NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750Ti review: Full HD gaming on a budget

Looks like the graphics card onslaught will last for quite a few months now, what with both AMD and NVIDIA having released their mid-range cards. While AMD released cards across segments last year, all we were seeing from NVIDIA were cards targetted at the enthusiast user. With the price drops on the NVIDIA high-end cards still to reflect in India, it was getting a bit hard to justify price points of these cards, specially when the AMD cards delivered comparable performance at considerably lesser price, thereby providing more value proposition.   Today, **NVIDIA announced its next generation graphics card architecture Maxwell** , and the first graphics card based on Maxwell - the GTX 750Ti. As you may have already assumed from the naming convention, this card is clearly targetted at the mid-range market. So does this outperform competition from AMD? We shall find out soon.   Build and Design We received the stock NVIDIA GTX 750Ti which has an open design. There is a circular heatsink just above the GPU and a fan atop it. This is the only addition on what is otherwise just a PCB. It comes with two DVI ports and a mini HDMI port. There isn’t any PCIe power connector. [caption id=“attachment_218464” align=“aligncenter” width=“782”]  The reference GTX 750Ti has an open design and just has one fan atop a heatsink on the PCB[/caption]   Features The GTX 750Ti being the first Maxwell-based card is based on the GM107 GPU. This GPU is built on the same 28nm process that was seen with the Kepler GPUs. And as the naming convention goes, this is not the flagship card in the series either. NVIDIA has decided to introduce the Maxwell architecture with a mid-range card as that is where the volumes are. [caption id=“attachment_218456” align=“aligncenter” width=“563”]  The complete block diagram for GM107 GPU[/caption]   With the Kepler architecture we had 192 CUDA cores per stream multiprocessor or SMX, which has been modified with the Maxwell architecture. In the GM107 for instance, within a single Maxwell Streaming Multiprocessor or SMM, you have four processing blocks each with 32 CUDA cores and with its own instruction buffer and scheduler which gives a total of 128 CUDA cores per SMM. Thanks to this partitioning of CUDA cores into four separate processing blocks, NVIDIA has managed to simplify the scheduling logic and performance per CUDA core. Five such SMM’s make up the graphics processing cluster (GPC). There are two 64-bit memory controllers which make up the total 128-bit memory bus. [caption id=“attachment_218457” align=“aligncenter” width=“251”]  An individual Maxwell streaming multiprocessor is made up of four processing blocks having 32 CUDA cores each[/caption]   The GTX 750Ti is clocked at 1020MHz base clock with boost clock going up to 1085MHz. It has a total of 640 CUDA cores and has 1.87 billion transistors. It comes with 2GB GDDR5 video memory with a memory bus-width of 128-bit. It lacks an SLI port, however. [caption id=“attachment_218463” align=“aligncenter” width=“768”]  It has two DVI ports and a mini HDMI port[/caption]   NVIDIA has also worked on improving its hardware based H.264 video encoder called NVENC. Apart from this the card comes with most of the standard NVIDIA features such as GPU Boost 2.0, ShadowPlay, TXAA, FXAA, GameStream and so on.   Test Setup Processor: Intel Core i7-4770K Motherboard: ASRock Z87M Extreme4 RAM: 2 x 4GB GSkill RipjawsX OS Drive: Intel SSD, 80GB (boot drive) Additional Drive: Western Digital Velociraptor, 150GB (secondary) PSU: Cooler Master 800W Silent Pro Gold OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit Monitor: BenQ GL2250 Catalyst Driver version: 13.11 Beta Nvidia driver version: 334.69   Performance 3DMark 11 3DMark is a computer benchmarking tool created and developed by Futuremark Corporation to determine the performance of a computer’s 3D graphic rendering and CPU workload processing capabilities. The latest version makes extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11, including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. We used the “Performance” preset for this benchmark.    Unigine Heaven 4.0 Unigine Heaven 4.0 is a DirectX 11 benchmark based on the Unigine engine which can be used to test the stability of a GPU under stressful conditions. It involves a run-through of an imaginary land involving floating islands, cobblestoned streets, smokey atmosphere, going through caves lit with burning fires, dragon statues and so on. You can adjust the tessellation, anti-aliasing filters, anisotropic filters etc. We run this test keeping the settings at Medium, no Anti-aliasing filter and Tessellation at Normal.     