AMD Radeon R7 M260X vs NVIDIA Quadro M4000 Comparison

The Verdict

The benchmark data presents a very clear hierarchy: the NVIDIA Quadro M4000 is in a different performance class entirely than the AMD Radeon R7 M260X. In the two shared benchmark tests, the Quadro M4000 wins decisively, with the closest margin being a 236% advantage in Geekbench OpenCL. The average benchmark scores reinforce this gap — the Quadro M4000 sits at 5467, while the Radeon R7 M260X averages 5161. However, the percentile rankings tell a more nuanced story: the Quadro M4000 sits at the 32nd percentile of all GPUs, and the Radeon R7 M260X is only slightly behind at the 30th percentile. This means neither card is a top-tier performer by modern standards, but the Quadro M4000 is clearly the stronger option of the two.

Who should pick which? The data suggests the Quadro M4000 is the choice for anyone needing workstation-class compute throughput. Its 1664 shading units, 104 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs dwarf the Radeon's 384 shading units, 24 TMUs, and 8 ROPs. The Quadro M4000 also carries 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 192.3 GB/s of bandwidth — more than triple the Radeon's 64.00 GB/s. For professional workloads like OpenCL compute or Vulkan rendering, the Quadro M4000's lead is not incremental; it is transformative.

The Radeon R7 M260X, meanwhile, is a mobile-oriented part with a 1024 MB memory pool and a 128-bit interface. Its benchmark results are modest — 5690 in Geekbench OpenCL and 4631 in Vulkan — but it does occupy a similar percentile tier to the Quadro M4000. This suggests that for basic tasks, the Radeon is not a complete outlier. Yet with no wins in the head-to-head tests, there is no benchmark category where the data supports choosing the Radeon over the Quadro M4000. The verdict is unambiguous: the Quadro M4000 is the superior part, and the Radeon R7 M260X is only relevant if its lower power requirements and portable-device form factor are absolute constraints.

FAQ

Q: How much faster is the NVIDIA Quadro M4000 than the AMD Radeon R7 M260X in Geekbench OpenCL?

A: The Quadro M4000 scores 19118, while the Radeon R7 M260X scores 5690. That is a 236% advantage for the NVIDIA card, meaning it delivers more than triple the OpenCL performance.

Q: Which GPU has a higher average benchmark score, and by how much?

A: The Quadro M4000 averages 5467 across its benchmark suite, while the Radeon R7 M260X averages 5161. The difference is 306 points, or roughly 5.9% — a modest gap in average terms, but the head-to-head results reveal much larger deltas.

Q: What is the memory configuration difference between the two cards?

A: The Quadro M4000 uses 8 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus with 192.3 GB/s bandwidth. The Radeon R7 M260X uses 1024 MB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus with 64.00 GB/s. The Quadro has eight times the memory capacity and three times the bandwidth.

Q: How do the two GPUs compare in Vulkan performance?

A: The Quadro M4000 scores 24640 in Geekbench Vulkan, versus 4631 for the Radeon R7 M260X. That is a 432.1% delta — the Quadro is more than five times faster in this API workload.

Q: Are these GPUs in the same performance percentile tier?

A: Yes, they are close. The Quadro M4000 is at the 32nd percentile of all GPUs, and the Radeon R7 M260X is at the 30th percentile. Despite the massive head-to-head deltas, both cards sit in the lower third of the overall performance distribution.

Q: Which card has a higher transistor count, and what does that imply?

A: The Quadro M4000 contains 5,200 million transistors on a 398 mm² die, while the Radeon R7 M260X has 950 million transistors on a 77 mm² die. The Quadro's larger silicon budget directly enables its higher shading unit count, texture rate, and memory bandwidth.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two GPUs is fundamental. The Quadro M4000 is built on NVIDIA's Maxwell 2.0 architecture, using the GM204 chip fabricated on a 28 nm process at TSMC. It packs 5,200 million transistors into a 398 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 13.1M per mm². The Radeon R7 M260X, in contrast, uses AMD's GCN 1.0 architecture with the Opal chip, also on a 28 nm TSMC process, but with just 950 million transistors on a 77 mm² die — a density of 12.3M per mm². The die size difference is stark: the Quadro M4000's chip is more than five times larger physically.

This silicon disparity translates directly into resource counts. The Quadro M4000 fields 1664 shading units, 104 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. The Radeon R7 M260X manages only 384 shading units, 24 TMUs, and 8 ROPs. The Quadro M4000 also has a wider memory bus (256-bit versus 128-bit) and a faster effective memory speed (6 Gbps versus 4 Gbps). The compute output is similarly lopsided: the Quadro M4000 delivers 2.573 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, while the Radeon R7 M260X peaks at 549.1 GFLOPS.

The API support differs as well. The Quadro M4000 supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The Radeon R7 M260X supports DirectX 12 (11_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.170. The Vulkan version difference is notable — the Quadro's newer API revision aligns with its more modern architecture. The Quadro M4000 also uses a PCIe 3.0 x16 interface, while the Radeon is limited to PCIe 3.0 x8. For bandwidth-hungry workloads, the wider interface on the Quadro is another advantage.

