AMD Radeon Vega 8 vs NVIDIA Quadro K1200 Comparison

The AMD Radeon Vega 8 and the NVIDIA Quadro K1200 are two end-of-life parts that land remarkably close together in the database rankings, separated by just two percentile points and under a thousand points of average benchmark score. The Vega 8 sits at the 45th percentile against all recorded GPUs with an average score of 9221, while the Quadro K1200 sits at the 43rd percentile with an average of 8265. Yet they arrive at those positions by completely different routes: one is an integrated graphics solution soldered into Raven Ridge silicon, the other a single-slot workstation card built on Maxwell. The recorded head-to-head data splits one win apiece, with an OpenCL result that is effectively a tie and a Vulkan result that favors the AMD part. Understanding which one suits a given workload requires looking past the aggregate scores and into the architectural and specification differences documented below.

The Verdict

The data supports a clear division of use cases. The Quadro K1200 is the pick when fixed memory capacity and display connectivity matter most: it carries 4 GB of dedicated GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus delivering 80.19 GB/s of bandwidth, plus four mini-DisplayPort 1.2 outputs, in a single-slot card with no power connectors and a suggested 200 W system PSU. That is a discrete, self-contained graphics solution with deterministic memory behavior, something an integrated GPU sharing system memory simply cannot offer.

The Vega 8 is the pick for modern API throughput within a tight power envelope. Its 25 W TDP covers the entire integrated package, it needs no slot, no PSU headroom, and no connectors, and it still delivers the higher Vulkan score of the two: 8134 versus 7698, a 5.7 percent advantage. It also supports DirectX 12 at feature level 12_1 versus the K1200's 12 (11_0), which indicates a newer shader feature baseline. The trade-off is that its memory subsystem is entirely system dependent, and its render backend is narrower, with 8 ROPs against the K1200's 16.

For compute workloads the picture is a near dead heat. The OpenCL scores differ by nine points out of roughly 8800, a delta of just 0.1 percent, which the database treats as a win for the K1200 but which is realistically indistinguishable. Neither part carries RT cores or tensor cores, so hardware-accelerated ray tracing and dedicated matrix throughput are off the table for both.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster overall according to the recorded data?

A: The Vega 8 holds the higher average benchmark score, 9221 versus 8265, and the higher percentile ranking, 45 versus 43. However, in direct head-to-head tests the two split one win each, so the aggregate lead reflects the Vega 8's additional recorded Metal result rather than a decisive per-test advantage.

Q: How close is the OpenCL comparison?

A: Extremely close. The Vega 8 scored 8822 and the K1200 scored 8831 in Geekbench OpenCL, a difference of 0.1 percent in the K1200's favor. For any OpenCL workload, the two should be treated as equivalent.

Q: Which GPU wins in Vulkan?

A: The Vega 8, with 8134 against 7698, a 5.7 percent lead. Vulkan is also where the API support gap is most visible, with the Vega 8 recorded at Vulkan 1.3 and the K1200 at Vulkan 1.4 on paper, though the recorded score favors AMD regardless of the version string.

Q: Does either GPU have dedicated memory?

A: Only the K1200. It has 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus with 80.19 GB/s of bandwidth. The Vega 8 shares system memory for capacity, type, bus width, and bandwidth, all of which depend on the host platform.

Q: How do the power requirements differ?

A: The Vega 8 is an integrated solution with a 25 W TDP and no power connectors. The K1200 is a 45 W discrete card that also needs no power connectors, drawing through its PCIe 2.0 x16 slot, with a suggested 200 W system PSU.

Q: How do they compare against other GPUs in the database?

A: The Vega 8's average of 9221 places it within a fraction of a percent of the AMD Radeon 890M (9210), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 (9273), the GTX 465 (9294), and the GTX 850M (9302). The K1200's 8265 sits similarly close to the Radeon R9 M375X (8325), the GeForce GTX 980 (8167), the GTX 950M (8135), and the R9 M360 (8129).

Architecture Differences

These two parts come from different design eras and different manufacturing strategies. The Vega 8 is built on the GCN 5.0 architecture, part of the Vega IGP generation on Raven Ridge silicon, manufactured at GlobalFoundries on a 14 nm process. The K1200 uses the GM107 chip on the Maxwell architecture, produced at TSMC on a 28 nm node. The generational labels in the database are slightly tangled for the NVIDIA card: its generation is listed as Quadro Kepler (Kx200) even though the architecture field reads Maxwell, and its successor is listed as Quadro Maxwell, so buyers cross-referencing family names should rely on the GM107 chip designation.

