NVIDIA GeForce MX450 vs AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 (Ryzen 4000/5000)

NVIDIA GeForce MX450

The Nvidia GeForce MX450 (N18S-G5, N18S-G5-B, N18S-LP codename) is a dedicated entry-level mobile graphics card for laptops. It uses the same TU117 chip as the GeForce GTX 1650 but with a reduced memory bus of 64 Bit. Furthermore, the MX450 is the first mobile GPU with PCIe Gen 4 x4 support. 

Currently four different versions are available with different specifications and performance:

N18S-G5-B: GBD-128 Package, 1395 - 1575 MHz, GDDR6 5001 MHz, 28.5 W
N18S-G5: GB2E-64 Package, 1395 - 1575 MHz, GDDR6 5001 MHz, 25 W
N18S-G5: GB2E-64 Package, 1395 - 1575 MHz, GDDR5 3501 MHz, 25 W
N18S-LP: GB2E-64 Package, 720 - 930 MHz, GDDR6 5001 MHz, 12 W

Especially the LP = Low Power variant is significantly slower than the typical 25 Watt variant.

The 25 Watt GDDR6 N18S-G5 should be up to 20% faster than a GeForce GTX 1050 but of course below a GTX 1650 (Max-Q). Therefore, demanding games like Horizon Zero Dawn should run lowest settings. Less demanding games like F1 2020 can be played in medium to high settings and full HD.

The TU117 chip is manufactured in 12nm at TSMC and thanks to the relatively low power consumption (TGP specified between 12 and 28.5 W) the dGPU is also suited for thin and light laptops. Mostly it is intended as an additional graphics card for Tiger Lake-U based laptops.

AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 (Ryzen 4000/5000)

The AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 is an integrated GPU for notebooks. It is used for the Ryzen 7 APUs of the Renoir generation (Ryzen 4000 Mobile) and Cezanne (Ryzen 5000 Mobile). The GPU is based on the Vega architecture (5th generation GCN) and has 8 CUs (= 512 of the 704 shaders) clocked at up to 1,750 MHz (Ryzen 7 4800U) or 2,100 MHz (Ryzen 9 5980HX). The performance depends on the configured TDP (12-25 W at launch), the clocks, the cooling, and the memory configuration). The GPU should benefit from fast dual-channel DDR4-3200 RAM (contrary to DDR4-2133 single-channel, which is also possible). Compared to the similar Radeon RX Vega 8 in the Raven Ridge generation (Ryzen 2000 Mobile), the GPU is clocked significantly higher (1.750 versus 1.100 MHz Boost, +59%).

The Vega architecture offers some improvements over the Polaris generation and now supports DirectX 12 Feature Level 12_1. More information is available in our dedicated article about the Raven Ridge architecture.

The performance is clearly faster than the old RX Vega 8 thanks to the higher clock speed and faster main memory (if used). Still it is positioned in the entry level (compared to dedicated graphics cards) and only suited for low demanding games.

Thanks to the modern 7nm process and clever power-saving features, the power consumption is comparatively low (according to AMD), so the graphics card can also be used for slim and light notebooks.