NVIDIA Quadro M4000

The NVIDIA Quadro M4000 is an end-of-life professional graphics card built on the Maxwell 2.0 architecture, using the GM204 chip fabricated on a 28 nm process at TSMC. It occupies a specific niche: a single-slot workstation card with 8 GB of GDDR5 memory, positioned in the lower-middle tier of the GPU hierarchy according to its 31st percentile ranking against all GPUs. Its average benchmark score of 5568 places it in close contention with a set of mobile and entry-level desktop parts, though its professional feature set and memory configuration distinguish it from those gaming-oriented rivals.

Benchmark Performance

The Quadro M4000's raw performance profile is best understood through its average benchmark score of 5568, which places it at the 31st percentile of all GPUs. This is not a high-performance part by modern standards; the data indicates it sits in a crowded field where small percentage differences separate it from several competitors. In synthetic 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 testing, the card scores 680, a modest result that reflects its age and architecture. More impressive is its Geekbench OpenCL score of 20128 and Vulkan score of 24640, which suggest that compute workloads are handled relatively better than pure rasterization tasks.

The Passmark suite reveals a telling pattern. The card scores 6680 in G3D, but its DirectX 9 score of 113 is drastically higher than its DirectX 11 score of 49, and its DirectX 12 score drops further to 26. This is a clear indicator of architectural limitations with newer API features; the Maxwell 2.0 architecture supports DirectX 12 (12_1), but performance under that API is weak. The DirectX 10 score of 33 and the GPU compute score of 2660 round out the picture: this is a card that performs best with older DirectX 9 workloads or general compute, and struggles with modern gaming APIs.

Comparing the average score to its nearest rivals shows how tight the competition is. The Quadro M4000 is 0.7% ahead of the AMD FirePro M4000, which scores 5530, and 0.8% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M at 5526. It is 1.2% behind the NVIDIA GeForce MX130 (5634) and 1.5% behind the NVIDIA GeForce 940MX (5653). These deltas are within noise for most real-world applications; the data shows no meaningful performance gap between these four cards in aggregate benchmarks. The practical takeaway is that raw compute throughput is nearly identical across this cluster, and other factors like driver support, memory size, and thermal design will matter more than the fractional score differences.

Power and Cooling

The Quadro M4000 has a TDP of 120 W, which is modest for a professional card from its era. This low power draw enables the single-slot cooling design, making it suitable for dense workstation builds where space is at a premium. The card measures 241 mm in length (9.5 inches) and 111 mm in height (4.4 inches), fitting standard workstation chassis without issue. Power is delivered through a single 6-pin PCIe power connector, and the suggested PSU rating is 300 W. This is a low requirement; most systems with a quality 300 W power supply can handle this card, provided the rest of the system does not draw excessive power.

The 28 nm process node and 5,200 million transistors on a 398 mm² die result in a transistor density of 13.1 million transistors per square millimeter. The thermal characteristics are not explicitly stated, but the combination of a 120 W TDP and single-slot form factor implies a well-constrained thermal envelope. The card uses a blower-style cooler typical of workstation cards, though the fact pack does not specify the exact cooler type. For PC builders, the key point is that this card does not require high-end cooling or a large power supply; a standard 300 W unit with one 6-pin cable is sufficient.

How It Compares

AMD FirePro M4000: The Quadro M4000 leads this rival by 0.7% in average score (5568 vs 5530). Both are professional workstation cards, but the Quadro has a significant memory advantage with 8 GB versus the FirePro's unspecified capacity. In practice, the performance difference is negligible, so the choice comes down to software ecosystem and driver preferences.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M: The Quadro M4000 is 0.8% ahead of this mobile gaming GPU (5568 vs 5526). The GTX 765M is a laptop part from the same generation, so the desktop Quadro's slight lead is expected. However, the Quadro's 8 GB VRAM and professional drivers make it more suitable for compute and CAD workloads, while the GTX 765M would be better for gaming on a laptop.

NVIDIA GeForce MX130: This is the first rival that beats the Quadro, with the MX130 scoring 5634, a 1.2% advantage. The MX130 is a low-end mobile chip, so its lead is surprising but consistent with the tight margins in this performance tier. The Quadro's advantage lies in its 8 GB memory and 256-bit bus, which are far beyond what the MX130 offers, making the Quadro better for large datasets despite the slight benchmark deficit.

