AMD Radeon Vega 8 Mobile vs NVIDIA GeForce MX230 Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded data shows a clear overall victory for the AMD Radeon Vega 8 Mobile, which wins both benchmark comparisons against the NVIDIA GeForce MX230. The most substantial margin appears in the Geekbench OpenCL test, where the AMD part scores 7,435 points against 5,739 for the NVIDIA GPU. This translates to a 29.6% advantage, a decisive gap that places the Vega 8 Mobile in a different performance tier for compute-oriented workloads. The delta is large enough to matter in real-world tasks that leverage OpenCL acceleration, such as video encoding, image processing filters, or physics simulations that offload work to the GPU.

The Vulkan benchmark tells a closer story. Here the AMD Radeon Vega 8 Mobile scores 6,970, while the NVIDIA GeForce MX230 manages 6,414. The delta narrows to 8.7%, still a win for AMD but far less commanding than the OpenCL result. This suggests that under Vulkan, the NVIDIA architecture narrows the gap through better driver optimization or more efficient command processing, though it cannot overcome the AMD part's raw throughput advantage. For users running Vulkan-based games or applications, the difference would be noticeable but not transformative, whereas OpenCL-heavy workloads would show a much more pronounced performance spread.

Examining the average benchmark scores reinforces the head-to-head outcome. The AMD Radeon Vega 8 Mobile's average across both tests is 7,203, compared to 6,077 for the NVIDIA GeForce MX230. That is an 18.5% difference in aggregate performance, a substantial margin for integrated and low-power discrete graphics solutions. The AMD part's percentile ranking among all GPUs stands at 39, while the NVIDIA part sits at 35, meaning the Vega 8 Mobile places above more of the overall GPU population in the database's distribution.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Radeon Vega 8 Mobile wins in every recorded benchmark category, but the nature of those wins differs significantly by workload type. In OpenCL compute tasks, the AMD part's advantage is overwhelming. Its 512 shading units and 32 texture mapping units provide a wide execution width that scales well with parallel compute workloads. The 29.6% lead in OpenCL reflects this architectural strength, making the Vega 8 Mobile the clear choice for any application that can utilize general-purpose GPU computing through OpenCL, including many content creation tools, scientific computing packages, and video transcoding utilities.

In Vulkan graphics workloads, the AMD part still leads, but the margin shrinks to 8.7%. This indicates that the NVIDIA GeForce MX230 is comparatively stronger in graphics rendering than in compute. The MX230's Pascal architecture, with its 256 shading units and 16 ROPs, offers a higher pixel rate of 24.50 GPixel/s versus 8.808 GPixel/s for the Vega 8 Mobile, which helps it stay competitive in rasterization-heavy tasks. However, the AMD part's higher texture rate of 35.23 GTexel/s versus 24.50 GTexel/s gives it an edge in texture-bound scenes, and its FP32 throughput of 1,127.4 GFLOPS dwarfs the MX230's 783.9 GFLOPS, which becomes relevant in shader-heavy rendering.

For gaming specifically, the Vulkan result is the more representative indicator, since most modern game engines either use Vulkan or DirectX 12. The 8.7% lead suggests that the Vega 8 Mobile would provide consistently higher frame rates in Vulkan-titled games, though the MX230 would remain playable at lower settings. In older DirectX 11 or OpenGL titles, the OpenCL margin is less directly applicable, but the raw compute advantage of the AMD part still translates to better shader performance in many cases. The MX230's only clear advantage lies in its power envelope, drawing 10 W versus 25 W for the Vega 8 Mobile, which matters in thin-and-light laptops where battery life and thermals are paramount.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from fundamentally different architectural families. The AMD Radeon Vega 8 Mobile uses GCN 5.0, built on the Raven-M chip, while the NVIDIA GeForce MX230 uses the Pascal architecture on the GP108 chip. Both are fabricated on a 14 nm process, but AMD uses GlobalFoundries as its foundry, while NVIDIA uses Samsung. The transistor counts diverge sharply: the Vega 8 Mobile packs 4,940 million transistors on a 210 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 23.5M per mm². The MX230 contains 1,800 million transistors on a 74 mm² die, with a slightly higher density of 24.3M per mm². The AMD part is physically much larger, reflecting its integrated nature within a mobile APU package, while the NVIDIA part is a compact discrete chip designed for low-power integration.

The execution resources differ in both count and configuration. The Vega 8 Mobile has 512 shading units, 32 TMUs, and 8 ROPs. The MX230 has 256 shading units, 16 TMUs, and 16 ROPs. This means the AMD part has double the shader and texture hardware, but half the ROP count. The ROP disparity explains why the MX230 achieves a higher pixel rate of 24.50 GPixel/s versus 8.808 GPixel/s for the Vega 8 Mobile. In practice, this makes the MX230 more efficient at fill-rate-bound scenes, such as those with heavy post-processing effects or high-resolution UI overlays, while the Vega 8 Mobile excels in geometry and texture-heavy workloads.

