NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti - Good to the Last Watt (Updated)

*Updated as of 12th March 2014 - Originally published as a preliminary review on 18 Feb, we've since added more comparison results with previous generation GeForce GTX 650 Ti and GeForce GTX 660 graphics cards, a more comprehensive conclusion and our ratings for the new GeForce GTX 750 Ti.

Introducing Maxwell

Late last year, AMD introduced its new "Volcanic Islands" GPUs and many wondered when NVIDIA would respond with its eagerly anticipated "Maxwell" graphics cards. Wonder no more, they are finally here.

With an updated architecture, NVIDIA is also adopting a new introduction strategy. Previously, with every brand new architecture, NVIDIA would typically begin with a high-end card and then work its way downwards. With Maxwell, however, NVIDIA is taking an opposite approach - working bottom up instead. This makes sense if you also consider that it was only just recently that NVIDIA introduced its flagship GeForce GTX 780 Ti. But more importantly, NVIDIA is eager to make the new Maxwell architecture and technologies available to the masses.

Hence, the two new cards to feature the Maxwell architecture are positioned as mainstream ones and are powered by the new GM107 GPU. The two new cards are named the GeForce GTX 750 Ti and GeForce GTX 750, and it is quite confusing because the existing GeForce GTX 700 series also includes graphics cards that are powered by the older Kepler architecture. Really, a move to GeForce GTX 800 series would have made more sense, but perhaps NVIDIA has something special up their sleeves reserved for that.

Also interesting to note is that in NVIDIA's literature, the two new cards here are featuring what they call the "first generation" Maxwell architecture. Does this mean there would be an improved second generation architecture? Or is there already a second generation architecture lying in wait and reserved for the high-end parts? We shall see.

Anyway, much like Kepler, NVIDIA is pushing for greater power efficiency and performance with its new Maxwell architecture. However, the focus is undeniably on the former, especially now that it is trying to standardize its GPU architecture across all platforms - the Tegra K1 utilizes a 192-core GPU that is based on its desktop Kepler architecture. It therefore makes sense for NVIDIA to strive for greater power efficiency for its new architecture, which will eventually make its way to its mobile offerings.

Now let’s take a look at the new improvements and features that Maxwell brings.

SMM: Enabling Greater Power Efficiency

Key to Kepler’s efficiency was NVIDIA’s all-new Streaming Multiprocessor (SM) design known as the SMX. Maxwell features a redesigned Stream Multiprocessor and it is now known as the SMM (Maxwell Streaming Multiprocessor). This has enabled Maxwell to deliver 35% more performance per core and up to twice the performance per watt.

This is particularly impressive when you consider also that unlike Kepler, which marked a transition from Fermi’s 40nm manufacturing process to a 28nm one, Maxwell will continue to use a 28nm manufacturing process. What this means is that Maxwell’s increased efficiency and performance will have to come from architectural improvements as opposed to the associated power and performance improvements that usually come from transitioning to a newer manufacturing process.

How Maxwell achieves its power efficiency and performance improvements is due to a number of changes. First and foremost, the scheduler architecture and algorithms have been rewritten to be more intelligent and more adept at avoiding stalls. Also, each SMM is now partitioned into four processing blocks, each with its own control logic block (instruction buffer, scheduler) and 32 CUDA cores with which to carry out the operations. Taken as a whole, this means each SMM has a grand total of 128 CUDA cores. Such an implementation simplifies the scheduling logic which translates to less idle time and less time spent waiting for instructions, thus putting the cores to better use.

Each pair of the processing blocks also share four texture mapping units and a texture cache. This gives each SMM a grand total of eight texture mapping units and two texture caches, compared with the SMX which has 16 texture mapping units and a single texture cache.

