AMD Radeon Vega 10 Mobile vs NVIDIA Quadro 5000 Comparison

The Verdict

The NVIDIA Quadro 5000 and AMD Radeon Vega 10 Mobile are two very different GPU solutions that happen to land near each other in overall benchmark percentiles. The Quadro 5000 sits at the 40th percentile of all GPUs, while the Vega 10 Mobile sits at the 37th percentile. In the single recorded head-to-head benchmark, Geekbench OpenCL, the Quadro 5000 scores 7289 against the Vega 10 Mobile's 6476, a 12.6% advantage, giving the Quadro one win versus zero for the AMD part.

The Quadro 5000 is a professional workstation card from 2011, built on the Fermi architecture at 40 nm, dissipating 152 W and requiring a dual-slot cooler with a 6-pin power connector. It targets desktop workstations with 2.5 GB of dedicated GDDR5 memory on a 320-bit bus. The Vega 10 Mobile is a 10 W integrated GPU from 2019, built on GCN 5.0 at 14 nm, sharing system memory and relying entirely on the host laptop for power and cooling. It is an IGP with no slot width, no power connectors, and no suggested PSU.

Who should pick which? The data points to the Quadro 5000 for anyone who needs maximum raw OpenCL compute throughput and has a desktop chassis with a PCIe 2.0 x16 slot, a 450 W PSU, and space for a 248 mm dual-slot card. The Vega 10 Mobile is the only choice for ultra-low-power laptops or compact systems where a discrete card is impossible, but it trades away 12.6% of the Quadro's compute performance. For a builder with the physical and power budget, the Quadro 5000 wins outright. For a mobile user who cannot accommodate a discrete card, the Vega 10 Mobile is the only option in this pairing, despite the performance deficit.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher OpenCL benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA Quadro 5000 scores 7289, which is 12.6% higher than the AMD Radeon Vega 10 Mobile's 6476 in the Geekbench OpenCL test.

Q: How does each GPU compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Quadro 5000 is 0.9% ahead of the GeForce GTX 750, 1.2% ahead of the Radeon Vega 8 Mobile, and 1.6% ahead of the GeForce GTX 560 SE. The Vega 10 Mobile is 0.1% behind the Quadro M5000M, 0.3% behind the GeForce GT 555M, and 0.6% behind the GeForce GTX 670M, while being 1.1% ahead of the RTX PRO 5000 72 GB Blackwell.

Q: What are the power requirements for each GPU?

A: The Quadro 5000 has a TDP of 152 W, needs a 450 W suggested PSU, and uses one 6-pin power connector. The Vega 10 Mobile has a TDP of 10 W, uses no power connectors, and has no suggested PSU because it is an integrated part.

Q: Can the Vega 10 Mobile be used in a desktop workstation?

A: The recorded data shows it is an IGP with a "Portable Device Dependent" display output and a "System Shared" memory interface, so it is designed for portable devices, not desktop add-in cards.

Q: What memory type and capacity does each GPU use?

A: The Quadro 5000 has 2.5 GB of GDDR5 on a 320-bit bus with 120.0 GB/s bandwidth. The Vega 10 Mobile uses system shared memory with a system dependent bandwidth, meaning it borrows from the host's RAM.

Q: Which GPU supports newer graphics APIs?

A: The Vega 10 Mobile supports DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.3, while the Quadro 5000 supports DirectX 12 (11_0) with no Vulkan support listed. Both support OpenGL 4.6.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from entirely different architectural lineages. The Quadro 5000 uses NVIDIA's Fermi architecture, built on the GF100 chip at 40 nm by TSMC. It packs 3,100 million transistors into a 529 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 5.9 million per square millimeter. Fermi was designed as a compute-heavy architecture for professional workloads, and the Quadro 5000 reflects that with 352 shading units, 44 texture mapping units, and 40 render output units.

The Vega 10 Mobile uses AMD's GCN 5.0 architecture, built on the Raven-M chip at 14 nm by GlobalFoundries. It contains 4,940 million transistors on a much smaller 210 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 23.5 million per square millimeter, about four times the density of the Fermi chip. GCN 5.0 is a more modern architecture with 640 shading units, 40 TMUs, and only 8 ROPs. The shading unit count is nearly double the Quadro's, but the ROP count is much lower, which caps pixel throughput.

The Vega 10 Mobile also supports FP16 computation at 3.331 TFLOPS with a 2:1 ratio, while the Quadro 5000 has no listed FP16 capability. The Vega's FP32 throughput is 1.665 TFLOPS, and its texture rate is 52.04 GTexel/s, both substantially higher than the Quadro's 722.3 GFLOPS and 22.57 GTexel/s. Yet the Quadro still wins the OpenCL benchmark, suggesting that raw shader count does not translate directly into compute performance in this test, possibly due to the Vega's integrated nature and shared memory overhead.

The Vega 10 Mobile is a Raven Ridge-M generation part, released in 2019, while the Quadro 5000 is a Quadro Fermi generation part from 2011. The Vega's predecessor is listed as GCN 3.0 IGP and its successor as Navi II IGP, while the Quadro's predecessor is Quadro FX Tesla and its successor is Quadro Kepler.

