The characteristics of a laser diode (LD) end-pumped actively Q-switched Nd∶YAG/GdVO4 Raman laser are studied. The average output power and pulse width are measured at the different pump power and pulse repetition frequency. At a repetition rate of 20 kHz and an incident pump power of 7.4 W, an average output power of 1.3 W is obtained, and the corresponding optical-to-optical conversion efficiency is 17.4%. The maximum pulse energy of 74.4 μJ is obtained with a repetition rate of 15 kHz and an incident pump power of 6.8 W. Compared with Nd∶GdVO4 self-Raman laser, the actively Q-switched Nd∶YAG/GdVO4 Raman laser has a higher average output power and a higher conversion efficiency at the same experimental conditions.