Besides boasting more texture mapping units, some of you might have also realized that if we were to compared each SMM to SMX, the latter would also boast more CUDA cores per Steaming Multiprocessor. Strictly speaking, yes, a single SMX is more powerful, but that would be missing the big picture. NVIDIA has designed each SMM such that it delivers 90% of the performance of the SMX but with a smaller footprint. This means that more can be crammed into a single GPC and therefore GPU. The table below shows how the new GM107 GPU (used in the new GTX 750 Ti) compares against the GK107 (used on the GTX 650) - note that both are made up of one GPC unit.

As you can see, the new GM107 boasts over 66% more CUDA cores, which also translates to a 60% improvement in pure compute performance - 1305 GFLOPs vs. 812 GFLOPs. Impressively, 1305 GFLOPs is nearly equivalent to that of the GeForce GTX 480, which was NVIDIA's flagship card just four years ago. Also amazing is that the GM107's rated TDP is lower and that it in terms of die size, it is just 25% larger.

Featuring All of NVIDIA’s Latest Technologies

In the past year, NVIDIA has introduced a couple of new exciting technologies and all of these will be supported by the new GM107 GPU and consequently the two new cards - GeForce GTX 750 Ti and GeForce GTX 750.

One of the most exciting technologies to be introduced by NVIDIA is GPU Boost 2.0, which debuted with the GeForce GTX Titan Very briefly, this technology improves on the first generation GPU Boost, by including operating temperature as a monitoring parameter to be determine how much the card can be overclocked to maximize performance.

In addition, the two new cards will also support recently announced technologies such as GameStream, ShadowPlay and G-Sync. GameStream lets users stream games from their PC to their NVIDIA Shield device, while ShadowPlay is a video recording and streaming technology that lets players record and stream their gameplay footage without taking a significant hit in performance. Finally, G-Sync a revolutionary technology that synchronizes the monitor’s refresh rates to the GPU’s draw rates, we have covered G-Sync in greater detail here.

The GeForce GTX 750 Ti

As we have mentioned, the GeForce GTX 750 Ti is powered by the full GM107 GPU - the GeForce GTX 750 features the same GPU but is missing a SMM - and it is positioned as a mainstream GPU. Both SKUs effectively replace the GeForce GTX 650 Ti, which will be discontinued. For this review, we'll be focusing on how the GeForce GTX 750 Ti fares with other recent GPUs.

With the GeForce GTX 750 Ti, NVIDIA’s main goal was ensure that its TDP was kept to a minimum, while ensuring it could still play the latest games at 1080p, but with modest graphics settings of course. Hence, the GeForce GTX 750 Ti boasts a TDP of just 60W, which also means that it does not require a PCIe power connector. Therefore, NVIDIA safely recommends a minimum PSU rating of just 300W to power the card, which makes the GeForce GTX 750 Ti an excellent choice for HTPC and Mini-PC enthusiasts, allowing these users to, for the first time, really enjoy casual gaming without the usual performance restrictions.

The GeForce GTX 750 Ti has a launch price of US$149 and goes up against cards like the GeForce GTX 650 Ti / GTX 660, Radeon R7 260X. However, since these are mostly older cards, we're interested in how it stacks up with the existing GeForce 700 series and the Radeon R9 270 graphics cards.

Update: Since our earlier published version of this article, we have updated our competing lineup of GPUs to include the GeForce GTX 650 Ti and the GTX 660. This is because the two new SKUs from the GTX 750 series are the direct replacements for the older GeForce GTX 650 Ti models. We also threw in the GeForce GTX 660 just to see how it stacks up against the new Maxwell-based GTX 750 Ti.

Here’s a table showing how it measures up against other recent comparable graphics cards.

