GPU Comparison

The NVIDIA Quadro P400 and AMD Radeon RX 560 represent two very different approaches to the entry-level GPU segment from the same era. The Quadro P400 is a low-profile, power-efficient workstation card built around the Pascal architecture, while the RX 560 is a dual-slot consumer gaming card using AMD’s GCN 4.0 design. Benchmark data shows the RX 560 holds a decisive performance advantage in the one shared test, but the P400’s strengths lie elsewhere, in its professional feature set, compact physical design, and lower system requirements.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA Quadro P400 has an average benchmark score of 4684, which is about 2.5% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 560’s 4569. However, this average is based on only two tests for the P400 (OpenCL and Vulkan), while the RX 560 has a much broader test suite including Metal, multiple PassMark tests, and compute workloads.

Q: How do the two cards compare in the OpenCL benchmark?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 560 scores 16472 in Geekbench OpenCL, while the NVIDIA Quadro P400 scores 4249. The RX 560 leads by a massive 74.2% margin, making it the clear winner in this compute-oriented test.

Q: What is the memory configuration difference?

A: The Quadro P400 has 2 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 64-bit bus, delivering 32.06 GB/s of bandwidth. The RX 560 doubles capacity to 4 GB, uses a 128-bit bus, and achieves 112.0 GB/s, roughly 3.5 times the bandwidth of the P400.

Q: Which card has a higher transistor density?

A: The Quadro P400 packs 3,300 million transistors into a 132 mm² die, resulting in 25.0M transistors per mm². The RX 560 uses 3,000 million transistors on a 123 mm² die, giving it a slightly lower density of 24.4M transistors per mm².

Q: What are the power requirements for each card?

A: The Quadro P400 has a 30 W TDP and suggests a 200 W power supply, with no power connectors needed. The RX 560 has a 75 W TDP, suggests a 250 W PSU, and also requires no external power connectors.

Q: Which GPU supports higher API versions?

A: The Quadro P400 supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The RX 560 supports DirectX 12 (12_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.3. The P400 has a higher DirectX feature level and a newer Vulkan version.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Radeon RX 560 wins decisively in raw compute throughput and memory bandwidth. Its FP32 performance of 2.611 TFLOPS is more than four times the Quadro P400’s 641.0 GFLOPS. The RX 560 also has 1024 shading units and 64 texture mapping units, compared to just 256 shading units and 16 TMUs on the P400. This translates directly into the 74.2% OpenCL score advantage, and the RX 560’s texture fill rate of 81.60 GTexel/s dwarfs the P400’s 20.03 GTexel/s.

The Quadro P400 wins in power efficiency and physical footprint. At 30 W TDP, it consumes less than half the power of the RX 560’s 75 W, and it fits in a single-slot, 150 mm long package versus the RX 560’s dual-slot, 170 mm design. The P400 also has a higher transistor density (25.0M vs 24.4M per mm²), suggesting a more compact layout. For professional workloads that rely on certified drivers and specific API support, the P400 offers DirectX 12_1 and Vulkan 1.4, while the RX 560 is limited to 12_0 and 1.3, the NVIDIA card has the edge.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from fundamentally different architectural lineages. The Quadro P400 uses NVIDIA’s Pascal architecture, built on a 14 nm process at Samsung. Its chip, GP107, contains 3,300 million transistors on a 132 mm² die. The RX 560 uses AMD’s GCN 4.0 architecture, fabricated by GlobalFoundries on the same 14 nm node, with 3,000 million transistors on a slightly smaller 123 mm² die.

The compute capabilities diverge sharply. The P400’s FP32 throughput is 641.0 GFLOPS, while its FP16 performance is just 10.02 GFLOPS, a 1:64 ratio that indicates negligible half-precision support. The RX 560 delivers 2.611 TFLOPS in both FP32 and FP16, a 1:1 ratio that allows full-rate half-precision compute, a feature relevant for certain machine learning and media workloads.