Specification Differences

The specification tables reveal nearly every major field favors the Quadro M4000. The memory subsystem is the most dramatic gap: 8 GB versus 1024 MB capacity, 256-bit versus 128-bit bus width, and 192.3 GB/s versus 64.00 GB/s bandwidth. The memory clock also differs, with the Quadro running at 1502 MHz (6 Gbps effective) versus 1000 MHz (4 Gbps effective) on the Radeon.

The compute resources are equally one-sided. The Quadro M4000 has 1664 shading units versus 384, 104 TMUs versus 24, and 64 ROPs versus 8. Pixel rate is 49.47 GPixel/s for the Quadro versus 5.720 GPixel/s for the Radeon. Texture rate is 80.39 GTexel/s versus 17.16 GTexel/s. FP32 throughput is 2.573 TFLOPS versus 549.1 GFLOPS — a factor of nearly five.

The physical specifications also diverge. The Quadro M4000 is a single-slot card, 241 mm long and 111 mm high, requiring a 300 W suggested PSU with a single 6-pin power connector. It has a TDP of 120 W. The Radeon R7 M260X has no listed TDP, no slot width, no dimensions, and no PSU recommendation — it uses no power connectors and is described as "Portable Device Dependent" for display outputs. This indicates the Radeon is designed for mobile or embedded systems, while the Quadro M4000 is a desktop workstation card. The Quadro M4000 outputs via 4x DisplayPort 1.2; the Radeon's outputs depend entirely on the host device.

The bus interface is another differentiator: PCIe 3.0 x16 for the Quadro versus PCIe 3.0 x8 for the Radeon. The Radeon's generation string is "Gem System (R7 M200)," while the Quadro is "Quadro Maxwell (Mx000)." The Radeon's predecessor is "Solar System" and successor is "Polaris Mobile," reinforcing its mobile lineage. The Quadro's predecessor is "Quadro Kepler" and successor is "Quadro Pascal," placing it in the professional workstation line.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The two shared benchmarks tell a brutally simple story. In Geekbench OpenCL, the Quadro M4000 scores 19118 against the Radeon R7 M260X's 5690. That is a delta of 236% — the Quadro is 3.36 times faster. In Geekbench Vulkan, the gap widens further: 24640 versus 4631, a 432.1% delta. The Quadro M4000 is more than 5.3 times faster in Vulkan.

These deltas are enormous, but they must be contextualized. The Quadro M4000's average benchmark score is 5467, which is only 5.9% higher than the Radeon's 5161 average. The discrepancy between the head-to-head deltas and the average score gap suggests that the Quadro M4000's benchmark suite includes tests where it does not dominate as thoroughly — for instance, its Passmark DirectX 9 score of 113, DirectX 11 score of 49, and DirectX 12 score of 26 are not stellar. The Radeon R7 M260X, by contrast, has only two benchmarks listed, both of which are the head-to-head tests it loses.

The Quadro M4000's percentile rank of 32 versus the Radeon's 30 is a narrow gap, but the head-to-head results are not narrow at all. This implies the Radeon's average score benefits from a lack of low-end benchmark data points — it has no Passmark scores to drag down its average. The Quadro M4000's 6680 Passmark G3D score and 2660 Passmark GPU Compute score are solid, but its low DirectX-specific scores (26-49) pull the average down. The data shows that aggregate scores can obscure massive performance differences in specific workloads.

Where Each One Wins

The Quadro M4000 wins everywhere the data can measure. In the two head-to-head tests, it takes both. In OpenCL compute, its 236% lead indicates a GPU designed for professional compute tasks — the 1664 shading units and 2.573 TFLOPS FP32 throughput are the hardware foundations for that win. In Vulkan, the 432.1% lead is even more pronounced, likely driven by the combination of newer architecture support (Vulkan 1.4 versus 1.2.170), wider memory bus, and higher texture fill rate.

The Radeon R7 M260X has zero benchmark wins in the shared tests. Its only potential advantages are qualitative: it has no power connector requirement, no listed TDP, and is portable-device dependent, meaning it can fit in thin laptops where the Quadro M4000's 241 mm length and 120 W TDP would be impossible. The Radeon's PCIe 3.0 x8 interface is narrower but also more power-efficient. For a system builder constrained by physical space and power delivery, the Radeon R7 M260X might be the only option that physically fits, even if it loses every performance comparison.

The use-case split is therefore not about performance — it is about form factor. The Quadro M4000 is for desktop workstations needing maximum compute per slot, with single-slot cooling and DisplayPort outputs for multi-monitor professional setups. The Radeon R7 M260X is for mobile devices where the GPU must share power and thermal budgets with the rest of the system. The data does not support choosing the Radeon for any performance reason; it only supports choosing it for physical integration constraints. The Quadro M4000's 8 GB memory alone makes it the clear pick for large datasets, and its 49.47 GPixel/s pixel rate is suited for high-resolution rendering. The Radeon's 5.720 GPixel/s is a fraction of that capability. In every measurable way, the Quadro M4000 is the superior GPU — the only question is whether your chassis can accommodate it.