GPU Comparison

# NVIDIA Quadro 5000 vs AMD Radeon HD 7730M

The data presents a straightforward but nuanced comparison: the NVIDIA Quadro 5000 wins the only head-to-head benchmark, Geekbench OpenCL, with a score of 7289 against the AMD Radeon HD 7730M's 6581, a 10.8% margin. However, the two cards occupy entirely different design philosophies, the Quadro 5000 is a 152W dual-slot workstation behemoth from 2011, while the Radeon HD 7730M is a 25W mobile chip from 2012. The benchmark results indicate that raw compute advantage belongs to NVIDIA, but the architecture, memory subsystem, and intended platform differences suggest these cards were never meant to compete directly.

The Verdict

The data points to a clear but conditional choice. For anyone prioritizing raw OpenCL compute performance, the NVIDIA Quadro 5000 is the pick, its 7289 score places it 10.8% ahead of the Radeon HD 7730M, and it sits at the 40th percentile among all GPUs, slightly above the Radeon's 38th percentile. The Quadro 5000 also outperforms its nearest rivals by slim margins: 0.9% ahead of the GeForce GTX 750 (7222), 1.2% ahead of the Radeon Vega 8 Mobile (7203), 1.6% ahead of the GTX 560 SE (7171), and 1.7% ahead of the Intel Iris Pro Graphics P580 (7170). This clustering suggests the Quadro 5000 is at the upper edge of a tightly packed performance tier.

The Radeon HD 7730M, by contrast, lands in a slightly lower bracket. Its 6581 score puts it 0.4% behind the Intel UHD Graphics P750 (6554), 0.5% behind the Radeon R7 M460 (6612), 1.0% ahead of the GeForce GTX 670M (6513), and 1.4% ahead of the GeForce GT 555M (6493). The Radeon's advantage over its rivals is smaller than the Quadro's, and its single benchmark win count is zero against the Quadro's one.

Yet the verdict is not simply "buy the Quadro." The Radeon HD 7730M consumes a fraction of the power, 25W versus 152W, and requires no power connectors, no dual-slot cooling, and no external PSU recommendation. The Quadro 5000 demands a 450W suggested PSU, a 6-pin connector, and a 248mm length. For mobile or low-power embedded systems, the Radeon is the only viable option. The data shows a trade-off: 10.8% more compute performance comes with roughly six times the power draw. The choice hinges on whether the workload justifies the Quadro's physical and electrical footprint.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from different architectural generations and design intents. The Quadro 5000 uses NVIDIA's Fermi architecture on the GF100 chip, fabricated on a 40nm process at TSMC. This is a massive die, 529 mm², packing 3,100 million transistors at a density of 5.9M per mm². The Radeon HD 7730M uses AMD's GCN 1.0 architecture on the Chelsea chip, built on a 28nm process, also at TSMC. Its die is dramatically smaller at 123 mm², housing 1,500 million transistors at a density of 12.2M per mm², more than double the transistor density of the Fermi chip.

The shader configurations differ notably. The Quadro 5000 has 352 shading units, 44 TMUs, and 40 ROPs. The Radeon HD 7730M has 512 shading units, 45% more, but only 32 TMUs and 16 ROPs, half the ROP count of the Quadro. This suggests the Radeon is designed for compute-heavy workloads that scale with shader count, while the Quadro's higher ROP count favors pixel throughput. The pixel rates are nearly identical: 11.29 GPixel/s for the Quadro versus 10.80 GPixel/s for the Radeon. Texture rates are also close: 22.57 GTexel/s versus 21.60 GTexel/s. FP32 performance tells a similar story: 722.3 GFLOPS for the Quadro versus 691.2 GFLOPS for the Radeon, a 4.5% gap that is smaller than the OpenCL score difference.

Memory architecture is where the cards diverge sharply. The Quadro 5000 uses 2.5 GB of GDDR5 on a 320-bit bus, delivering 120.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The Radeon HD 7730M uses 2 GB of DDR3 on a 128-bit bus, yielding just 28.80 GB/s, a 76% bandwidth deficit. The Quadro's memory clock is 750 MHz (3 Gbps effective), while the Radeon's is 900 MHz (1800 Mbps effective). The Radeon does have a base clock of 575 MHz and a boost clock of 675 MHz, whereas the Quadro's core clocks are not listed in the data.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The sole head-to-head benchmark is Geekbench OpenCL, where the Quadro 5000 scores 7289 against the Radeon HD 7730M's 6581. The 10.8% delta favors NVIDIA. This gap is larger than the FP32 difference (4.5%), suggesting that memory bandwidth or driver optimization plays a significant role in the OpenCL result. The Quadro's 120.0 GB/s bandwidth is more than four times the Radeon's 28.80 GB/s, which likely explains why the compute score advantage exceeds the raw FLOPs advantage.

Contextualizing the score, the Quadro's 7289 puts it 0.9% ahead of the GeForce GTX 750's 7222, a desktop card from a later generation. The Radeon's 6581 is 0.5% behind the Radeon R7 M460's 6612, indicating that the HD 7730M is roughly at parity with a newer mobile chip. The Quadro's deltaPct against its nearest rivals is consistently positive (0.9% to 1.7%), while the Radeon shows a mix: negative against the R7 M460 (-0.5%) and the UHD P750 (-0.4%), but positive against the GTX 670M (1.0%) and GT 555M (1.4%). This implies the Quadro sits more comfortably at the top of its performance tier, whereas the Radeon is mid-pack among its peers.

