AMD Radeon Pro 450 vs NVIDIA Quadro K4200 Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded data shows a clear overall winner in the two direct comparisons available. The NVIDIA Quadro K4200 wins both head-to-head benchmark tests, taking 2 wins against 0 for the AMD Radeon Pro 450. This is not a marginal result, the margins are substantial in both workloads.

In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the NVIDIA Quadro K4200 scores 12313 points against 9002 points for the AMD Radeon Pro 450. That represents a 36.8% advantage for the Quadro K4200. The magnitude of this gap places the two cards in different performance tiers for compute workloads. The AMD Radeon Pro 450 trails by more than a third, which is a decisive margin in any benchmark comparison.

The Vulkan results are closer but still favor the NVIDIA card. The Quadro K4200 records 12482 points while the AMD Radeon Pro 450 manages 10518 points. The delta here is 18.7% in favor of NVIDIA. While not as lopsided as the OpenCL result, this still represents a meaningful performance gap in graphics API workloads.

Looking at the broader database context, the NVIDIA Quadro K4200 sits at the 52nd percentile of all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 12398. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA Tesla K20Xm at 12625 (1.8% higher), the AMD Radeon RX 7600M XT at 12710 (2.5% higher), and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 at 12773 (2.9% higher). The Quadro K4200 also leads the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A by 3.3%, which scores 11998. These deltas indicate the Quadro K4200 is positioned in a competitive cluster where small percentage differences separate it from adjacent GPUs.

The AMD Radeon Pro 450 occupies the 49th percentile with an average benchmark score of 10804. Its nearest rival is the NVIDIA Quadro K2200 at 10761, a difference of only 0.4%. That is effectively a statistical tie. The AMD card also trails the NVIDIA GeForce MX350 by 0.7% (10883) while leading the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti by 1.1% (10690) and the AMD Radeon RX 6600S by 1.7% (10629). The tight clustering around the Radeon Pro 450 suggests it sits at a performance equilibrium point where many comparable products land.

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA Quadro K4200 demonstrates superiority in both benchmarks recorded, so the use-case split is straightforward. In OpenCL compute workloads, the 36.8% lead makes the Quadro K4200 the stronger choice for general-purpose GPU compute tasks that leverage this API. The 12313 score reflects a hardware configuration with substantially more shading units, 1344 versus 640, and double the texture mapping units, 112 versus 40. These architectural resources translate directly into compute throughput advantages.

For Vulkan graphics workloads, the Quadro K4200 again wins with an 18.7% margin. The 12482 score indicates strong graphics API performance despite the older Kepler architecture. The AMD Radeon Pro 450 still produces a respectable 10518 in Vulkan, which is actually its best relative showing against the NVIDIA card. The margin narrows compared to OpenCL, suggesting the GCN 4.0 architecture handles the Vulkan API somewhat more efficiently relative to its raw specs.

The AMD Radeon Pro 450 does not win any recorded benchmark, but the data does reveal its competitive positioning. Its average benchmark score of 10804 is within 0.4% of the NVIDIA Quadro K2200, meaning these two cards are interchangeable in performance terms. The Radeon Pro 450 also has a substantial advantage in the Metal API, scoring 12893 in Geekbench Metal, a result not available for the NVIDIA Quadro K4200. For users in Apple ecosystems where Metal is the primary graphics API, this score indicates strong performance, but it cannot be directly compared to the NVIDIA card in this database since no corresponding Metal result exists for the Quadro K4200.

The use-case split ultimately favors the Quadro K4200 for OpenCL and Vulkan workloads. The Radeon Pro 450 is the more power-efficient option at 35 W versus 108 W, and its 14 nm process node suggests modern manufacturing advantages, but in raw recorded performance the NVIDIA card dominates.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from different architectural generations and foundries. The NVIDIA Quadro K4200 uses the GK104 chip based on the Kepler architecture, manufactured by TSMC on a 28 nm process. The AMD Radeon Pro 450 uses the Baffin chip based on GCN 4.0, manufactured by GlobalFoundries on a 14 nm process. This process node difference is significant: 28 nm versus 14 nm represents a full generation jump in manufacturing technology.

Transistor counts tell an interesting story. The NVIDIA chip packs 3,540 million transistors on a 294 mm² die, resulting in a transistor density of 12.0M per mm². The AMD chip contains 3,000 million transistors on a much smaller 123 mm² die, achieving a transistor density of 24.4M per mm². The AMD design is more than twice as dense, which explains how it fits nearly as many transistors into less than half the die area.