Clock speeds also tell a story of different design philosophies. The NVIDIA part operates at a base clock of 1519 MHz and boosts to 1531 MHz, a narrow range that suggests a tightly controlled power envelope. The AMD part has a base clock of just 300 MHz but boosts to 1101 MHz, a much wider dynamic range that allows it to idle at very low power but ramp up significantly under load. Memory configurations are entirely different as well. The Vega 8 Mobile uses system-shared memory, with bandwidth described as system dependent, while the MX230 has 2 GB of dedicated GDDR5 memory on a 64-bit bus with 48.06 GB/s of bandwidth. The MX230's memory clock is 1502 MHz, or 6 Gbps effective.

The floating-point capabilities highlight the AMD part's compute focus. The Vega 8 Mobile delivers 1,127.4 GFLOPS of FP32 performance and 2.255 TFLOPS of FP16 with a 2:1 ratio, indicating strong support for half-precision compute workloads. The MX230 offers 783.9 GFLOPS of FP32 but only 12.25 GFLOPS of FP16 with a 1:64 ratio, making it essentially unsuitable for half-precision compute. This difference is stark and directly explains the OpenCL benchmark gap. For API support, both parts handle DirectX 12 (12_1) and OpenGL 4.6, but the NVIDIA part supports Vulkan 1.4 while the AMD part supports Vulkan 1.3, a minor version difference that rarely affects real-world performance.

Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ across nearly every major specification field. The process node is identical at 14 nm, but the foundry differs: GlobalFoundries for AMD, Samsung for NVIDIA. Transistor count is 4,940 million for the Vega 8 Mobile versus 1,800 million for the MX230. Die size is 210 mm² versus 74 mm². Transistor density is 23.5M per mm² versus 24.3M per mm². The base clock is 300 MHz for AMD versus 1519 MHz for NVIDIA, while the boost clock is 1101 MHz versus 1531 MHz. Memory is system shared for AMD, while NVIDIA has 2 GB of GDDR5 with a 64-bit bus and 48.06 GB/s bandwidth. The AMD part has 512 shading units, 32 TMUs, and 8 ROPs; the NVIDIA part has 256 shading units, 16 TMUs, and 16 ROPs.

Pixel rate is 8.808 GPixel/s for AMD versus 24.50 GPixel/s for NVIDIA. Texture rate is 35.23 GTexel/s versus 24.50 GTexel/s. FP32 performance is 1,127.4 GFLOPS versus 783.9 GFLOPS. FP16 performance is 2.255 TFLOPS (2:1) versus 12.25 GFLOPS (1:64). TDP is 25 W for AMD versus 10 W for NVIDIA. The bus interface is IGP for AMD versus PCIe 3.0 x4 for NVIDIA. Vulkan support is 1.3 for AMD versus 1.4 for NVIDIA. Both parts have no power connectors, no RT cores, no tensor cores, IGP slot width, portable device dependent display outputs, and end-of-life production status. The release dates differ by about six weeks, with the AMD part launching on January 7, 2019, and the NVIDIA part on February 20, 2019.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has higher raw compute performance in OpenCL?

A: The AMD Radeon Vega 8 Mobile scores 7,435 in Geekbench OpenCL, which is 29.6% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce MX230's score of 5,739.

Q: How much closer is the Vulkan benchmark compared to OpenCL?

A: In Vulkan, the AMD part scores 6,970 against 6,414 for NVIDIA, an 8.7% lead, which is significantly narrower than the 29.6% OpenCL gap.

Q: Which GPU has more shading units and TMUs?

A: The AMD Radeon Vega 8 Mobile has 512 shading units and 32 TMUs, double the 256 shading units and 16 TMUs found in the NVIDIA GeForce MX230.

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

A: The AMD part uses system-shared memory with bandwidth dependent on the system, while the NVIDIA part has 2 GB of dedicated GDDR5 on a 64-bit bus with 48.06 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: How do the power consumption figures compare?

A: The AMD Radeon Vega 8 Mobile has a 25 W TDP, while the NVIDIA GeForce MX230 has a 10 W TDP, making the NVIDIA part more power-efficient for thin-and-light laptops.

Q: Which GPU has a higher pixel rate and why?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce MX230 has a pixel rate of 24.50 GPixel/s, well above the AMD part's 8.808 GPixel/s, because it has 16 ROPs compared to only 8 ROPs on the Vega 8 Mobile.