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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RealiBrad - Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - link
If you were to run the AMD card 10hrs a day with the avg cost of electricity in the US, you would pay around $22 more a year in electricity. The AMD card gives a %19 boost in power for a %24.5 boost in power usage. That means that the Nvidia card is around %5 more efficient. Its nice that they got the power envelope so low, but if you look at the numbers, not huge.The biggest factor is the supply coming out of AMD. Unless they start making more cards, the the 750Ti will be the better buy.
Homeles - Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - link
Your comment is very out of touch with reality, in regards to power consumption/efficiency:http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_...
It is huge.
mabellon - Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - link
Thank you for that link. That's an insane improvement. Can't wait to see 20nm high end Maxwell SKUs.happycamperjack - Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - link
That's for gaming only, it's compute performance/watt is still horrible compared to AMD though. I wonder when can Nvidia catch up.bexxx - Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - link
http://media.bestofmicro.com/9/Q/422846/original/L...260kh/s at 60 watts is actually very high, that is basically matching 290x in kh/watt ~1000/280watts, and beating out r7 265 or anything... if you only look at kh/watt.
ninjaquick - Thursday, February 20, 2014 - link
To be honest, all nvidia did was increase the granularity of power gating and core states, so in the event of pure burn, the TDP is hit, and the perf will (theoretically) droop.The reason the real world benefits from this is simply the way rendering works, under DX11. Commands are fast and simple, so increasing the number of parallel queues allows for faster completion and lower power (Average). So the TDP is right, even if the working wattage per frame is just as high as any other GPU. AMD doesn't have that granularity implemented in GCN yet, though they do have the tech for it.
I think this is fairly silly, Nvidia is just riding the coat-tails of massive GPU stalling on frame-present.
elerick - Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - link
Since the performance charts have 650TI Boost i looked up the TDP of 140W. When compared to the Maxwell 750TI with 60W TDP I am in awe of the performance per watt. I sincerely hope that the 760/770/780 with 20nm to give the performance a sharper edge but even if they are not it will still give people with older graphics cards more of a reason to finally upgrade since driver performance tuning will start favoring Maxwell over the next few years.Lonyo - Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - link
The 650TI/TI Boost aren't cards designed to be efficient. They are cut down cards with sections of the GPU disabled. While 2x perf per watt might be somewhat impressive, it's not that impressive given the comparison is made to inefficient cards.Comparing it to something like a GTX650 regular, which is a fully enabled GPU, might be more apt of a comparison, and probably wouldn't give the same perf/watt increases.
elerick - Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - link
Thanks, I haven't been following lower end model cards for either camp. I usually buy $200-$300 class cards.bexxx - Thursday, February 20, 2014 - link
Still just over 1.8x higher perf/watt: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_...