130 versus IGP on the Radeon. DirectX feature levels differ as noted, 11_0 for the MX130 against 12_0 for the Radeon, and Vulkan versions are 1.4 versus 1.2.170. Release dates are nearly four years apart, 2017 for the MX130 and 2014 for the Radeon. The Radeon has a documented predecessor, the TeraScale 3 IGP, and successor, the GCN 3.0 IGP; the MX130 lists neither.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

Two tests, two winners.

Geekbench OpenCL is the MX130's showcase. It scores 6102 against the Radeon's 4015, a 52 percent victory that aligns with its compute advantage: 913.2 GFLOPS FP32 versus 553.0 GFLOPS. The dedicated GDDR5 with 40.10 GB/s of guaranteed bandwidth plausibly reinforces that lead, since the Radeon's shared memory subjects it to system-dependent throughput.

Geekbench Vulkan flips the script. The Radeon R7 Graphics posts 5980, beating the MX130's 4914 by 17.8 percent. It is the only recorded win for the AMD part, but it is a meaningful one, showing the GCN 2.0 architecture holding up in a modern API against newer Maxwell silicon.

With one win each, the tiebreak comes down to margins and supporting data. The MX130's OpenCL win is nearly three times the size of the Radeon's Vulkan win, its average score is higher, its percentile ranking is higher, and its pixel rate, texture rate, and FP32 output all lead comfortably. The database's overall picture: the MX130 is the stronger all-around performer, and the Radeon R7 Graphics is the surprise Vulkan specialist of the pair.