Radeon 520 vs Radeon R9 380

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Radeon 520 and Radeon R9 380, 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 Radeon 520 stacks up against Radeon R9 380, check out specs charts below.

Radeon 520 is a Laptop Graphics Card

Note: Radeon 520 is only used in laptop graphics. It has 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 Radeon 520 here:

Main Specs

  Radeon 520 Radeon R9 380
Power consumption (TDP) 50 Watt 190 Watt
Interface PCIe 3.0 x8 PCIe 3.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors None 2 x 6-pin
Memory type DDR3, GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 4 GB
Display Connectors 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x VGA 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort
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  • Radeon R9 380 has 280% more power consumption, than Radeon 520.
  • Radeon 520 is connected by PCIe 3.0 x8, and Radeon R9 380 uses PCIe 3.0 x16 interface.
  • Radeon R9 380 has 2 GB more memory, than Radeon 520.
  • Radeon 520 is used in Laptops, and Radeon R9 380 - in Desktops.
  • Radeon 520 is build with GCN 1.0 architecture, and Radeon R9 380 - with GCN.
  • Radeon 520 and Radeon R9 380 are manufactured by 28 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon 520 is 1280 MHz higher, than Radeon R9 380.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 0−1 35−40
ultra / 1080p 21−24
QHD / 1440p 0−1 16−18
4K / 2160p 10−11
low / 720p 1−2 60−65
medium / 1080p 0−1 40−45
The average gaming FPS of Radeon R9 380 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 6100% more, than Radeon 520.

Full Specs

  Radeon 520 Radeon R9 380
Architecture GCN 1.0 GCN
Code name Oland Tonga Pro
Type Laptop Desktop
Release date 21 March 2017 26 June 2015
Pipelines 320 1792
Core clock speed 1030 MHz
Boost Clock 970 MHz
Transistor count 1,040 million 5,000 million
Manufacturing process technology 28 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 20.60 108.6
Floating-point performance 659.2 gflops 3,476 gflops
Length 221 mm
Memory bus width 64 Bit 256 Bit
Memory clock speed 2250 MHz 970 MHz
Memory bandwidth 16 GB/s 182.4 GB/s
Shared memory - -
DirectX 12.0
Shader Model 5.0 6.3
OpenGL 4.6 4.5
OpenCL 1.2 2.0
Vulkan + +
Monero / XMR (CryptoNight) 0.48 kh/s
FreeSync +
Bus support PCIe 3.0
HDMI +
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 404 Mh/s
Eyefinity +
HD3D +
PowerTune +
TrueAudio +
ZeroCore +
Mantle +
Design reference
Bridgeless CrossFire +
Number of Eyefinity displays 6
DisplayPort support +
CrossFire +
VCE +
DDMA audio +
Decred / DCR (Decred) 0.66 Gh/s
Ethereum / ETH (DaggerHashimoto) 18 Mh/s
Zcash / ZEC (Equihash) 168.45 Sol/s
Compute units 28
Form factor full height / full length / dual slot
High bandwidth memory (HBM) -
LiquidVR +
FRTC +
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