NVIDIA Quadro M5500 vs NVIDIA Quadro M500M vs NVIDIA Quadro 5000M

NVIDIA Quadro M5500

The Nvidia Quadro M5500 is a high-end, DirectX 12 (FL_12_1) and OpenGL 4.5-compatible graphics card for mobile workstations. It is a Maxwell-based GPU built on the GM204 chip with all 2048 shader cores activated and is manufactured in 28 nm at TSMC. Therefore, the GPU is similar to the consumer Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 (Notebook). Compared to the slower and less power hungry Quadro M5000M, the M5500 offers 512 more shaders which should result in 30-40% more performance according to Nvidia.

The Quadro series offers certified drivers that are optimized for stability and performance in professional applications like CAD or DCC. OpenGL performance, for example, should be significantly better compared to GeForce graphics cards of similar specifications.

Using CUDA (Compute Capability 5.2) or OpenCL 1.2, the cores of the Quadro M5000M can be used for general calculations.

The power consumption of the Quadro M5000M is rated at the same TGP of 150 Watt. Therefore, the card is suited for very large notebooks with 17-inch displays or greater.

The first laptop with the M5500 in it is the MSI WT72 Workstation.

NVIDIA Quadro M500M

The Nvidia Quadro M500M is a DirectX 12 (FL 11_0) and OpenGL 4.5-compatible graphics card for mobile workstations. It is a Maxwell-based GPU built on the GM108 chip with 384 shader cores and manufactured in 28 nm by TSMC. The Quadro M500M is the successor to the Quadro K620M which is also based on the Maxwell GM108 but lists a higher memory bandwidth of 16 vs. 14.4 GB/s. Therefore, it is also similar to the consumer GeForce 930M.

The Quadro series offers certified drivers that are optimized for stability and performance in professional applications like CAD or DCC. OpenGL performance, for example, should be significantly better than with GeForce graphics cards of similar specifications.

Architecture

Compared to Kepler, Maxwell has been optimized in several details to increase power efficiency. Smaller Streaming Multiprocessors (SMM) with only 128 ALUs (Kepler: 192) and an optimized scheduler should lead to better utilization of the shaders. Nvidia promises that a Maxwell SMM with 128 ALUs can offer 90% of the performance of a Kepler SMX with 192 ALUs. GM108 features 3 SMMs and thus 384 shader cores, 24 TMUs and 8 ROPs (64-bit interface).

Another optimization is the massively enlarged L2 cache. The larger size can reduce some of the memory traffic to allow for a relatively narrow memory interface without significantly hurting performance.

GM108 supports DirectX 11.2 (feature level 11.0 only) as well as DirectX 12.

Performance

The performance should be slightly below the Quadro K620M (same chip, but slightly more memory bandwidth) and therefore positioned in the entry-level of dedicated graphics chips. For 3D games the Quadro M500M should be similar to the GeForce 930M. Therefore, only low-demanding games should run fluently.

Features

The feature set should include support for up to four active displays. High-resolution monitors of up to 3840x2160 pixels can be connected using DisplayPort 1.2 or HDMI 1.4a (HDMI 2.0 not supported). HD-Audio codecs, such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD, can be transmitted via bitstream mode through the HDMI port. However, as most laptops will feature Optimus, the integrated GPU will likely have direct control over the display ports and may limit the feature set available by the Nvidia Kepler cards.

Using CUDA or OpenCL, the cores of the Quadro M500M can be used for general calculations.

GM108 integrates the sixth generation of the PureVideo HD video engine (VP6), offering a better decoding performance for H.264 and MPEG-2 videos. Of course, VP6 supports all features of previous generations (4K support, PIP, video encoding via NVENC API).

Power Consumption

The power consumption of the Quadro M500M (and M600M, K620M) is rated at 30 W. Therefore, the GPU is best suited for laptops 13 - 14-inches in size and above. The M500M also supports Optimus to automatically switch between an integrated graphics card and the Nvidia GPU.

NVIDIA Quadro 5000M

The NVIDIA Quadro 5000M is a professional workstation graphics card based on the Fermi architecture. Therefore, the 5000M likely shares many similarities  to the GeForce GTX 480M which offers more CUDA cores. The Quadro is the first mobile GPU that offers ECC RAM and double-precision floating point cores.

The Quadro series also offers certified drivers that are optimized for stability and performance in professional applications like CAD or DCC. OpenGL performance, for example, should be significantly better than GeForce graphics cards of similar specifications. 

The shader/CUDA cores can be accessed using DirectX 11 or OpenGL 4.1 for graphics rendering and DirectCompute, OpenCL, AXE and CUDA for general purpose calculations. Due to the new Fermi core, the 5000M should offer higher performance in general purpose calculations compared to its predecessors.

Furthermore, the Quadro 5000M is compatible with Nvidia 3D Vision Pro for stereoscopic viewing.

Similar to the GeForce GTX 480M, the Quadro 5000M is specified at 100 Watt TDP and is therefore usually reserved for large laptops with ample cooling, such as the Clevo D901F.

At the time of arrival (mid 2010), the Quadro 5000M was the fastest professional workstation graphics card for laptops and is the successor to the old G92b-based GeForce FX 3800M. Compared to desktop Quadro cards, the mobile Quadro 5000M offers less shader cores and likely a lower core clock rate as well.