Radeon 520 vs GeForce GTX 980 SLI Mobile

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Aggregate performance score

We've compared GeForce GTX 980 SLI Mobile and Radeon 520, covering specs and all relevant benchmarks.

GTX 980 SLI Mobile
2015
2x 8 GB GDDR5, 330 Watt
39.38
+1821%

GTX 980 SLI Mobile outperforms 520 by a whopping 1821% based on our aggregate benchmark results.

Primary details

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

Place in the ranking115883
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Power efficiency8.232.83
ArchitectureMaxwell (2014−2017)GCN 1.0 (2011−2020)
GPU code nameN16E-GXX SLIBanks
Market segmentLaptopLaptop
Release date22 September 2015 (9 years ago)18 April 2017 (7 years ago)

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 cores4096320
Core clock speed1126 MHz1030 MHz
Boost clock speed1228 MHzno data
Number of transistors10400 Million690 million
Manufacturing process technology28 nm28 nm
Power consumption (TDP)330 Watt50 Watt
Texture fill rateno data20.60
Floating-point processing powerno data0.6592 TFLOPS
ROPsno data8
TMUsno data20

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).

Laptop sizelargeno data
Interfaceno dataPCIe 3.0 x8
Supplementary power connectorsno dataNone
SLI options+-

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 typeGDDR5GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount2x 8 GB2 GB
Memory bus width256 Bit64 Bit
Memory clock speed3500 MHz1125 MHz
Memory bandwidthno data36 GB/s
Shared memory--

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 Connectorsno dataNo outputs
G-SYNC support+-

API compatibility

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

DirectX12_112 (11_1)
Shader Modelno data5.1
OpenGLno data4.6
OpenCLno data1.2
Vulkan-1.2.131
CUDA+-

Synthetic benchmark performance

Non-gaming benchmark results comparison. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.


Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

GTX 980 SLI Mobile 39.38
+1821%
Radeon 520 2.05

3DMark 11 Performance GPU

3DMark 11 is an obsolete DirectX 11 benchmark by Futuremark. It used four tests based on two scenes, one being few submarines exploring the submerged wreck of a sunken ship, the other is an abandoned temple deep in the jungle. All the tests are heavy with volumetric lighting and tessellation, and despite being done in 1280x720 resolution, are relatively taxing. Discontinued in January 2020, 3DMark 11 is now superseded by Time Spy.

GTX 980 SLI Mobile 33169
+1545%
Radeon 520 2017

3DMark Vantage Performance

3DMark Vantage is an outdated DirectX 10 benchmark using 1280x1024 screen resolution. It taxes the graphics card with two scenes, one depicting a girl escaping some militarized base located within a sea cave, the other displaying a space fleet attack on a defenseless planet. It was discontinued in April 2017, and Time Spy benchmark is now recommended to be used instead.

GTX 980 SLI Mobile 47704
+806%
Radeon 520 5266

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics

Fire Strike is a DirectX 11 benchmark for gaming PCs. It features two separate tests displaying a fight between a humanoid and a fiery creature made of lava. Using 1920x1080 resolution, Fire Strike shows off some realistic graphics and is quite taxing on hardware.

GTX 980 SLI Mobile 25453
+1830%
Radeon 520 1319

3DMark Cloud Gate GPU

Cloud Gate is an outdated DirectX 11 feature level 10 benchmark that was used for home PCs and basic notebooks. It displays a few scenes of some weird space teleportation device launching spaceships into unknown, using fixed resolution of 1280x720. Just like Ice Storm benchmark, it has been discontinued in January 2020 and replaced by 3DMark Night Raid.

GTX 980 SLI Mobile 155238
+1745%
Radeon 520 8413

Gaming performance

Let's see how good the compared graphics cards are for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in FPS.

Average FPS across all PC games

Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular games across different resolutions:

Full HD130
+900%
13
−900%
4K69
+2200%
3−4
−2200%

FPS performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Counter-Strike 2 80−85
+720%
10−11
−720%
Cyberpunk 2077 80−85
+1580%
5−6
−1580%
Elden Ring 130−140
+4500%
3−4
−4500%

Full HD
Medium Preset

Battlefield 5 100−110
+2500%
4−5
−2500%
Counter-Strike 2 80−85
+720%
10−11
−720%
Cyberpunk 2077 80−85
+1580%
5−6
−1580%
Forza Horizon 4 190−200
+1636%
10−12
−1636%
Metro Exodus 90−95
+4600%
2−3
−4600%
Red Dead Redemption 2 75−80
+863%
8−9
−863%
Valorant 150−160
+1875%
8−9
−1875%