Specification Differences

| Specification | NVIDIA Quadro 5000 | AMD Radeon Vega 10 Mobile |

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

| Architecture | Fermi | GCN 5.0 |

| Process node | 40 nm | 14 nm |

| Foundry | TSMC | GlobalFoundries |

| Transistors | 3,100 million | 4,940 million |

| Die size | 529 mm² | 210 mm² |

| Transistor density | 5.9M / mm² | 23.5M / mm² |

| Base clock | Not listed | 300 MHz |

| Boost clock | Not listed | 1301 MHz |

| Memory clock | 750 MHz, 3 Gbps effective | System Shared |

| Memory size | 2.5 GB GDDR5 | System Shared |

| Memory bus width | 320 bit | System Shared |

| Memory bandwidth | 120.0 GB/s | System Dependent |

| Shading units | 352 | 640 |

| TMUs | 44 | 40 |

| ROPs | 40 | 8 |

| Pixel rate | 11.29 GPixel/s | 10.41 GPixel/s |

| Texture rate | 22.57 GTexel/s | 52.04 GTexel/s |

| FP32 | 722.3 GFLOPS | 1.665 TFLOPS |

| FP16 | Not listed | 3.331 TFLOPS (2:1) |

| TDP | 152 W | 10 W |

| Slot width | Dual-slot | IGP |

| Power connectors | 1x 6-pin | None |

| Suggested PSU | 450 W | Not listed |

| Bus interface | PCIe 2.0 x16 | IGP |

| Display outputs | 1x DVI, 2x DisplayPort | Portable Device Dependent |

| DirectX support | 12 (11_0) | 12 (12_1) |

| Vulkan support | Not listed | 1.3 |

| Dimensions | 248 mm length, 111 mm height | Not listed |

| Release date | 2011-02-22 | 2019-01-07 |

The Quadro 5000 has a dedicated memory subsystem with fixed bandwidth and capacity, while the Vega 10 Mobile relies on the host system's RAM. The Quadro also has five times the ROP count and a much higher pixel rate, while the Vega has nearly double the shading units and more than double the texture rate.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only recorded head-to-head benchmark is Geekbench OpenCL, and it tells a clear story. The NVIDIA Quadro 5000 scores 7289, while the AMD Radeon Vega 10 Mobile scores 6476. That is a 12.6% delta in favor of the Quadro, which wins the only benchmark in the comparison, giving it one win to zero.

This result is notable because the Vega 10 Mobile has far more shading units (640 versus 352), a higher FP32 throughput (1.665 TFLOPS versus 722.3 GFLOPS), and a much higher texture rate (52.04 GTexel/s versus 22.57 GTexel/s). Despite all of those theoretical advantages, the Vega still loses by more than 12% in the actual OpenCL test. The Quadro's dedicated memory with 120.0 GB/s of bandwidth likely plays a role, as does the Vega's reliance on system shared memory with system dependent bandwidth, which can become a bottleneck in compute workloads.

The Quadro also has a pixel rate of 11.29 GPixel/s versus the Vega's 10.41 GPixel/s, a 8.5% advantage, and 40 ROPs versus 8, which matters for rasterization-heavy tasks even if the OpenCL test does not directly measure it.

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA Quadro 5000 wins in raw compute performance, as shown by the 12.6% OpenCL lead. It also wins on memory capacity and bandwidth: 2.5 GB of dedicated GDDR5 at 120.0 GB/s versus the Vega's shared system memory with no fixed bandwidth figure. The Quadro's 40 ROPs and higher pixel rate (11.29 GPixel/s versus 10.41 GPixel/s) give it an edge in tasks that rely on raster output, such as traditional 3D rendering pipelines. Its dual-slot design and 152 W TDP indicate it is built for sustained workstation loads where power draw is not a constraint. The Quadro also has a wider memory bus (320 bit versus system shared) and a higher memory clock (750 MHz, 3 Gbps effective), which supports its compute advantage.

The AMD Radeon Vega 10 Mobile wins on power efficiency and integration. Its 10 W TDP is a fraction of the Quadro's 152 W, and it requires no power connectors, no slot width, and no suggested PSU. It is an IGP with no physical dimensions, making it suitable for ultra-portable devices where the Quadro cannot physically fit. The Vega also has more shading units (640 versus 352), a higher texture rate (52.04 GTexel/s versus 22.57 GTexel/s), and twice the FP32 throughput (1.665 TFLOPS versus 722.3 GFLOPS). It supports newer APIs, including DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.3, while the Quadro only reaches DirectX 12 (11_0) with no Vulkan support. The Vega also has FP16 capability at 3.331 TFLOPS, which the Quadro lacks entirely.

For a builder choosing between these two, the decision comes down to the use case. If the workload is compute-heavy OpenCL, the Quadro 5000 is the clear winner. If the platform is a low-power laptop or a compact device with no discrete GPU slot, the Vega 10 Mobile is the only viable option, despite its lower benchmark score. The Vega's architectural advantages in shading and texture throughput may also benefit workloads that are not captured by the single OpenCL test, though the recorded data shows the Quadro ahead in the one measurement available.