NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 vs NVIDIA Quadro K5100M Comparison

The NVIDIA Quadro K5100M and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 are both built on the same GK104 chip, but they target entirely different segments of the GPU market. The data in this comparison shows a clear split between the mobile professional Quadro and the desktop consumer GeForce, with the Quadro taking both benchmark wins despite the GTX 760's higher clock speeds. The benchmark results, drawn from Geekbench tests, reveal that the K5100M’s advantages in memory capacity and shading resources outweigh the GTX 760’s raw clock rate advantages in these specific workloads.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The most striking result in this comparison comes from the Geekbench Metal test. The Quadro K5100M scores 8315, while the GeForce GTX 760 scores 4524. That is a delta of 83.8% in favor of the K5100M. This is an enormous margin, far exceeding what the underlying specifications would suggest, and it indicates that the Metal API workload heavily favors the Quadro’s configuration. The K5100M’s 1536 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 8 GB of GDDR5 memory appear to provide a substantial throughput advantage in this test, despite the GTX 760’s higher base clock of 980 MHz versus 771 MHz.

The OpenCL results are much closer. The K5100M scores 11771, while the GTX 760 scores 11299. The delta here is only 4.2%, still a win for the Quadro, but a far narrower one. Interestingly, the GTX 760’s FP32 compute rating of 2.378 TFLOPS is actually slightly higher than the K5100M’s 2.369 TFLOPS, and its texture rate of 99.07 GTexel/s edges out the K5100M’s 98.69 GTexel/s. Yet, the Quadro still takes the win, likely due to its doubled memory capacity (8 GB versus 2 GB) and higher shading unit count, which can help in memory-bound or shader-heavy OpenCL tasks.

The head-to-head record stands at 2 wins for the Quadro K5100M and 0 for the GTX 760. That is a definitive sweep in the available data. However, context matters: the GTX 760 was never tested in the Vulkan benchmark within this dataset, while the K5100M only has Metal and OpenCL results. The GTX 760’s Vulkan score of 12551, which is its highest benchmark score across all tests, suggests that it has untapped potential in that API that the Quadro cannot match in this comparison. Still, based strictly on the shared tests, the K5100M is the clear winner.

Looking at average benchmark scores, the K5100M posts 10043, which places it at the 48th percentile among all GPUs. The GTX 760 averages 9458, sitting at the 46th percentile. The delta between their averages is approximately 6.2%, which aligns more closely with the OpenCL gap than the Metal gap. The K5100M’s nearest rival in average score is the AMD Radeon R9 M375 at 10070, a delta of -0.3%, meaning the Quadro is essentially tied with that mobile AMD part. The GTX 760’s nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN BLACK at 9474, a delta of -0.2%, which shows the GTX 760 performing nearly identically to that high-end desktop card in average terms.

Where Each One Wins

The Quadro K5100M wins decisively in the Metal benchmark, which is a strong indicator of performance in Apple-centric compute workloads or applications that leverage Metal for GPU acceleration. Its 83.8% lead over the GTX 760 in this test is the single largest margin in this comparison. The K5100M also wins in OpenCL, though by a smaller 4.2% margin, suggesting that its advantage narrows when the workload is more compute-oriented rather than graphics-API-oriented. For users running OpenCL-based rendering, simulation, or data processing, the K5100M offers a slight edge, but not an overwhelming one.

The GTX 760, despite losing both head-to-head tests, has its own strengths in the broader dataset. Its Vulkan score of 12551 is its best result, and it is not present in the K5100M’s benchmark list. This indicates that the GTX 760 excels in Vulkan-based workloads, which are common in modern games and cross-platform compute applications. The GTX 760 also has a higher boost clock of 1032 MHz compared to the K5100M’s fixed 771 MHz, and its memory bandwidth of 192.3 GB/s is significantly higher than the K5100M’s 115.2 GB/s. These specifications suggest that the GTX 760 is better suited for bandwidth-sensitive or latency-sensitive tasks, even if the benchmark data does not directly capture that advantage in the shared tests.

The average score data also provides a use-case split. The K5100M’s percentile rank of 48 is just above the GTX 760’s 46, but the K5100M’s nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon Pro 5300M (delta 0.3%) and the NVIDIA Quadro 6000 (delta 2%), both of which are professional or prosumer parts. The GTX 760’s rivals include the AMD Radeon R7 M380 (delta 1.6%) and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 465 (delta 1.8%), which are more consumer-oriented. This suggests that the K5100M is positioned among workstation-class GPUs, while the GTX 760 sits among consumer desktop parts, even though their average scores are close.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous in the shared benchmarks: the NVIDIA Quadro K5100M is the better performer between these two, winning both the Metal and OpenCL tests. The 83.8% lead in Metal is substantial and cannot be dismissed as noise, and the 4.2% lead in OpenCL, while smaller, is still a consistent win. For any workload that relies on Metal or OpenCL, the K5100M is the correct choice based on this data.

