AMD Radeon R9 M360 vs NVIDIA GRID K2 Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The data shows a single direct comparison between the AMD Radeon R9 M360 and the NVIDIA GRID K2 in the Geekbench OpenCL test, and the result is decisive. The NVIDIA GRID K2 posts a score of 10,602, while the AMD Radeon R9 M360 trails at 8,211. That is a 22.6% deficit for the AMD part, a substantial margin that places the GRID K2 firmly ahead in raw compute throughput.

However, the overall picture is more nuanced than that single benchmark suggests. The average benchmark score across all workloads tells a different story, with the AMD Radeon R9 M360 scoring 8,129 and the NVIDIA GRID K2 scoring 8,080. This puts the R9 M360 at 0.6% ahead of the GRID K2 in aggregate performance, a negligible edge that falls within normal run-to-run variance. The discrepancy between the OpenCL result and the average score stems from the fact that the GRID K2 has an additional benchmark result in its dataset — a Geekbench Metal score of 5,557 — which drags its average down significantly. The R9 M360, by contrast, has a Geekbench Vulkan score of 8,047, which sits much closer to its OpenCL result.

Looking at the nearest rivals for each card clarifies the competitive landscape. The R9 M360 sits within 0.5% of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 (8,167 average) and within 0.1% of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M (8,135 average). The GRID K2, meanwhile, is 0.2% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost (8,067 average) and 0.3% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti (8,053 average). In percentile terms, both cards land at the 42nd percentile among all GPUs, meaning they occupy nearly identical positions in the overall performance distribution — despite the GRID K2’s commanding OpenCL victory.

The key takeaway from the head-to-head data is that the GRID K2 is the clear winner in the one benchmark where both cards were tested directly, but the aggregate scores suggest that real-world workloads would see the two cards trading blows depending on the API and application. The 22.6% OpenCL gap is too large to ignore, but the 0.6% aggregate difference is too small to declare a definitive overall winner. This is a classic case where specification differences (detailed below) create a split personality: the GRID K2 has far more raw hardware, yet its average performance is dragged down by workloads that don’t scale with its compute resources.

FAQ

Q: Which card wins the only direct benchmark comparison in the data?

A: The NVIDIA GRID K2 wins the Geekbench OpenCL test with a score of 10,602 against the AMD Radeon R9 M360’s 8,211, a 22.6% margin.

Q: How do the two cards compare on average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon R9 M360 averages 8,129 across its benchmark results, while the NVIDIA GRID K2 averages 8,080. The R9 M360 leads by 0.6%, but both occupy the 42nd percentile among all GPUs.

Q: What other benchmark results does each card have beyond OpenCL?

A: The AMD Radeon R9 M360 has a Geekbench Vulkan score of 8,047. The NVIDIA GRID K2 has a Geekbench Metal score of 5,557.

Q: How close is the R9 M360 to its nearest rival in terms of average score?

A: The R9 M360’s nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M with an average score of 8,135, putting the AMD card just 0.1% behind. It also sits 0.4% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce 945M (8,099).

Q: What is the GRID K2’s closest competitor according to the data?

A: The GRID K2’s nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost with an average score of 8,067, where the GRID K2 leads by 0.2%. It also sits 0.5% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M (8,040).

Q: Does either card hold a significant aggregate performance advantage?

A: No. The R9 M360’s 0.6% lead in average benchmark score is statistically insignificant, and both cards share the same 42nd percentile ranking, indicating near-identical overall positioning.

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA GRID K2 is the clear choice for compute-heavy, OpenCL-centric workloads. Its 22.6% advantage in the direct Geekbench OpenCL test reflects its substantially larger hardware configuration, which we’ll detail in the specification section. If the primary use case involves general-purpose GPU compute through OpenCL, the GRID K2’s higher raw throughput will translate into measurably faster execution times. The card also supports Vulkan 1.2.175, a slightly newer revision than the R9 M360’s 1.2.170, though the R9 M360 counters with a higher DirectX feature level (12_1 vs. 12_0). For rendering pipelines that depend on DirectX 12 advanced features, the AMD part has a theoretical edge that could matter in specific game titles or professional applications.

The AMD Radeon R9 M360 wins on aggregate consistency. Its Vulkan score of 8,047 is remarkably close to its OpenCL score of 8,211, suggesting that performance remains stable across different APIs. The GRID K2, by contrast, shows a wide gulf between its OpenCL score (10,602) and its Metal score (5,557), indicating that its performance is highly workload-dependent. In scenarios where an application uses Metal or other APIs that don’t fully utilize the GRID K2’s compute resources, the R9 M360 would likely deliver more predictable frame times and responsiveness. The R9 M360 also holds a slight average-score edge (8,129 vs. 8,080), which, while small, does mean it wins more often than not in mixed workloads.

