Quadro M500M vs Radeon HD 8970M

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Quadro M500M and Radeon HD 8970M, there are a couple of things to consider. Cards with more VRAM in general perform better and allow you to play on higher graphics settings. Size also makes a difference. A model with a large heatsink can occupy up to three expansion slots on a motherboard. Be sure you have enough room in your PC case. When comparing GPUs with different architectures, more processing cores and even higher TFLOPS will not always translate to better performance. To help you decide which GPU you need, we have measured frame rates in a number of popular games. For more on how the Quadro M500M stacks up against Radeon HD 8970M, check out specs charts below.

Quadro M500M and Radeon HD 8970M are Laptop Graphics Cards

Note: Quadro M500M and Radeon HD 8970M are only used in laptop graphics. They have lower GPU clock speed compared to the desktop variant, which results in lower power consumption, but also 10-30% lower gaming performance. Check available laptop models with Quadro M500M or Radeon HD 8970M here:

Main Specs

  Quadro M500M Radeon HD 8970M
Power consumption (TDP) 30 Watt 100 Watt
Interface MXM-A (3.0) PCIe 3.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors None
Memory type GDDR3 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 4 GB
Display Connectors No outputs No outputs
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  • Radeon HD 8970M has 233% more power consumption, than Quadro M500M.
  • Quadro M500M is connected by MXM-A (3.0), and Radeon HD 8970M uses PCIe 3.0 x16 interface.
  • Radeon HD 8970M has 2 GB more memory, than Quadro M500M.
  • Quadro M500M is used in Mobile workstations, and Radeon HD 8970M - in Laptops.
  • Quadro M500M is build with Maxwell architecture, and Radeon HD 8970M - with GCN.
  • Core clock speed of Quadro M500M is 179 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 8970M.
  • Quadro M500M and Radeon HD 8970M are manufactured by 28 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 8970M is 796 MHz higher, than Quadro M500M.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 0−1 20−22
ultra / 1080p 12−14
QHD / 1440p 0−1 6−7
4K / 2160p 5−6
low / 720p 12−14 35−40
medium / 1080p 3−4 24−27
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 8970M in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 287% more, than Quadro M500M.

Full Specs

  Quadro M500M Radeon HD 8970M
Architecture Maxwell GCN
Code name GM108 Neptune
Type Mobile workstation Laptop
Release date 15 December 2015 15 May 2013
Pipelines 384 1280
Core clock speed 1029 MHz 850 MHz
Boost Clock 1124 MHz 900 MHz
Transistor count 2,800 million
Manufacturing process technology 28 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 17.98 72.00
Floating-point performance 863.2 gflops 2,304 gflops
Memory bus width 64 Bit 256 Bit
Memory clock speed 4004 MHz 4800 MHz
Memory bandwidth 14.4 GB/s 153.6 GB/s
Shared memory - -
DirectX 12 12 (11_1)
Shader Model 5.0 5.1
OpenGL 4.5 4.6
OpenCL 1.2 1.2
Vulkan 1.1.126 1.2.131
CUDA 5.0
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 273 Mh/s
Laptop size large large
Optimus +
nView Display Management +
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