AMD Radeon R7 M260 vs NVIDIA Quadro 3000M Comparison

# AMD Radeon R7 M260 vs NVIDIA Quadro 3000M

The mobile GPU market is full of compromises, and these two parts approach it from very different angles. The AMD Radeon R7 M260 is a mainstream mobile chip built for thin-and-light systems, while the NVIDIA Quadro 3000M is a professional mobile workstation part with a much larger silicon budget. The database shows that these parts rarely land in the same chassis, but when they do, the choice comes down to what the workload demands.

FAQ

Q: Which card has more shading units?

A: The AMD Radeon R7 M260 carries 384 shading units, while the NVIDIA Quadro 3000M has 240. That is a 60% advantage for the AMD part in raw shader throughput.

Q: Which GPU has the higher memory bandwidth?

A: The NVIDIA Quadro 3000M is the clear winner here. Its 256-bit GDDR5 interface delivers 80.00 GB/s of bandwidth. The AMD R7 M260 uses a 64-bit DDR3 bus for 14.40 GB/s. The NVIDIA part offers more than 5.5 times the bandwidth.

Q: Do these GPUs support modern APIs?

A: Both support DirectX 12 and OpenGL 4.6. The AMD R7 M260 also supports Vulkan 1.2.170, which the NVIDIA Quadro 3000M lacks. For compute workloads, the AMD part is the only one of the two to offer FP16 at the same rate as FP32 (1:1).

Q: Which card has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The average score across all recorded OpenCL workloads in the database is 4499 for the AMD R7 M260, versus 3718 for the NVIDIA Quadro 3000M. That puts the AMD part at the 26th percentile of all GPUs, while the NVIDIA part is at the 22nd percentile. Both are firmly in the lower half of the database.

Q: Are these parts from the same generation?

A: No. The AMD Radeon R7 M260 is based on the GCN 3.0 architecture, using a 28 nm process at TSMC. The NVIDIA Quadro 3000M is a Fermi chip built on TSMC's 40 nm node. The AMD chip is the newer design, but the NVIDIA chip has a larger transistor count.

Q: What do the closest rivals to these GPUs score?

A: For AMD, the nearest rival is the AMD FirePro W4190 with an average score of 4505, which is 0.1% behind. For NVIDIA, the nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce GT 635M, which scores 3740, about 0.6% behind.

Where Each One Wins

Looking at the recorded benchmark results, the split is straightforward. The AMD Radeon R7 M260 wins in raw compute throughput, while the NVIDIA Quadro 3000M wins in memory performance and overall consistency.

OpenCL compute. The AMD part with 384 shading units and 24 texture mapping units scores 3708 in the geekbench OpenCL test. The NVIDIA Quadro 3000M, with 240 shading units and 40 TMUs, scores 3718. That is a 0.3% advantage for the NVIDIA part, which is within run-to-run variance.

Vulkan support: The AMD Radeon R7 M260 is the only one of the two with Vulkan support, scoring 5289 in the geekbench_vulkan workload. That score sits alone in the database; the Quadro 3000M has no Vulkan result recorded. This matters only if the target application uses Vulkan.

Memory bandwidth: The NVIDIA Quadro 3000M is the decisive winner. Its 80.00 GB/s of bandwidth is over 5.5 times the 14.40 GB/s provided by the AMD R7 M260. For memory-heavy workloads, this is the only sane choice.

Architecture Differences

The two chips come from different architectural families and different fabs. The AMD Radeon R7 M260 uses the GCN 3.0 architecture (chip name Topaz) and is built on a 28 nm process at TSMC. That translates into a die size of 125 mm² holding 1,550 million transistors, for a density of 12.4M per mm². The NVIDIA Quadro 3000M uses the GF104 chip, a Fermi architecture part built on a 40 nm process, also at TSMC. The die is much larger at 332 mm², and packs 1,950 million transistors, but density falls to 5.9M per mm².

The AMD part has the more modern architecture and the smaller process. The NVIDIA chip is older, but it uses that space for a wider memory bus and more ROPs.

Clock behavior: The AMD Radeon R7 M260 has a base clock of 940 MHz and a boost of 980 MHz. The NVIDIA Quadro 3000M does not list a base or boost clock in the database, but its memory clock is 625 MHz, which yields an effective data rate of 2.5 Gbps. The AMD memory clock runs at 900 MHz, with 1.8 Gbps effective.

Specification Differences

The key spec differences are concentrated in the memory subsystem and the rendering backend.

• Memory bus width: The NVIDIA Quadro 3000M uses a 256 bit bus. The AMD Radeon R7 M260 uses a 64 bit bus.
• Memory type: NVIDIA uses GDDR5 memory, AMD uses DDR3.
• Memory bandwidth: 80.00 GB/s on the NVIDIA, 14.40 GB/s on the AMD.
• Shading units: 240 on the NVIDIA, 384 on the AMD.
• Texture mapping units: 40 on the NVIDIA, 24 on the AMD.
• ROPs: 32 on the NVIDIA, 8 on the AMD.
• Transistor count: 1,950 million (NVIDIA), 1,550 million (AMD).
• Process node: 40 nm (NVIDIA), 28 nm (AMD).
• Slot: The NVIDIA uses an MXM-B (3.0) interface, the AMD uses PCIe 3.0 x8.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The most important recorded difference in the database is the memory performance. This is where the NVIDIA Quadro 3000M asserts its dominance.

The table below shows the single head-to-head record between the two parts, from the geekbench_opencl workload:

| Test | AMD Radeon R7 M260 | NVIDIA Quadro 3000M | Winner | Delta |

|---|---|---|---|

| geekbench_opencl | 3708 | 3718 | NVIDIA Quadro 3000M | -0.3% |

That single OpenCL run is essentially a tie. The NVIDIA card scores 3718, 10 points ahead of the AMD card's 3708, a 0.3% margin. The delta is within noise.

But the overall averages tell a different story. The AMD Radeon R7 M260 sits at the 26th percentile of all GPUs, while the NVIDIA Quadro 3000M is at the 22nd. Across all recorded workloads, the AMD averages 4499, and the NVIDIA averages 3718. The AMD is 21% ahead on average.

Where does that average lead come from? The AMD has more shading units and a newer process. The NVIDIA has a substantially wider memory bus, which helps in memory-bound workloads.

The Verdict

From the recorded data, there is no contest for memory-heavy workloads. The NVIDIA Quadro 3000M is the one to beat. Its 80.00 GB/s of bandwidth is a decisive advantage, and its 32 ROPs are better suited for fill-rate-limited work. The AMD Radeon R7 M260 wins the compute-heavy workloads, with its 384 shaders, and is the only one of the two that supports Vulkan. The AMD is also the newer architecture, with the 28 nm process, and a smaller die.

Pick the NVIDIA Quadro 3000M if the application is bound by memory bandwidth or if it renders a large scenes with heavy fill-rate demands. Pick the AMD Radeon R7 M260 if the software stack relies on Vulkan, or if the workload is pure compute with the need for a larger shader array.