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 : Network Streaming Performance
Windows 7-based HTPCs need hardware acceleration in both Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight for optimal streaming performance with YouTube and Netflix. The move to Windows 8.1 has made Silverlight unnecessary. The Netflix app on Windows 8.x brings a HTPC's capability on par with dedicated streaming consoles, with support for Super HD (6 Mbps) streams as well as Dolby Digital Plus bitstreaming support. The latest app also renders the video in such a way as to make taking screenshots an exercise in frustration.
As the above photograph shows, the Netflix app can be set to bitstream Dolby Digital Plus to the AV receiver and the 750Ti supports it. The video and audio streams are at 5.8 Mbps and 192 kbps respectively. It is not immediately evident as to whether GPU acceleration is being utilized. However, tracking the GPU / VPU loading and PC power consumption numbers make it obvious that it is not software decode at work in the Netflix app.
Unlike Silverlight, Adobe Flash continues to maintain some relevance right now. YouTube continues to use Adobe Flash to serve FLV (at SD resolutions) and MP4 (at both SD and HD resolutions) streams. YouTube's debug OSD indicates whether hardware acceleration is being used or not.
Similar to our Netflix streaming test, we recorded GPU / VPU loading as well as power consumption at the wall when streaming the 1080p version of the sample YouTube clip. The table below presents the relevant numbers for various configurations and streaming services.
| Streaming Video Performance | ||||||
| Netflix | YouTube | |||||
| GPU/VPU Load | Power | GPU/VPU Load | Power | |||
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti | 11.95/12.65% | 56.44 W | 16.26/15.74% | 55.45 W | ||
| NVIDIA GeForce GT 640 | 5.99/25.80% | 58.89 W | 15.57/25.72% | 58.93 W | ||
| AMD Radeon HD 7750 | 0.72% | 66.79 W | 3.57% | 67.11 W | ||
NVIDIA has been touting Maxwell's low power nature, and it proves to be the best of the three candidates in terms of power efficiency when it comes to GPU support for streaming services.
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Mondozai - Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - link
Anywhere outside of NA gives normal prices. Get out of your bubble.ddriver - Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - link
Yes, prices here are pretty much normal, no on rushes to waste electricity on something as stupid as bitcoin mining. Anyway, I got most of the cards even before that craze began.R3MF - Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - link
at ~1Bn transitors for 512Maxwell shaders i think a 20nm enthusiast card could afford the 10bn transistors necessary for a 4096 shaders...Krysto - Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - link
If Maxwell has 2x the P/W, and Tegra K2 arrives at 16nm, with 2 SMX (which is very reasonable expection), then Tegra K2 will have at least a 1 Teraflop of performance, if not more than 1.2 Teraflops, which would already surpass the Xbox One.Now THAT's exciting.
chizow - Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - link
It probably won't be Tegra K2, will most likely be Tegra M1 and could very well have 3xSMM at 20nm (192x2 vs. 128x3), which according to the article might be a 2.7x speed-up vs. just a 2x using Kepler's SMX arch. But yes, certainly all very exciting possibilities.grahaman27 - Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - link
the Tegra M1 will be on 16nm finfet if they stick to their roadmap. But, since they are bringing the 64bit version sooner than expected, I dont know what to expect. BTW, it has yet to be announce what manufacturing process the 64bit version will be... we can only hope TSMC 20nm will arrive in time.Mondozai - Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - link
Exciting or f%#king embarrassing for M$? Or for the console industry overall.RealiBrad - Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - link
Looks to be an OK card when you consider that mining has caused AMD cards to sell out and push up price.It looks like the R7 265 is fairly close on power, temp, and noise. If AMD supply could meet demand, then the 750Ti would need to be much cheaper and would not look nearly as good.
Homeles - Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - link
Load power consumption is clearly in Nvidia's favor.DryAir - Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - link
Power consumpion is way higher... give a look at TPU´s review. But price/perf is a lot beter yeah.Personally I'm a sucker for low power, and I will gadly pay for it.