The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti and GTX 750 Review: Maxwell Makes Its Move
by Ryan Smith & Ganesh T S on February 18, 2014 9:00 AM ESTHTPC Aspects : Miscellaneous Factors
In this section, we cover some miscellaneous HTPC aspects that are too short to warrant a separate section. These include a discussion of various display refresh rates supported, a short look at the hardware encoder (NVENC) in action and a summary of our thoughts on the GT 750Ti as a HTPC GPU.
Refresh Rate Accuracy:
NVIDIA provides an easy way to customize refresh rates. The process remains the same as what we explained in our review of the GT 640. The 23 Hz setting gives us a refresh rate of 23.971 Hz. With Intel providing rock-solid 23.976 Hz support in Haswell, it is time NVIDIA got the out-of-the-box refresh rate support correct.
NVIDIA also allows setting of refresh rates not reported as available by the display's EDID. On the Sony KDL46EX720, it allowed driving of 1080p50 without any issues. The flexibility is definitely appreciated, though it would be nice to have better accuracy without all the tweaking.
Hardware Encoder: NVENC
We used CyberLink MediaEspresso v6.7 to evaluate the hardware encoder block. Our test clip was a 3-minute long 1080p24 H.264 stream at 36 Mbps and the target was a 720p24 H.264 stream at 6 Mbps. The time taken for conversion and the power consumption at the wall during the conversion process are provided in the table below.
| GPU Video Encoding Performance | ||||||
| Conversion Time | Power | |||||
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti | 2:54 | 88.97W | ||||
| NVIDIA GeForce GT 640 | 0:36 | 108.18W | ||||
| AMD Radeon HD 7750 (VCE) | 1:06 | 76.84W | ||||
| Intel HD 4000 QuickSync (Better Quality/Fast Conversion) | 0:24 | 63.91W | ||||
It appears as if the 750Ti is using the CUDA path rather than NVENC, while the 640 seems to use NVENC fine. We had readied ourselves for some quality comparison using objective metrics for the new NVENC. It looks like we have to wait for this issue to be resolved before proceeding down that path. [Update: NVIDIA got back to us indicating that this is a Maxwell-related driver issue. We are waiting for new drivers]
HTPC Verdict - Wait and Watch
We have taken a look at the HTPC credentials of the 750Ti and compared it with the GT 640 and the HD 7750. In terms of power efficiency, it is hard not to recommend the 750Ti. With a 60W TDP, it is amenable to passive cooling also. However, it comes to the market at a time when the HEVC standard has just been ratified (preventing it from having a full-blown hardware accelerated decoder) and HDMI 2.0 with 4Kp60 support being right around the corner. The perfect HTPC GPU would include support for both, but the 750Ti, unfortunately, is a bit early to the game. More troublesome is the fact that CyberLink's MediaEspresso seems unable to take advantage of the new NVENC and the fact that some of our 1080p60 H.264 clips are showing decoding artifacts (considering they play perfectly using the GT 640).
We would suggest HTPC enthusiasts to adopt a wait-and-watch approach to the GT 750Ti, particularly with respect to driver bugs specific to the 750Ti and also the extent of HEVC decode support that will be available. Depending on the requirements, it might also be prudent to wait for a Maxwell GPU with HDMI 2.0 support.
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Mondozai - Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - link
USA in recession? You are either ignorant or use your own home-cooked economics for "special" people like yourself.As for consoles. Sure you can get low-end cards for cheaper sums a PC but people buy consoles for their games, simplicity and the fact that they are increasingly multimedia machines for a low cost.
These factors will not change with these new cards.
Yojimbo - Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - link
I thought I remember reading a headline a while back that said Sony or Microsoft or both were not planning on selling their hardware for a loss this time...madmilk - Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - link
The launch PS3 cost over $800 to manufacture, and Sony lost something like $3 billion in the first two years from hardware sales even though the PS3 wasn't even selling that well. To a lesser extent, Microsoft had the same problem with the Xbox 360. Of course Sony and Microsoft would go for cheaper, mid-range off-the-shelf components this time around. No one wants to make the same mistake twice.Antronman - Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - link
Wow. What do they think, everybody here is an OC pro who has/had world records and has a monster closed loop browsing/gaming/work setup? I don't give a damn about lower power consumption if it means I have to OC the balls off the card!moozoo - Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - link
Please include at least one fp64 benchmark in the compute section.It is great that you found out and reported the fp64 ratio.
Its a pity there isn't at least one low power low profile card with good DP Gflops (at least enough to beat the CPU and form a compelling argument to switch API's)
At work we only get small form factor PCs, and asking for anything that looks different ends in politics.
Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 20, 2014 - link
For the moment FP64 data is available via Bench. This being a mainstream consumer card, it's purposely not built for high FP64 performance; FP64 is there for compatibility purposes rather than being able to do much in the way of useful work.This is a purposeful market segmentation move that won't be going anywhere. So cards such as the 750 Ti will always be very slow at FP64.
jrs77 - Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - link
Now we need a manufacturer to release a GTX750 with single-slot cooler.koolanceGamer - Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - link
While all of this "low power" stuff is a little boring to me (not that anything is really pushing the high end card) I hope that in the not too distant future even the video cards like the 780/Titan will be able to be powered by the PCI alone.I would love to do a gaming build with a PCI based SSD and no cables coming off the video cards, it would be so clean!
EdgeOfDetroit - Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - link
Well I want laser light circuit cables. So much faster than copper and they would look so clean, you wouldn't even know there was a cable there unless you put your hand into the laser beams to see the pretty lights...... Ahh crap another BSOD, these laser cables suck!
Devo2007 - Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - link
Starting to wonder what a good card to replace a GTX 560 Ti would be (that's still relatively affordable). Would I have to step up to something like the R9 270 or GTX 760 cards to make things worthwhile? The power savings of the GTX 750 Ti aren't really a big factor as I'm currently using a 650w PSU, but I also don't want to spend a ton of money.