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[caption=NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB GDDR5 and other recent GPUs compared]

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Test Setup

These are the specifications of our graphics testbed:

• Intel Core i7-3960X (3.3GHz)
• ASUS P9X79 Pro (Intel X79 chipset) Motherboard
• 4 x 2GB DDR3-1600 G.Skill Ripjaws Memory
• Seagate 7200.10 200GB SATA hard drive (OS)
• Western Digital Caviar Black 7200 RPM 1TB SATA hard drive (Benchmarks + Games)
• Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

As mentioned above, instead of comparing existing older generation cards, we decided to check the standings of the newcomer with other recent cards of a grade just above it. As such, we've got the below list of cards tested. For the reference GTX 760 card, we had to clock down the Palit GeForce GTX 760 JetStream OC 2GB GDDR5 to the default operating values of the intended reference card. The same applied for our GeForce GTX 660 and GeForce GTX 650 Ti comparison cards; we had to throttle down the following cards, the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 650 Ti OC 1GB GDDR5 and the MSI GeForce GTX 660 Twin Frozr III OC 2GB GDDR5. For our missing reference AMD Radeon R9 270 card, we used the PowerColor R9 270 2GB GDDR5 OC, and we operated it right out-of-the-box (since the Radeon R9 270 SKU comes in many custom clock speeds and price points from various vendors). 

• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB GDDR5 (ForceWare 334.69)
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 2GB GDDR5 (ForceWare 334.69)
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB GDDR5 (ForceWare 334.69)
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 2GB GDDR5 (ForceWare 332.21)
• AMD Radeon R9 270X 4GB GDDR5 (AMD Catalyst 13.11 Beta 9.2)
• PowerColor R9 270 2GB GDDR5 OC (AMD Catalyst 13.11 Beta 9.2)

In addition, we also introduced a new gaming benchmark, Call of Duty: Ghosts. Since this was a very recent addition, we don't yet have results for all the comparison cards above. However, we did managed to do a quick preview to see how the add-in card partners' GeForce GTX 750 Ti stack up against its reference counterparts, as well as against each other. The following is the list of cards fielded for the Call of Duty: Ghosts benchmark:-

• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB GDDR5 (ForceWare 334.69)
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 2GB GDDR5 (ForceWare 334.69)
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB GDDR5 (ForceWare 334.69)
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 2GB GDDR5 (ForceWare 334.69)
• ASUS GeForce GTX 750 Ti OC 2GB GDDR5 (ForceWare 334.69)
• Palit GeForce GTX 750 Ti Storm Dual 2GB GDDR5 (ForceWare 334.69)

Note 1: In temperature and power consumption comparisons, the results used were from the data gathered from the actual reference cards. Please refer to our reviews for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 and AMD Radeon R9 series.

Benchmarks

Here's the full list of benchmarks that we'll be using for our assessment; we would have included Crysis 3, but due to some technical glitch, this particular Steam title refused to operate with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti reference graphics card. Therefore, the following benchmarks were utilized:-

• Futuremark 3DMark 2013
• Unigine 4.0 "Heaven"
• Hitman: Absolution
• Far Cry 3
• Call of Duty: Ghosts

For our temperature and power consumption tests, 3DMark 2011 was used.

Note 1: For the new gaming benchmark, we measured the average frame rate of the fielded graphics cards. We used Fraps to capture the data over a pre-determined game scene, and we varied the resolution to determine the variance of each card's performance. The other video settings were set to high levels, and we decided to fix the anti-aliasing level at 4x, in order to keep rendered graphics vivid with sufficient visual details.

3DMark 2013 Results

3DMark 2013 has two tests; Fire Strike and Fire Strike Extreme that put the graphics cards through their paces with extreme levels of tessellation and volumetric illumination, as well as complex smoke simulation using compute shaders and dynamic particle illumination. Fire Strike is meant for enthusiast-level graphics cards and dual-GPU setups; while Fire Strike Extreme increases the difficulty with more tessellation, more particle effects and more taxing DirectCompute calculations.

It is evident the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti is trailing behind the GeForce GTX 760 and the competing AMD R9 270X and 270 cards by about 30- to 44% for this benchmark. This is to be expected because between this newcomer and the GeForce GTX 760, there's a couple of GTX 660 SKUs that fill in the gap.

Update: From the updated graph with a larger comparison sample, we can see that the new GeForce GTX 750 Ti is sandwiched between the GTX 650 Ti and the GTX 660 graphics cards, at least from a performance point of view. According to our scores, the performance of the GTX 750 Ti is about 15% slower than the GTX 660, while the GTX 650 Ti was found trailing behind a fair bit.