Battlefield 3 Battlefield 3 is a first-person shooter video game developed by EA Digital Illusions CE and is based on the new Frostbite 2 game engine. The game only supports DX10 and DX11, which enables enhanced in-game destruction with Destruction 3.0, creating more refined physics than its predecessor and quasi-realtime radiosity using Geometrics’ Enlighten technology. The game is a visual treat and a nightmare for graphics cards, which makes it perfect for our test. We used the “Ultra High” preset, Post AA – High, Blur – Full, Field of View – 90, Level – “Fear no Evil”.     Metro: Last Light Metro: Last Light is a first-person shooter video game that continues Metro’s legacy of being one of the most demanding games for the best of GPUs. The game has a lot of DX11 eye-candy, which really puts a strain on any GPU. All DX11 features were enabled for the benchmark and we used the built-in benchmark for this test.     Bioshock Infinite Bioshock Infinite developed by Irrational Games uses a modified version of the Unreal Engine. It’s a first-person shooter which takes place in a fictional floating city called Columbia. We ran the benchmark using the Adrenaline Benchmark tool and used the Ultra and Medium settings. In the Ultra settings you have FXAA On, Ultra texture detail, 16x AF, Ultra dynamic shadows and with the Medium settings you have FXAA On, High texture detail, 8x AF and High dynamic shadows.     Tomb Raider Tomb Raider is a third-person shooter which is a reboot of the famous series with Lara Croft as the protagonist. In this reboot, she is ship-wrecked on a mysterious island which presents its own set of challenges which Lara has to overcome. The game is based on a customised CrystalEngine. It also features the AMD TressFX technology which adds more realism to hair rendering and physics. We ran the benchmark using the in-built benchmark tool at the Ultimate and Ultra settings. On the Ultimate preset, you have TressFX activated, 16x AF, FXAA whereas the Ultra preset has Normal hair quality, 16x AF, FXAA.   Sleeping Dogs Sleeping Dogs is an open-world third-person action-adventure game developed by United Front games and Square Enix London Studios. Set in modern-day Hong Kong the game involves you playing as Wei Shan, an undercover cop, who infiltrates a local Triad gang. We ran the benchmark using the Adrenaline Benchmark tool and used the Ultra and Medium settings.     Temperatures We noted the temperature of all the participating cards at idle and load states. The fan speeds were kept on auto. We noted maximum load temperatures after running benchmarks such as FurMark at 1080p preset, 3D Mark 11, Battlefield 3 and Metro: Last Light and taking an average.    Power Consumption We used an energy monitoring device to measure the power consumed by the total rig with the graphics cards on them. The Cooler Master 800W PSU was plugged into the power meter which gave out the power consumed in Watts on the display. After powering on the system we let it stay unused for a good five minutes to get the idle power reading and then ran three instances of FurMark 1080p preset to get the maximum load power.  Verdict and Price in India The first card sporting the Maxwell architecture has impressed us. The NVIDIA GTX 750Ti gives a good full HD gaming performance for its price of Rs 11,990 considering it does not need any external PCIe power connector. It performs at par with the R7 260X card from AMD, except in Metro: Last Light, where the GTX 750Ti gives playable frame rates at 1600x900. On keeping the settings lower, you can easily play Metro: Last Light at full HD resolution.   While the XFX R7 260X is priced around Rs 10,675, we still find the NVIDIA GTX 750Ti priced at Rs 11,990 to offer a better value for those of you who are planning to move from an integrated graphics-based system to buying a budget card. This is because, with the GTX 750Ti, you do not need any extra power connector. Even if you look at the temperatures and power consumption levels at load, the GTX 750Ti offers better performance. It also runs stable on overclocking the boost clock to 1200MHz and you get around 7 to 10 per cent improvement in most games.   If you are looking at a budget card, which not only allows you to set up your home theatre PC, but also lets you play newer titles at full HD resolution (even with settings maxed out in some older games), then the GTX 750Ti is a good choice. A price closer to Rs 10,000 - which is what the GTX 750 is priced at - would have been ideal. If you are planning to assemble an HTPC with this card, but have a small form factor cabinet, then we would advise you to wait till partner card makers come out with a half height form factor GTX 750Ti.