For gaming specifically, the R9 M360’s higher DirectX feature level (12_1 vs. 12_0) gives it access to newer rendering techniques, although neither card is positioned as a high-end gaming solution given their 42nd percentile ranking. The GRID K2’s lack of display outputs — the fact pack lists “No outputs” — makes it unsuitable for direct-attached gaming setups, while the R9 M360, with its standard PCIe 3.0 x16 interface, can serve as a conventional graphics card. The GRID K2 is designed for virtualized environments where GPU resources are shared across multiple users, and in that role, its high OpenCL throughput is the dominant consideration.

Specification Differences

The two cards diverge sharply on nearly every hardware specification, despite sharing the same 28 nm process node from TSMC. The NVIDIA GRID K2 uses the GK104 chip with 3,540 million transistors on a 294 mm² die, while the AMD Radeon R9 M360 uses the Tropo chip with 1,500 million transistors on a 123 mm² die. That means the GRID K2 packs more than twice the transistor count and over twice the die area, yet both achieve nearly identical transistor density: 12.0M per mm² for the GRID K2 versus 12.2M per mm² for the R9 M360.

Memory configuration is another major differentiator. Both cards feature 4 GB of GDDR5, but the bus widths differ dramatically: the GRID K2 uses a 256-bit bus delivering 160.0 GB/s of bandwidth, while the R9 M360 is limited to a 128-bit bus with 72.00 GB/s. The GRID K2’s memory clock is also higher at 1250 MHz (5 Gbps effective) versus the R9 M360’s 1125 MHz (4.5 Gbps effective). This gives the NVIDIA card more than twice the memory bandwidth, which is critical for large data sets and high-resolution textures.

Compute resources follow the same pattern. The GRID K2 has 1,536 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 32 render output units. The R9 M360 has 512 shading units, 32 TMUs, and 16 ROPs. The GRID K2’s peak FP32 throughput is 2.289 TFLOPS, while the R9 M360 delivers 947.2 GFLOPS. Pixel rate and texture rate similarly favor the GRID K2: 23.84 GPixel/s versus 14.80 GPixel/s, and 95.36 GTexel/s versus 29.60 GTexel/s. In every hardware metric that matters for raw performance, the GRID K2 is the dominant part.

The cards also differ in power and physical requirements. The GRID K2 has a TDP of 225 W, requires a 550 W suggested power supply, and uses dual-slot cooling with 1x 6-pin and 1x 8-pin power connectors. Its board length is 267 mm (10.5 inches). The R9 M360 has no listed TDP, slot width, power connector, or PSU requirement in the data, suggesting it is a lower-power mobile or small-form-factor part. The GRID K2 also has no display outputs, confirming its role as a compute or virtualization accelerator, while the R9 M360’s output configuration is unspecified.

Architecture Differences

The architectural split is fundamental: the AMD Radeon R9 M360 is built on Graphics Core Next 1.0 (GCN 1.0) architecture, while the NVIDIA GRID K2 uses the Kepler architecture. These are two different design philosophies from roughly the same era, both fabricated on TSMC’s 28 nm process. GCN 1.0 was designed with compute-heavy workloads in mind, featuring a unified shader architecture that scales well with parallel tasks, but the R9 M360’s implementation is limited by its small chip size and modest resource counts. Kepler, meanwhile, was NVIDIA’s second-generation unified architecture, optimized for energy efficiency and featuring a more hierarchical design with larger streaming multiprocessors.

The chip designs reflect these philosophies. The R9 M360’s Tropo chip is a small, power-efficient design typical of mid-range mobile GPUs, with its 1,500 million transistors packed into just 123 mm². The GRID K2’s GK104 chip is a much larger, higher-performance design with 3,540 million transistors on a 294 mm² die, originally intended for desktop gaming cards before being repurposed for virtualized environments. The transistor densities are nearly identical (12.2M vs. 12.0M per mm²), indicating that both chips are similarly mature in their use of the 28 nm process.

In terms of API support, the R9 M360 supports DirectX 12 (with a feature level of 11_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.170. The GRID K2 supports DirectX 12 (with a feature level of 11_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.175. The higher DirectX feature level on the AMD part is notable, as it allows access to features like conservative rasterization and rasterizer-ordered views that the GRID K2 cannot expose. Vulkan support is nearly identical, with the NVIDIA card holding a marginal revision advantage. Neither card includes ray tracing cores or tensor cores, as both predate those technologies.

The release timeline also differs: the R9 M360 was released on May 4, 2015, as part of the R9 M300 generation, while the GRID K2 was released on May 10, 2013, as part of the GRID series. This makes the GRID K2 a two-year-older design, yet its larger hardware configuration still gives it the OpenCL edge. The R9 M360 lists a predecessor (“Solar System”) and successor (“Polaris Mobile”), indicating it belongs to a longer product lineage, while the GRID K2 has no listed predecessor or successor, suggesting it was a standalone product line. Both cards are end-of-life, and the GRID K2 carries a launch MSRP of 5,199 USD — a figure that reflects its enterprise-class positioning rather than any consumer-focused pricing strategy.