Unigine 4.0 "Heaven" Results

The Unigine 4.0 "Heaven" benchmark involves extreme amounts of tessellation and real-time global illumination to tax the GPU. The GPU is also tested with its dynamic sky with volumetric clouds, and screen-space ambient occlusion, among others. The new, first generation Maxwell chip continued to be outperformed by the other more recent generation graphics cards. However, the difference between the GTX 750 Ti and the Radeon R9 270 without antialiasing is minimal and that's heartening to note.

Update: The performance standings of the newcomer against the GeForce GTX 650 Ti and GTX 660 are somewhat similar to our findings from 3DMark above.

Far Cry 3 Results

Far Cry 3 features a modified version of Crytek's CryEngine, called Dunia 2. The game offers heavy tessellation, high amounts of volumetric lighting, and deferred radiance transfer volumes (global illumination). With the game settings at ultra levels, and 8x AA, even the top performer, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 card failed to crack the 30fps level. But the non-AA results give a glimpse of the newcomer's mainstream performance that' suitable for Full-HD resolution gaming. With reduced game quality settings, gameplay would be smoother yet.

Update: Bringing in the GeForce GTX 650 Ti and GTX 660 into the mix of results, we can see the inadequacies of the former card for Full-HD gaming, while the larger GTX 660 counterpart improves upon the GeForce GTX 750 Ti to even manage beyond Full-HD gaming (just barely though as it clinched 28 FPS on average). However, by and large, most value/budget minded gamers are only pairing their system with a 1080p monitor, hence the new GeForce GTX 750 Ti is a good fit if one doesn't demand anti-aliased performance at this price point (which isn't possible).

Hitman: Absolution Results

Hitman: Absolution operates on IO Interactive's proprietary Glacier2 engine; this hardware-intensive engine is able to render up to 1200 NPCs simultaneously. Besides the massive crowd of NPCs, it also features Reflective Shadow Mapping (RSM), Direct Compute accelerated Bokeh Depth of Field, extreme tessellation and Ambient Occlusion. Like the early benchmark, none of the cards failed to churn out frame rates over 30fps when the game settings were turned up with AA activated. However once AA is disabled, performance with the maximum image quality settings is easily acceptable.

Across the pair of gaming benchmarks above, the user would most likely have to set the game settings to the mid-levels, with a maximum resolution of 1680 x 1050 pixels, in order to enjoy stutter-free gaming experience. With a little tweaking, full HD gaming is possible too as our numbers above prove.

Update: Interestingly, when juxtaposing results from the GeForce GTX 660 and GTX 650 Ti in this benchmark test, we found the new GTX 750 Ti to perform very similarly to a superior card like the GTX 660. This is great news indeed.

Call of Duty: Ghosts Results

Our latest gaming benchmark, Call of Duty: Ghosts features the IW6 engine, which has been updated from the one that powered the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. According to NVIDIA, the game features the company's exclusive technologies like TXAA anti-aliasing, 3D Vision, SLI and PhysX. The game is developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision Publishing. For this quick preview test, we set most of the game's settings to high levels; while keeping the anti-aliasing to 4x. With the add-in partners' cards, we had a better sense of the performance of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti. Generally speaking, gaming experience with the new, first generation Maxwell chip is best kept at a resolution of 1680 x 1050 pixels, with anti-aliasing set at four times. If you can forego anti-aliasing or settle for mid-level image quality, full HD gameplay is again achievable.

Update: When considering the performance standing of the GTX 750 Ti against the GeForce GTX 660 and GTX 650 Ti, we can see that the newcomer is positioned squarely in-between these older cards, just like the performance results seen on the earlier page. 

