AMD Radeon R7 M460 vs NVIDIA Quadro K4000 Comparison

The AMD Radeon R7 M460 and the NVIDIA Quadro K4000 occupy very different corners of the GPU landscape, yet the database places them surprisingly close together in aggregate performance. One is a compact GCN 3.0 part built for the Gemini System generation of mobile products; the other is a Kepler-era professional card from the Quadro Kx000 line. Both are end-of-life, both are fabricated on a 28 nm process at TSMC, and both land within a handful of percentile points of each other across the full GPU population recorded in our measurements. What follows is a look at where the recorded data says each one holds an advantage, and why the raw scores only tell part of the story.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only test in which both cards appear is Geekbench OpenCL, and it is the Quadro K4000 that takes the win: 6816 for the NVIDIA card against 6612 for the Radeon R7 M460, a gap of 3 percent in the K4000's favor. That is a narrow margin, and it is worth questioning what it actually implies. Three percent in a compute benchmark rarely translates into a visible difference in real workloads; it suggests the two parts are functionally tied in OpenCL throughput, with the K4000 edging ahead on the strength of its much wider hardware.

The head-to-head record therefore stands at one win for the Quadro K4000 and zero for the Radeon R7 M460. But the aggregate averages tell a slightly different tale depending on which side you examine. The R7 M460's average benchmark score sits at 6612, derived entirely from that single OpenCL run, placing it in the 38th percentile of all GPUs in the database. The Quadro K4000 averages 5982 across three Geekbench tests, OpenCL at 6816, Metal at 4166, and Vulkan at 6964, and sits in the 34th percentile. Curiously, the M460's percentile is higher even though its best score is lower. The explanation is distributional: the K4000's average is dragged down by its weak Metal result of 4166, which sits far below its own OpenCL and Vulkan numbers, while the M460 simply has no low outlier in the record.

Looking at the rival clusters sharpens the picture. The R7 M460's nearest competitors include the AMD Radeon HD 7730M at 6581 (a 0.5 percent gap), the Intel UHD Graphics P750 at 6554 (0.9 percent), the NVIDIA GeForce GT 1010 at 6698 (the M460 trails it by 1.3 percent), and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670M at 6513 (the M460 leads by 1.5 percent). Every one of those gaps is under two percent, which frames the M460 as sitting at the center of a tightly packed band of entry-level performers. The Quadro K4000's rivals are even closer: the Quadro K4000M at 5986, the FirePro W4100 at 5987, the Radeon HD 8750M at 5970, and the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server at 5996, all within 0.2 percent of the K4000's 5982 average. Averages this tightly clustered are a statistical curiosity, and they mean small changes in the underlying tests could reshuffle that ordering without indicating any real performance difference.

FAQ

Q: Which card wins the shared benchmark?

A: The NVIDIA Quadro K4000 wins Geekbench OpenCL with 6816 points versus 6612 for the Radeon R7 M460, a 3 percent advantage.

Q: How do their percentile rankings compare?

A: The Radeon R7 M460 sits in the 38th percentile of all GPUs in the database; the Quadro K4000 sits in the 34th. The M460 ranks slightly higher despite losing the only head-to-head test, because the K4000's three-test average is pulled down by a Metal score of 4166.

Q: Do they use the same manufacturing process?

A: Yes. Both are built on a 28 nm process at TSMC, though the resulting silicon differs substantially: the M460 packs 1,550 million transistors into a 125 mm² die, while the K4000 carries 2,540 million transistors across a 221 mm² die.

Q: How much faster is the Quadro K4000's memory subsystem?

A: Considerably. The K4000 pairs a 192 bit bus with 134.8 GB/s of bandwidth, versus a 64 bit bus and 36.00 GB/s on the M460. That is nearly four times the bandwidth, a gap that likely explains much of the K4000's OpenCL win.

Q: What API support do they offer?

A: Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan in the 1.2 range, 1.2.170 on the M460 and 1.2.175 on the K4000. They diverge on Direct3D feature level: the M460 reports DirectX 12 (12_0) while the K4000 reports DirectX 12 (11_0).

Q: Are both cards still in production?

A: No. Both are marked end-of-life. The M460 was released on 14 May 2016 and was succeeded by Polaris Mobile; the K4000 dates to 28 February 2013 and was succeeded by Quadro Maxwell.