Memory architecture also differs significantly. The P400 uses a 64-bit memory bus with 2 GB GDDR5, while the RX 560 uses a 128-bit bus with 4 GB. The effective memory clocks are 4 Gbps and 7 Gbps respectively, leading to bandwidth of 32.06 GB/s versus 112.0 GB/s. Both cards have 16 ROPs, but the RX 560’s 64 TMUs far exceed the P400’s 16.

Specification Differences

| Specification | NVIDIA Quadro P400 | AMD Radeon RX 560 |

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

| Architecture | Pascal | GCN 4.0 |

| Foundry | Samsung | GlobalFoundries |

| Transistors | 3,300 million | 3,000 million |

| Die Size | 132 mm² | 123 mm² |

| Base Clock | 1228 MHz | 1175 MHz |

| Boost Clock | 1252 MHz | 1275 MHz |

| Memory Size | 2 GB | 4 GB |

| Memory Bus | 64 bit | 128 bit |

| Bandwidth | 32.06 GB/s | 112.0 GB/s |

| Shading Units | 256 | 1024 |

| TMUs | 16 | 64 |

| FP32 | 641.0 GFLOPS | 2.611 TFLOPS |

| FP16 | 10.02 GFLOPS (1:64) | 2.611 TFLOPS (1:1) |

| TDP | 30 W | 75 W |

| Slot Width | Single-slot | Dual-slot |

| Length | 150 mm | 170 mm |

| Bus Interface | PCIe 3.0 x16 | PCIe 3.0 x8 |

| Display Outputs | 3x mini-DisplayPort 1.4a | 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 2.0b, 1x DisplayPort 1.4a |

| DirectX | 12 (12_1) | 12 (12_0) |

| Vulkan | 1.4 | 1.3 |

| Suggested PSU | 200 W | 250 W |

| Launch MSRP | None | 99 USD |

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only shared benchmark in the data is Geekbench OpenCL, and the result is lopsided. The AMD Radeon RX 560 scores 16472, while the NVIDIA Quadro P400 scores 4249. That represents a 74.2% deficit for the P400, meaning the RX 560 delivers nearly four times the OpenCL performance. This outcome aligns with the raw specs: the RX 560 has four times the shading units (1024 vs 256), four times the TMUs (64 vs 16), and 3.5 times the memory bandwidth (112.0 vs 32.06 GB/s). Its FP32 throughput of 2.611 TFLOPS versus 641.0 GFLOPS further explains the gap.

The Quadro P400 does not win any of the head-to-head comparisons in the dataset. Its wins are structural rather than benchmark-based: it offers a higher DirectX feature level (12_1 vs 12_0), newer Vulkan support (1.4 vs 1.3), three mini-DisplayPort outputs versus the RX 560’s single DVI, HDMI, and DisplayPort combo, and a lower 30 W TDP that requires only a 200 W PSU. Its 150 mm single-slot design also occupies less space than the RX 560’s 170 mm dual-slot form factor.

The percentile rankings are nearly identical, the P400 sits at the 27th percentile of all GPUs, while the RX 560 is at the 26th. Their nearest rivals also overlap: both cards are within about 1% of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M’s average score of 4628. The P400’s average of 4684 puts it slightly above that mark, while the RX 560’s 4569 falls slightly below. This suggests that in overall mixed workloads, the two are far closer than the OpenCL test implies, the P400’s Vulkan score of 5119 helps balance its low OpenCL result, while the RX 560’s broader test suite includes lower scores like 16 in PassMark DirectX 10 and 25 in DirectX 11, which drag its average down.

The RX 560’s PassMark results reveal a mixed profile: it scores 3671 in G3D, 1437 in GPU compute, and 485 in G2D, but its DirectX-specific scores are very low (57 in DX9, 25 in DX11, 21 in DX12, 16 in DX10). These numbers suggest the RX 560 excels in compute-heavy workloads like OpenCL and Metal (18941 in Geekbench Metal) but struggles in legacy graphics API tests. The P400, with only OpenCL and Vulkan benchmarks, cannot be directly compared in those PassMark categories, but its 5119 Vulkan score indicates solid modern API performance.