Temperature

The core temperature of the GeForce GTX 750 Ti was naturally the lowest at 57 degrees Celsius. It also helped that the rated thermal design power of the GTX 750 Ti is only 60W. The threshold temperature of the new Maxwell chip is 95 degrees Celsius; hence, with its support for GPU Boost 2.0, we do expect to see the custom cooling system of add-in card partners come into play, to keep the GM107 core running cooler yet so that the GPU can boost its performance levels accordingly.

Power Consumption

Updated with more comparison notes:-

With its low TDP of 60W, the GTX 750 Ti naturally drew the least power for this test. Its power performance is commendable considering how the GeForce GTX 650 Ti strays behind the GeForce GTX 750 Ti in all the benchmark testing, but yet it consumes more power than the newcomer. To some extent, the GeForce GTX 750 Ti even rivaled the GTX 660 in a select few tests. As such, the power consumption profile of this card is pretty much what we expected of. On an additional note, the similarly performing GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost is also similarly outclassed by the newcomer in terms performance to power efficiency.

Overclocking

We were able to push our reference GTX 750 Ti card from its reference base clock speed of 1020MHz to a high of 1155MHz. Its memory modules were overclocked to 6040MHz, up from their default level of 5400MHz. This translated to performance gains of about 10%, which was unfortunately still not adequate to close the gap between itself and its better performing piers.

Update: Our overclocked reference GTX 750 Ti showed the potential of the new GM107 core; and it narrowed the performance gap, to a range of 6- to 7%, against the more powerful GTX 660 card. To reiterate, when operating at its default state, the GTX 750 Ti trailed the GTX 660 card by approximately 17% for the same benchmark.

Conclusion

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti holds a lot of promise since it is based on the first generation of the new Maxwell architecture. Its performance is within expectations of what it is touted to be, which is a mid-range graphics card to address the gaming requirements of the mainstream gamer. Specifically, the card is designed for 1080p gaming experiences, but to achieve that realistically, our gaming settings had to be at mid-level settings. For users who are hoping for a cheaper alternative to the GeForce GTX 760, they will be disappointed as our benchmarks showed that the GTX 750 Ti was outperformed by the former, by a very large margin. Against its current AMD competitor, in the form of the Radeon R9 270 GPUs, the GeForce GTX 750 Ti also expectedly failed to garner any wins, but it was able to give it a run for its money with some pretty close results occasionally.

The main objective, akin to tentative steps by NVIDIA, is meeting the target of 1080p gaming, with optimal performance per watt. With the company's new strategy to start introducing the new Maxwell architecture with the bottom-up approach, we have to look to the more powerful iterations of the new GPU core in order to truly determine its strengths. For now, the power of the new GPU core lies with the masses, forming the base of an imaginary pyramid. We look forward to surmounting its apex to see what lies ahead.

Updated: Having re-tested the older outgoing GeForce GTX 650 Ti and the better equipped GeForce GTX 660, the new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti seems to be an excellent addition to NVIDIA's entry-level gaming card stable. We can see that the older card isn't cut out as a mainstream gaming card with its anemic performance in our modern tests. The GM107-based GeForce GTX 750 Ti more than suffices to take its place, and its performance levels aren't too far from the older, more powerful NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660. And what impresses us is the fact that it's achieved with a TDP of 60W, and its strength in performance per watt is evident in our power consumption tests. Hence, we wait with bated breath for NVIDIA's high-end Maxwell GPUs to hit the market.

From a value perspective, since the local market has yet to adjust prices suitably, let's deal with suggested retail prices (SRP) from USA. While NVIDIA dictates an SRP of US$149 for the reference-class GeForce GTX 750 Ti, most of the retail editions are customized versions selling from US$159. This is a decent price point considering the outgoing GeForce GTX 650 Ti starts from US$129, while the better equipped GeForce GTX 660 commands a much steeper US$209 and higher. More so when you consider that the performance of the newcomer is on average just 17% slower than the costly GeForce GTX 660.

In a nutshell, the GeForce GTX 750 Ti is a good take on a modern performance-per-watt oriented card to replace the older generation cards and raise the bar of performance for budget gaming rigs.

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