NVIDIA GeForce 940MX: The 940MX scores 5653, which is 1.5% higher than the Quadro M4000. This is the largest gap among the listed rivals, yet it remains under 2%. The 940MX is another low-power mobile GPU, and the same analysis applies: the Quadro's professional features, driver certification, and memory bandwidth (192.3 GB/s) provide value that synthetic averages do not capture.

FAQ

Q: Is the Quadro M4000 suitable for modern gaming?

A: The data indicates limited capability. Its DirectX 12 score of 26 and DirectX 11 score of 49 in Passmark are low, while the DirectX 9 score of 113 is relatively strong. It supports DirectX 12 (12_1), but performance under that API is weak, making it unsuitable for demanding modern titles.

Q: How much VRAM does the Quadro M4000 have, and is it enough?

A: It has 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus with 192.3 GB/s of bandwidth. For workstation tasks like large 3D models or high-resolution textures, 8 GB is ample. For gaming, it is excessive given the limited compute performance.

Q: What power supply do I need?

A: The suggested PSU is 300 W, and the card requires a single 6-pin PCIe power connector. The TDP is 120 W, so a standard 300 W unit is sufficient for most systems.

Q: Does the Quadro M4000 support Vulkan?

A: Yes, it supports Vulkan 1.4, along with DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and DirectX 12 (12_1). Its Geekbench Vulkan score is 24640, which is respectable.

Q: What display outputs does it have?

A: It features 4x DisplayPort 1.2 outputs. This allows for multi-monitor setups, though the display output resolution is not specified in the data.

Q: How does it perform in compute workloads?

A: The Geekbench OpenCL score is 20128, and the Passmark GPU compute score is 2660. The FP32 performance is 2.573 TFLOPS, which is notable for a card of this class, suggesting reasonable compute capability for older professional applications.

Who Should Consider It

The Quadro M4000 is a card for specific professional use cases, not for gaming or high-performance computing. Its 31st percentile ranking and low DirectX 11/12 scores make it a poor choice for modern games, even at 1080p with reduced settings. The DirectX 9 score of 113 is the only bright spot for gaming, implying it could handle older titles or lightweight esports games, but the 1.5% deficit to the GeForce 940MX in average score shows that even entry-level mobile GPUs match it.

Instead, this card targets users who need a single-slot professional GPU with substantial memory. The 8 GB VRAM and 192.3 GB/s bandwidth are well-suited for 1080p workstation tasks like CAD modeling, architectural visualization, or scientific visualization where memory capacity matters more than raw rasterization speed. The 120 W TDP and 300 W PSU requirement make it easy to integrate into existing workstations without power upgrades. However, for 1440p or 4K workloads, the compute performance (2.573 TFLOPS FP32) will become a bottleneck, and users should look to newer Quadro Pascal or later generations. The card is end-of-life, so buyers should consider driver support longevity; the data shows it supports OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4, which are current API standards, but hardware acceleration for newer features is limited.

Memory Subsystem

The memory subsystem is the Quadro M4000's strongest feature. It comes with 8 GB of GDDR5 memory, which is a substantial amount for a card in this performance tier. The memory runs at 1502 MHz, translating to 6 Gbps effective, and is accessed via a 256-bit bus. This configuration yields a memory bandwidth of 192.3 GB/s. For context, this bandwidth is significantly higher than what the rival GPUs in the nearestRivals list would offer, though the fact pack does not provide their memory specifications.

This memory configuration matters for high-resolution work. At 1080p, the 8 GB capacity is rarely a limitation, but it becomes critical for 4K textures or large compute datasets that exceed the capacity of 4 GB cards. The 256-bit bus width ensures that the memory can feed the 1664 shading units, 104 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs efficiently. The pixel rate is 49.47 GPixel/s, and the texture rate is 80.39 GTexel/s, which are consistent with a card that has ample memory bandwidth relative to its compute capabilities. For professional applications that load large models or high-resolution textures into VRAM, the Quadro M4000's 8 GB is a clear advantage over its gaming-oriented rivals, even if its raw compute scores are nearly identical. The bandwidth is also sufficient for multi-display setups using the 4x DisplayPort 1.2 outputs, though the card's overall performance will limit the resolution and refresh rates that can be driven smoothly.