The process gap shows up directly in density figures. The Vega 8's die packs 4,940 million transistors into 210 mm², a density of 23.5M per mm². The K1200's die holds 1,870 million transistors across 148 mm², or 12.6M per mm². The AMD part therefore carries roughly two and a half times the transistor count at nearly double the density, though a large share of that silicon serves the integrated CPU functions of a Raven Ridge package rather than graphics alone.

The lineage differs as well. The Vega 8 succeeded the GCN 3.0 IGP and was itself followed by the Vega II IGP. The K1200 descended from the Quadro Fermi line. Both parts are now end-of-life, with the K1200 released on 2015-01-27 and the Vega 8 on 2018-02-11, meaning the AMD solution arrived roughly three years later, which helps explain its newer feature-level support in DirectX.

Feature support tilts modestly toward the Vega 8 in DirectX, where it exposes feature level 12_1 against the K1200's 11_0. Both support OpenGL 4.6. In Vulkan the recorded strings favor the K1200 at 1.4 versus 1.3, an interesting inversion given that the Vega 8 posts the higher Vulkan benchmark score. Neither part includes RT cores or tensor cores.

Compute capability diverges on half-precision. The Vega 8 records FP16 throughput of 2.253 TFLOPS at a 2:1 ratio to FP32, while the K1200 has no FP16 figure recorded. On FP32 the two are close: 1,126.4 GFLOPS for the Vega 8 against 1,057.8 GFLOPS for the K1200, a modest edge for AMD.

Specification Differences

The core counts are identical on paper, which makes this comparison unusual. Both GPUs have 512 shading units and 32 texture mapping units. The first meaningful divergence appears at the render output stage: the K1200 has 16 ROPs where the Vega 8 has 8, and this shows up immediately in pixel fill rate, 16.53 GPixel/s for the K1200 against 8.800 GPixel/s for the Vega 8, essentially double the pixel throughput for the NVIDIA card. Texture fill rate flips the other way but only slightly, 35.20 GTexel/s for the Vega 8 versus 33.06 GTexel/s for the K1200.

Clock behavior differs in structure. The Vega 8 has a wide clock range, from a 300 MHz base up to an 1100 MHz boost. The K1200 operates in a much narrower band, 954 MHz base to 1033 MHz boost, with memory clocked at 1253 MHz, 5 Gbps effective. The memory story is the starkest contrast of the entire comparison: the K1200's dedicated 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus with 80.19 GB/s of bandwidth faces a Vega 8 whose memory size, type, bus width, and bandwidth are all system dependent, sharing the host's memory subsystem.

Physical and platform characteristics separate them cleanly. The Vega 8 is an IGP with no slot width, no power connectors, and motherboard-dependent display outputs on the IGP bus interface. The K1200 is a single-slot PCIe 2.0 x16 card measuring 160 mm long and 69 mm tall, with four mini-DisplayPort 1.2 outputs, no power connectors, and a 45 W TDP against the Vega 8's 25 W.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

Only two tests appear in the recorded head-to-head set, and each side takes one.

The Geekbench OpenCl result is the definition of a statistical tie. The K1200 posted 8831 and the Vega 8 posted 8822, a gap of nine points, or 0.1 percent, with the win formally recorded for the NVIDIA card. For general OpenCL compute, the data shows no meaningful preference between them. It is notable that the K1200 holds its own here despite its lower FP32 figure, 1,057.8 GFLOPS versus 1,126.4 GFLOPS, likely aided by its dedicated GDDR5 bandwidth of 80.19 GB/s, which does not have to compete with a CPU for access.

The Geekbench Vulkan result goes to the Vega 8 by a clear margin: 8134 against 7698, a 5.7 percent advantage. Given that both scores sit well below their respective OpenCL results, Vulkan appears to be a harder path for both parts, but the AMD solution degrades less. Its newer DirectX 12_1 feature level and more modern GCN 5.0 architecture, three years younger than the K1200's Maxwell design, are consistent with this result.

The aggregate scores frame the split. The Vega 8's average of 9221 benefits from a third recorded test, Geekbench Metal, where it scored 10706, its strongest result in the database. The K1200 has no Metal entry, so its 8265 average rests on OpenCL and Vulkan alone. The percentile placement, 45 versus 43, confirms the two occupy nearly the same neighborhood of the database despite the score gap, and the nearest-rival lists reinforce it: the Vega 8's closest competitors cluster within about one percent of its average, and the K1200's within about two percent. Anyone choosing between these two should decide on the basis of the Vega 8's Vulkan strength, lower 25 W TDP, and integrated simplicity against the K1200's doubled ROP count, doubled pixel fill rate, dedicated 4 GB memory, and quad DisplayPort output, not on raw aggregate ranking.