Radeon 520 Mobile GDDR5 vs Quadro FX 5500 SDI

Primary details

GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.

Place in the rankingnot ratednot rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
ArchitectureCurie (2003−2013)GCN 1.0 (2011−2020)
GPU code nameG71Banks
Market segmentWorkstationLaptop
Release date20 April 2006 (18 years ago)18 April 2017 (7 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$6,999 no data

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 coresno data320
Core clock speed650 MHz1030 MHz
Number of transistors278 million690 million
Manufacturing process technology90 nm28 nm
Power consumption (TDP)104 Watt50 Watt
Texture fill rate15.6020.60
Floating-point processing powerno data0.6592 TFLOPS
ROPs168
TMUs2420

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).

InterfacePCIe 1.0 x16PCIe 3.0 x8
Length229 mmno data
Width3-slotno data
Supplementary power connectors1x 6-pinno data

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 typeGDDR3GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount1 GB2 GB
Memory bus width256 Bit64 Bit
Memory clock speed505 MHz1125 MHz
Memory bandwidth32.32 GB/s36 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 Connectors3x DVI, 1x S-VideoPortable Device Dependent

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX9.0c (9_3)12 (11_1)
Shader Model3.06.5 (5.1)
OpenGL2.14.6
OpenCLN/A2.1 (1.2)
VulkanN/A1.2.170

Pros & cons summary


Recency 20 April 2006 18 April 2017
Maximum RAM amount 1 GB 2 GB
Chip lithography 90 nm 28 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 104 Watt 50 Watt

520 Mobile GDDR5 has an age advantage of 10 years, a 100% higher maximum VRAM amount, a 221.4% more advanced lithography process, and 108% lower power consumption.

We couldn't decide between Quadro FX 5500 SDI and Radeon 520 Mobile GDDR5. We've got no test results to judge.

Be aware that Quadro FX 5500 SDI is a workstation card while Radeon 520 Mobile GDDR5 is a notebook one.


Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

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NVIDIA Quadro FX 5500 SDI
Quadro FX 5500 SDI
AMD Radeon 520 Mobile GDDR5
Radeon 520 Mobile GDDR5

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Community ratings

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