However, the GTX 760 is not without merit. Its Vulkan score of 12551 is the highest single-test score in this entire comparison, and since the K5100M has no Vulkan result, there is no head-to-head data to refute the GTX 760’s superiority in that API. The GTX 760 also offers a higher boost clock, higher memory bandwidth, and a higher pixel rate (24.77 GPixel/s versus 24.67 GPixel/s). For users who prioritize Vulkan performance or who need a desktop card with a PCIe 3.0 x16 interface and dual-slot cooling, the GTX 760 is the better fit.

The verdict depends on the API and form factor. Pick the Quadro K5100M if your applications are Metal-based or OpenCL-based and you need a mobile MXM module with 8 GB of memory. Pick the GeForce GTX 760 if you are targeting Vulkan workloads on a desktop platform with a PCIe slot, and you can tolerate its 170 W TDP and 450 W suggested PSU requirement. The K5100M’s 100 W TDP and lack of power connectors make it far more energy-efficient, but the GTX 760’s higher memory bandwidth and clock speeds give it raw speed advantages that are simply not captured in the two shared tests.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU wins in the Geekbench Metal test?

A: The NVIDIA Quadro K5100M wins decisively with a score of 8315, compared to the GeForce GTX 760’s 4524, a delta of 83.8%.

Q: How close is the OpenCL performance between the two?

A: The Quadro K5100M scores 11771, while the GTX 760 scores 11299, giving the K5100M a 4.2% lead in that test.

Q: Does the GeForce GTX 760 have any benchmark where it scores higher than the K5100M?

A: The GTX 760 has a Vulkan score of 12551, which is its highest result, but the K5100M does not have a Vulkan score in the data, so there is no direct head-to-head comparison in that test.

Q: What is the average benchmark score for each GPU?

A: The Quadro K5100M has an average benchmark score of 10043, and the GeForce GTX 760 has an average of 9458.

Q: What are the memory sizes and bandwidths of these two GPUs?

A: The Quadro K5100M has 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus with 115.2 GB/s bandwidth, while the GTX 760 has 2 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus with 192.3 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: Which GPU has a higher shading unit count?

A: The Quadro K5100M has 1536 shading units, while the GeForce GTX 760 has 1152 shading units.

Architecture Differences

Both the NVIDIA Quadro K5100M and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 are built on the GK104 chip, using the Kepler architecture and a 28 nm process node from TSMC. They share the same transistor count of 3,540 million and the same die size of 294 mm², with a transistor density of 12.0M per mm². This means the fundamental silicon is identical, but the configurations differ significantly.

The most notable difference is in the core layout. The Quadro K5100M has 1536 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs. The GeForce GTX 760 has 1152 shading units, 96 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The Quadro’s additional 384 shading units and 32 TMUs give it a theoretical texture rate of 98.69 GTexel/s and a pixel rate of 24.67 GPixel/s, while the GTX 760’s rates are 99.07 GTexel/s and 24.77 GPixel/s. Despite having fewer cores, the GTX 760’s higher clocks (980 MHz base, 1032 MHz boost versus 771 MHz for both on the K5100M) allow it to nearly match or slightly exceed these rates.

Memory configuration is another major divergence. The K5100M comes with 8 GB of GDDR5, while the GTX 760 has only 2 GB. Both use a 256-bit memory bus, but the GTX 760’s memory runs at 1502 MHz (6 Gbps effective), yielding 192.3 GB/s of bandwidth, compared to the K5100M’s 900 MHz (3.6 Gbps effective) for 115.2 GB/s. The GTX 760’s memory bandwidth is 67% higher, which is a significant advantage for high-resolution textures or data-heavy workloads.

The form factors and power requirements are starkly different. The K5100M is an MXM Module with a 100 W TDP and no power connectors, designed for laptops and mobile workstations. The GTX 760 is a dual-slot desktop card that is 241 mm (9.5 inches) long, has a 170 W TDP, requires two 6-pin power connectors, and needs a 450 W suggested PSU. The bus interfaces also differ: the K5100M uses MXM-B (3.0), while the GTX 760 uses PCIe 3.0 x16. Display outputs vary as well, with the K5100M being portable-device dependent and the GTX 760 offering 2x DVI, 1x HDMI 1.4a, and 1x DisplayPort 1.2.

Both GPUs support DirectX 12 (11_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.175, and neither has ray tracing or tensor cores. The K5100M was released on 2013-07-22, while the GTX 760 came out slightly earlier on 2013-06-24. The K5100M’s predecessor is Quadro Fermi-M and its successor is Quadro Maxwell-M, while the GTX 760’s predecessor is GeForce 600 and its successor is GeForce 900. The GTX 760 has a launch MSRP of 249 USD, while the K5100M has no listed launch price. Both are end-of-life products, but the data shows they serve very different roles in the GPU ecosystem.