NVIDIA Quadro M520

The Nvidia Quadro M520 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. That means its similar to the Quadro M500M (DDR3) but uses faster GDDR5 memory. The GeForce 940MX with GDDR5 memory is the consumer variant of the Quadro M520.

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

Currently the clock speeds are not known of the M520 variant. They should be similar to the consumer 940 MX with GDDR5. Therefore, the performance should be similar to the Quadro K620M.

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 M520 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 M520 is rated at 25 Watt TGP (max power consumption including memory and board). That is slightly below the M500M that is rated at 30 Watt. 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.

Quadro M Series Quadro M5500 2048 @ 1.14 - 1.14 GHz 256 Bit @ 6606 MHz Quadro M5000M 1536 @ 0.96 - 1.05 GHz 256 Bit @ 5000 MHz Quadro M4000M 1280 @ 0.98 - 1.01 GHz 256 Bit @ 5012 MHz Quadro M3000M 1024 @ 1.05 GHz 256 Bit @ 5000 MHz Quadro M2200 1024 @ 0.69 - 1.04 GHz 128 Bit @ 5508 MHz Quadro M1200 640 @ 0.99 - 1.15 GHz 128 Bit @ 5000 MHz Quadro M2000M 640 @ 1.04 - 1.2 GHz 128 Bit @ 5000 MHz Quadro M1000M 512 @ 0.99 - 1.07 GHz 128 Bit @ 5000 MHz Quadro M620 512 @ 1.02 GHz 128 Bit @ 5012 MHz Quadro 5010M 384 @ 0.45 GHz 256 Bit @ 1300 MHz Quadro 4000M 336 @ 0.48 GHz 256 Bit @ 1200 MHz Quadro M520 384 @ 0.76 - 1.02 GHz 64 Bit Quadro M600M 384 @ 0.84 - 0.88 GHz 128 Bit @ 5012 MHz Quadro M500M 384 @ 1.03 - 1.12 GHz 64 Bit @ 4004 MHz Quadro 5000M 320 @ 0.41 GHz 256 Bit @ 1200 MHz Quadro 3000M 240 @ 0.45 GHz 256 Bit @ 625 MHz Quadro 2000M 192 @ 0.55 GHz 128 Bit @ 900 MHz Quadro 1000M 96 @ 0.7 GHz 128 Bit @ 900 MHz
Architecture	Maxwell
Pipelines	384 - unified
Core Speed	756 - 1019 (Boost) MHz
Memory Bus Width	64 Bit
Memory Type	GDDR5
Max. Amount of Memory	1024 MB
Shared Memory	no
API	DirectX 12 (FL 11_0), Shader 5.0, OpenGL 4.5
Power Consumption	25 Watt
technology	28 nm
Features	Optimus, PhysX, 3D Vision Pro, nView, Optimus
Notebook Size	medium sized
Date of Announcement	13.01.2017
Link to Manufacturer Page	www.nvidia.de

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