Quadro M520 vs Radeon HD 8870M

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Quadro M520 and Radeon HD 8870M, 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 M520 stacks up against Radeon HD 8870M, check out specs charts below.

Quadro M520 and Radeon HD 8870M are Laptop Graphics Cards

Note: Quadro M520 and Radeon HD 8870M 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 M520 or Radeon HD 8870M here:

Main Specs

  Quadro M520 Radeon HD 8870M
Power consumption (TDP) 25 Watt
Interface PCIe 3.0 x16
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5, DDR3
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 2 GB
Display Connectors No outputs
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  • Quadro M520 and Radeon HD 8870M have maximum RAM of 2 GB.
  • Quadro M520 is used in Mobile workstations, and Radeon HD 8870M - in Laptops.
  • Quadro M520 is build with Maxwell architecture, and Radeon HD 8870M - with GCN.
  • Core clock speed of Quadro M520 is 31 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 8870M.
  • Quadro M520 and Radeon HD 8870M are manufactured by 28 nm process technology.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 9−10 7−8
ultra / 1080p 5−6 4−5
QHD / 1440p 0−1 0−1
low / 720p 21−24 18−20
medium / 1080p 12−14 9−10
The average gaming FPS of Quadro M520 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 20% more, than Radeon HD 8870M.

Full Specs

  Quadro M520 Radeon HD 8870M
Architecture Maxwell GCN
Code name Venus
Type Mobile workstation Laptop
Release date 13 January 2017 18 December 2012
Pipelines 384 640
Core clock speed 756 MHz 725 MHz
Boost Clock 1019 MHz 775 MHz
Transistor count 1,500 million
Manufacturing process technology 28 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 31.00
Floating-point performance 992.0 gflops
Memory bus width 64 Bit 128 Bit
Memory clock speed 4500 MHz
Memory bandwidth 40 GB/s 72 GB/s
Shared memory - -
DirectX 12 12 (11_1)
Shader Model 5.0 5.1
OpenGL 4.5 4.6
OpenCL 1.2
Vulkan 1.2.131
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 107 Mh/s
Laptop size medium sized large
Optimus +
nView Display Management +
3D Stereo +
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