Full HD
High Preset

Battlefield 5 100−110
+2500%
4−5
−2500%
Counter-Strike 2 80−85
+720%
10−11
−720%
Cyberpunk 2077 80−85
+1580%
5−6
−1580%
Dota 2 120−130
+1950%
6
−1950%
Elden Ring 130−140
+4500%
3−4
−4500%
Far Cry 5 95−100
+646%
12−14
−646%
Fortnite 170−180
+1620%
10−11
−1620%
Forza Horizon 4 190−200
+1636%
10−12
−1636%
Grand Theft Auto V 120−130
+2950%
4−5
−2950%
Metro Exodus 90−95
+4600%
2−3
−4600%
PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS 200−210
+1017%
18
−1017%
Red Dead Redemption 2 75−80
+863%
8−9
−863%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 141
+1467%
9−10
−1467%
Valorant 150−160
+1875%
8−9
−1875%
World of Tanks 270−280
+615%
35−40
−615%

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Battlefield 5 100−110
+2500%
4−5
−2500%
Counter-Strike 2 80−85
+720%
10−11
−720%
Cyberpunk 2077 80−85
+1580%
5−6
−1580%
Dota 2 120−130
+583%
18
−583%
Far Cry 5 95−100
+646%
12−14
−646%
Forza Horizon 4 190−200
+1636%
10−12
−1636%
PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS 200−210
+905%
20−22
−905%
Valorant 150−160
+1875%
8−9
−1875%

1440p
High Preset

Dota 2 70−75
+2333%
3−4
−2333%
Elden Ring 80−85
+7900%
1−2
−7900%
Grand Theft Auto V 70−75
+2333%
3−4
−2333%
PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS 170−180
+1150%
14−16
−1150%
Red Dead Redemption 2 35−40
+3800%
1−2
−3800%
World of Tanks 240−250
+1815%
12−14
−1815%

1440p
Ultra Preset

Battlefield 5 70−75 0−1
Counter-Strike 2 40−45
+344%
9−10
−344%
Cyberpunk 2077 40−45
+1233%
3−4
−1233%
Far Cry 5 120−130
+2017%
6−7
−2017%
Forza Horizon 4 110−120
+2180%
5−6
−2180%
Metro Exodus 85−90
+2025%
4−5
−2025%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 65−70
+2200%
3−4
−2200%
Valorant 120−130
+1450%
8−9
−1450%

4K
High Preset

Counter-Strike 2 40−45
+1950%
2−3
−1950%
Dota 2 75−80
+388%
16−18
−388%
Elden Ring 35−40
+3700%
1−2
−3700%
Grand Theft Auto V 75−80
+420%
14−16
−420%
Metro Exodus 30−35
+3200%
1−2
−3200%
PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS 120−130
+2033%
6−7
−2033%
Red Dead Redemption 2 24−27
+2500%
1−2
−2500%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 75−80
+420%
14−16
−420%

4K
Ultra Preset

Battlefield 5 45−50
+2200%
2−3
−2200%
Counter-Strike 2 40−45
+1950%
2−3
−1950%
Cyberpunk 2077 16−18
+1600%
1−2
−1600%
Dota 2 75−80
+388%
16−18
−388%
Far Cry 5 55−60
+2800%
2−3
−2800%
Fortnite 55−60 0−1
Forza Horizon 4 65−70
+2067%
3−4
−2067%
Valorant 65−70
+3150%
2−3
−3150%

This is how GTX 980 SLI Mobile and Radeon 520 compete in popular games:

  • GTX 980 SLI Mobile is 900% faster in 1080p
  • GTX 980 SLI Mobile is 2200% faster in 4K

Here's the range of performance differences observed across popular games:

  • in Elden Ring, with 1440p resolution and the High Preset, the GTX 980 SLI Mobile is 7900% faster.

All in all, in popular games:

  • Without exception, GTX 980 SLI Mobile surpassed Radeon 520 in all 50 of our tests.

Pros & cons summary


Performance score 39.38 2.05
Recency 22 September 2015 18 April 2017
Power consumption (TDP) 330 Watt 50 Watt

GTX 980 SLI Mobile has a 1821% higher aggregate performance score.

Radeon 520, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 1 year, and 560% lower power consumption.

The GeForce GTX 980 SLI Mobile is our recommended choice as it beats the Radeon 520 in performance tests.


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

Vote for your favorite

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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 SLI Mobile
GeForce GTX 980 SLI Mobile
AMD Radeon 520
Radeon 520

Other comparisons

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Community ratings

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Questions & comments

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