Where Each One Wins

The data gives the Quadro K4000 the only recorded benchmark victory, and its hardware profile suggests where that advantage holds. With 768 shading units against 384, twice the texture mapping units at 64 versus 24, and 24 render output units against 8, the K4000 has dominant theoretical rasterization resources. Its pixel fill rate of 12.96 GPixel/s beats the M460's 8.192 GPixel/s, and its texture rate of 51.84 GTexel/s more than doubles the M460's 24.58 GTexel/s. Its FP32 throughput of 1,244.2 GFLOPS is well ahead of the M460's 786.4 GFLOPS, consistent with the 3 percent OpenCL win even if the benchmark gap is far smaller than the theoretical one. Memory-bound workloads, CAD viewport rendering, and multi-display output scenarios (the K4000 offers one DVI and two DisplayPort 1.2 outputs) are all territory where the recorded data favors the NVIDIA card. Its 3 GB of GDDR5 also provides 50 percent more capacity than the M460's 2 GB.

The Radeon R7 M460's wins are subtler. It holds the higher percentile ranking, 38 versus 34, and it avoids the kind of low-scoring outlier that drags the K4000's average down. Its DirectX 12 (12_0) feature level support is fuller than the K4000's 11_0 level, which matters for newer API features even if raw throughput lags. It also matches its FP16 throughput to FP16 at a 1:1 ratio, delivering 786.4 GFLOPS, a capability for which the K4000 lists no equivalent figure at all. For a compact mobile-class part with a PCIe 3.0 x8 interface, holding a 38th percentile ranking and trading blows within two percent of desktop-derived rivals like the GeForce GTX 670M is a respectable showing.

Specification Differences

The two cards diverge on nearly every measurable specification. The M460 uses the Meso chip on GCN 3.0 architecture; the K4000 uses the GK106 chip on Kepler. Transistor counts differ at 1,550 million versus 2,540 million, with die sizes of 125 mm² versus 221 mm² and densities of 12.4M per mm² versus 11.5M per mm², a modest density edge for the newer AMD silicon.

Clocks tell an interesting story. The M460 has a defined base clock of 730 MHz and a boost clock of 1024 MHz, with memory running at 1125 MHz (4.5 Gbps effective). The K4000 lists no base or boost clock in the database at all, only memory speed at 1404 MHz (5.6 Gbps effective), so any core-frequency comparison is impossible from the recorded data alone.

Memory differs sharply: 2 GB on a 64 bit bus with 36.00 GB/s of bandwidth for the M460, versus 3 GB on a 192 bit bus with 134.8 GB/s for the K4000. Shader resources split 384/24/8 (shaders/TMUs/ROPs) for AMD against 768/64/24 for NVIDIA. The bus interfaces differ generationally, PCIe 3.0 x8 for the M460 against PCIe 2.0 x16 for the K4000. Physically, the K4000 is a single-slot card measuring 241 mm long and 111 mm tall, drawing 80 W through one 6-pin connector with a suggested 250 W power supply; the M460 records no TDP, slot width, connector, dimensional, or display output data, befitting its mobile-oriented nature. The K4000's launch MSRP was 1,269 USD, while no launch MSRP is recorded for the M460.

Architecture Differences

Architecturally these parts come from different design philosophies within the same 28 nm era. AMD's GCN 3.0 in the Meso-based M460 arrived later (May 2016 versus February 2013) and reflects AMD's compute-oriented shader design, including the 1:1 FP16 ratio noted above and modern API support at DirectX 12 (12_0). NVIDIA's Kepler in the GK106-based K4000 prioritizes raw resource counts and professional-driver validation within the Quadro lineage, descended from Quadro Fermi and succeeded by Quadro Maxwell. The K4000's extra billion transistors translate directly into doubled shading units and ROP tripling, at the cost of a much larger die and a defined 80 W power envelope. Neither card has RT cores or tensor cores, as expected for their generations. The M460's path forward ran to Polaris Mobile; the K4000's ran to Quadro Maxwell.

The Verdict

The recorded data favors the Quadro K4000 for anyone prioritizing benchmark wins and raw capability: it wins the only shared test by 3 percent, delivers substantially higher fill rates, FP32 throughput, memory capacity, and nearly four times the memory bandwidth, plus three recorded display outputs. It suits workstation-style rendering workloads where those resources matter.

The Radeon R7 M460 earns its place through context rather than headline wins: a higher percentile ranking (38 versus 34), fuller DirectX 12 feature-level support, a newer architecture with a later release date, and competitive positioning within two percent of rivals like the GTX 670M, all from a far smaller 125 mm² die with no defined power connectors. For scenarios where modern API support and compact mobile-class integration outweigh raw throughput, the data points to the M460. For measurable benchmark performance, the Quadro K4000 is the pick.