The benchmark results also reveal that the Quadro's 40th percentile rank is only two points higher than the Radeon's 38th. In percentile terms, the two cards are nearly equivalent across the entire GPU landscape, despite the 10.8% head-to-head gap. This suggests that the absolute score difference is within a range where real-world application performance could vary widely depending on workload characteristics.

FAQ

Q: Which card has higher raw compute performance?

A: The NVIDIA Quadro 5000 wins the Geekbench OpenCL benchmark with 7289 points versus 6581 for the AMD Radeon HD 7730M, a 10.8% advantage. FP32 performance also favors the Quadro at 722.3 GFLOPS versus 691.2 GFLOPS.

Q: How do their memory subsystems compare?

A: The Quadro 5000 uses 2.5 GB of GDDR5 on a 320-bit bus with 120.0 GB/s bandwidth. The Radeon HD 7730M uses 2 GB of DDR3 on a 128-bit bus with 28.80 GB/s. The Quadro's bandwidth is roughly 4.2 times higher.

Q: Are these cards from the same generation?

A: No. The Quadro 5000 is from the Quadro Fermi (x000) generation, released on 2011-02-22. The Radeon HD 7730M is from the London (HD 7700M) generation, released on 2012-04-23. They also use different architectures: Fermi versus GCN 1.0.

Q: What are the power requirements for each?

A: The Quadro 5000 has a 152W TDP, requires a 450W suggested PSU, uses a dual-slot cooler with a 1x 6-pin power connector, and measures 248mm in length. The Radeon HD 7730M has a 25W TDP and no listed power connectors, slot width, or PSU requirement.

Q: Which card has better API support?

A: The Radeon HD 7730M supports DirectX 12 (11_1) and Vulkan 1.2.170, while the Quadro 5000 supports DirectX 12 (11_0) and has no Vulkan listing. Both support OpenGL 4.6.

Q: How do these cards rank against all GPUs?

A: The Quadro 5000 is at the 40th percentile, and the Radeon HD 7730M is at the 38th percentile. Their average benchmark scores are 7289 and 6581, respectively.

Where Each One Wins

The Quadro 5000 wins in every measurable compute benchmark category from the data: OpenCL score (7289 vs 6581), FP32 (722.3 vs 691.2 GFLOPS), pixel rate (11.29 vs 10.80 GPixel/s), texture rate (22.57 vs 21.60 GTexel/s), and memory bandwidth (120.0 vs 28.80 GB/s). It also has more ROPs (40 vs 16) and a wider memory bus (320-bit vs 128-bit). For workstation tasks that stress memory throughput, such as large dataset manipulation, high-resolution texture streaming, or multi-display output (the Quadro offers 1x DVI and 2x DisplayPort), the data clearly favors the Quadro.

The Radeon HD 7730M wins in power efficiency and physical footprint. At 25W TDP versus 152W, it consumes 83.5% less power. Its 123 mm² die is 76.7% smaller than the Quadro's 529 mm², and its 12.2M/mm² transistor density is more than double the Quadro's 5.9M/mm². The Radeon also has more shading units (512 vs 352) and a higher base clock (575 MHz) with a boost option (675 MHz), though the Quadro's clocks are not listed. For mobile platforms (the Radeon's display output is "Portable Device Dependent"), battery-powered operation, or compact systems without space for a 248mm dual-slot card, the Radeon is the only rational choice.

The Radeon's API support also gives it a niche edge: Vulkan 1.2.170 support versus none on the Quadro, and DirectX 12 (11_1) versus 12 (11_0) on the Quadro. In modern applications that leverage Vulkan, the Radeon could potentially close the performance gap despite its lower raw compute, though the data does not include Vulkan benchmarks to confirm this.

Specification Differences

| Specification | NVIDIA Quadro 5000 | AMD Radeon HD 7730M |

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

| Architecture | Fermi | GCN 1.0 |

| Chip | GF100 | Chelsea |

| Process Node | 40 nm | 28 nm |

| Transistors | 3,100 million | 1,500 million |

| Die Size | 529 mm² | 123 mm² |

| Transistor Density | 5.9M / mm² | 12.2M / mm² |

| Memory Size | 2.5 GB | 2 GB |

| Memory Type | GDDR5 | DDR3 |

| Memory Bus Width | 320 bit | 128 bit |

| Memory Bandwidth | 120.0 GB/s | 28.80 GB/s |

| Memory Clock | 750 MHz (3 Gbps effective) | 900 MHz (1800 Mbps effective) |

| Shading Units | 352 | 512 |

| TMUs | 44 | 32 |

| ROPs | 40 | 16 |

| Pixel Rate | 11.29 GPixel/s | 10.80 GPixel/s |

| Texture Rate | 22.57 GTexel/s | 21.60 GTexel/s |

| FP32 | 722.3 GFLOPS | 691.2 GFLOPS |

| TDP | 152 W | 25 W |

| Slot Width | Dual-slot | Not listed |

| Power Connectors | 1x 6-pin | None listed |

| Suggested PSU | 450 W | None listed |

| Base Clock | Not listed | 575 MHz |

| Boost Clock | Not listed | 675 MHz |

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

| Vulkan Support | Not listed | 1.2.170 |

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

| Dimensions | 248 mm x 111 mm | Not listed |

| Release Date | 2011-02-22 | 2012-04-23 |

| Launch MSRP | 2,499 USD | None listed |