Quadro NVS 420 vs FirePro D500
Primary details
GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.
| Place in the ranking | 422 | not rated |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | not in top-100 |
| Power efficiency | 2.74 | no data |
| Architecture | GCN 1.0 (2011−2020) | Tesla (2006−2010) |
| GPU code name | Tahiti | G98 |
| Market segment | Workstation | Workstation |
| Release date | 18 January 2014 (10 years ago) | 20 January 2009 (15 years ago) |
| Launch price (MSRP) | no data | $131.43 |
Detailed specifications
General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.
| Pipelines / CUDA cores | 1536 | 8 |
| Core clock speed | 725 MHz | 550 MHz |
| Number of transistors | 4,313 million | 210 million |
| Manufacturing process technology | 28 nm | 65 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 274 Watt | 40 Watt |
| Texture fill rate | 69.60 | 4.400 |
| Floating-point processing power | 2.227 TFLOPS | 0.0224 TFLOPS |
| ROPs | 32 | 4 |
| TMUs | 96 | 8 |
Form factor & compatibility
Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).
| Interface | PCIe 3.0 x16 | PCIe 1.0 x16 |
| Length | 279 mm | no data |
| Width | 2-slot | 1-slot |
| Supplementary power connectors | no data | None |
VRAM capacity and type
Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.
| Memory type | GDDR5 | GDDR3 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 3 GB | 256 MB |
| Memory bus width | 384 Bit | 64 Bit |
| Memory clock speed | 1270 MHz | 700 MHz |
| Memory bandwidth | 243.8 GB/s | 11.2 GB/s |
Connectivity and outputs
Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.
| Display Connectors | 6x mini-DisplayPort, 1x SDI | No outputs |
API compatibility
List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.
| DirectX | 12 (11_1) | 11.1 (10_0) |
| Shader Model | 5.1 | 4.0 |
| OpenGL | 4.6 | 3.3 |
| OpenCL | 1.2 | 1.1 |
| Vulkan | 1.2.131 | N/A |
| CUDA | - | 1.1 |
Pros & cons summary
| Recency | 18 January 2014 | 20 January 2009 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 3 GB | 256 MB |
| Chip lithography | 28 nm | 65 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 274 Watt | 40 Watt |
FirePro D500 has an age advantage of 4 years, a 1100% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 132.1% more advanced lithography process.
NVS 420, on the other hand, has 585% lower power consumption.
We couldn't decide between FirePro D500 and Quadro NVS 420. We've got no test results to judge.
Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.
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