The memory subsystems differ substantially. The Quadro K4200 features 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus with 172.8 GB/s of bandwidth. The Radeon Pro 450 has 2 GB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus with 81.28 GB/s. The NVIDIA card has exactly double the bus width and more than double the bandwidth, a critical advantage in memory-bound workloads.

Compute resources are heavily skewed toward NVIDIA. The Quadro K4200 has 1344 shading units, 112 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The Radeon Pro 450 has 640 shading units, 40 TMUs, and 16 ROPs. The NVIDIA card has more than twice the shading units and nearly three times the TMUs. Pixel throughput reflects this: 21.95 GPixel/s for NVIDIA versus 12.80 GPixel/s for AMD. Texture rate is 87.81 GTexel/s versus 32.00 GTexel/s.

Floating-point performance follows the same pattern. The Quadro K4200 delivers 2.107 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. The Radeon Pro 450 delivers 1,024.0 GFLOPS (1.024 TFLOPS) of FP32, roughly half. Interestingly, the AMD card matches its FP32 figure in FP16 at 1,024.0 GFLOPS with a 1:1 ratio, while no FP16 figure is recorded for the NVIDIA card.

The memory clocks differ slightly: 1350 MHz (5.4 Gbps effective) for NVIDIA versus 1270 MHz (5.1 Gbps effective) for AMD. The API support shows the AMD card with DirectX 12 (12_0) versus DirectX 12 (11_0) for NVIDIA, and Vulkan 1.3 versus Vulkan 1.2.175.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ across nearly every recorded specification. The process node is 28 nm for NVIDIA and 14 nm for AMD. The Quadro K4200 uses a PCIe 2.0 x16 bus interface while the Radeon Pro 450 uses PCIe 3.0 x8. Power consumption is another major differentiator: 108 W for the NVIDIA card versus 35 W for the AMD card.

Physical design diverges completely. The Quadro K4200 is a single-slot card measuring 241 mm in length and 111 mm in height, requiring a 6-pin power connector and a 300 W suggested power supply. The Radeon Pro 450 is an MXM Module with no recorded dimensions, power connector, or suggested PSU. Display outputs also differ: the NVIDIA card offers 1x DVI and 2x DisplayPort 1.2, while the AMD card's outputs are listed as portable device dependent.

Release timing is separated by over two years. The Quadro K4200 launched on 2014-07-21, while the Radeon Pro 450 launched on 2016-10-29. Both are now end-of-life products. The NVIDIA card has a recorded predecessor, Quadro Fermi, and successor, Quadro Maxwell, while no predecessor or successor is listed for the AMD card.

The AMD card shows a base clock and boost clock of null in the database, meaning no fixed clock rates are recorded, while the NVIDIA card has a base clock of 771 MHz and a boost clock of 784 MHz. Both cards lack a recorded launch MSRP, so no pricing information is available for either product.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has higher raw compute performance?

A: The NVIDIA Quadro K4200 delivers 2.107 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, more than double the 1,024.0 GFLOPS of the AMD Radeon Pro 450.

Q: How much faster is the NVIDIA Quadro K4200 in OpenCL?

A: The Quadro K4200 scores 12313 in Geekbench OpenCL, which is 36.8% higher than the Radeon Pro 450's score of 9002.

Q: Does the AMD Radeon Pro 450 have any benchmark advantage?

A: The recorded data shows no head-to-head wins for the Radeon Pro 450. It loses both the OpenCL and Vulkan comparisons, though it scores 12893 in Geekbench Metal, a test not recorded for the Quadro K4200.

Q: How do their power requirements compare?

A: The Quadro K4200 has a TDP of 108 W and requires a 6-pin power connector with a 300 W suggested power supply. The Radeon Pro 450 has a TDP of 35 W with no power connector or suggested PSU recorded.

Q: Which card has more memory bandwidth?

A: The Quadro K4200 has 172.8 GB/s of bandwidth from its 256-bit bus, while the Radeon Pro 450 has 81.28 GB/s from a 128-bit bus. The NVIDIA card offers more than double the bandwidth.

Q: Where does the Radeon Pro 450 rank among its nearest rivals?

A: The Radeon Pro 450 has an average benchmark score of 10804, which is 0.4% above the NVIDIA Quadro K2200 and 1.1% above the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti, but 0.7% below the NVIDIA GeForce MX350.