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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MrSpadge - Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - link
To be fair GTX650Ti Boost consumes ~100 W in the real world. Still a huge improvement!NikosD - Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - link
Hello.I have a few questions regarding HTPC and video decoding.
Can we say that we a new video processor from Nvidia, a new name like VP6 or more like a VP5.x ?
How Nvidia is calling the new video decoder ?
Why don't you add a 4K60 fps clip in order to test soon to be released HDMI 2.0 output ?
If you run a benchmark using DXVA Checker between VP5 and VP6 (?) how much faster is VP6 in H.264 1080p, 4K clips ?
Thanks!
Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 20, 2014 - link
NVIDIA doesn't have a name for it; at least not one they're sharing with us.NikosD - Thursday, February 20, 2014 - link
Thanks.Is it possible to try a 4K60fps with Maxwell ?
I wonder if it can decode it in realtime...
Flunk - Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - link
I think these will be a lot more exciting in laptops. Even if they're no where near Nvidia's claimed 2x Kepler efficiency per watt. On the desktop it's not really that big a deal. The top-end chip will probably be ~40% faster than the 780TI but that will be a while.dylan522p - Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - link
the 880 will be much more powerful than the 780ti. More than 40% even. They could literally die shrink and throw a few more SMX's and the 40% would be achieved. I would imagine either they are gonna have a HUGE jump (80% +) or they are gonna do what they did with Kepler and release a 200W Sku that is about 50% faster and when 20nm yields are good enough have the 900 series come with 250W Skus.Kevin G - Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - link
Very impressive performance for its power consumption. I can see an underclocked version of this card coming with a passive cooler for HTPC solutions. Perhaps that'd be a hypothetical GT740? I'm surprised that nVidia hasn't launched a mobile version of this chip. It seems like it'd be ideal for midrange laptops that still have discrete graphics.I suspect that the extra overclocking headroom is in reserve for a potential rebrand to a GTX 800 series product. (Though a straight die shrink of this design to 20 nm would provide even more headroom for a GTX 800/900 card.) nVidia could have held back to keep it below the more expensive GTX 660.
Though ultimately I'm left wanting the bigger GM100 and GM104 chips. We're going to have to wait until 20 nm is ready but considering the jump Maxwell has provided in the low end of the market, I'm eager to see what it can do in the high end.
DanNeely - Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - link
ASUS has a 65W TDP GT 640 with a big 2 slot passive heat sink (GT640-DCSL-2GD3); with the 750 Ti only hitting 60W a passive version of it should be possible at near stock performance. I suspect the 740 will be a farther cut down 3 SMM model which might allow a single slot passive design.PhoenixEnigma - Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - link
Passive cooling was my first thought as well - I've been looking for something to replace the 6770 in my HTPC with, and I wanted something both faster and passively cooled. There are already passive 7750s on the market, and the numbers in Bench put the 750Ti at about 9W more than then 7750 under real world load, so a vanilla 750 with a passive cooler should be entirely possible. Even a 750Ti might be doable, but that could be pushing things a little far.evilspoons - Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - link
I need a new half-height HTPC card, my 2.5 year old Asus Radeon 6570 bit the dust last month (sparkly picture, one particular shade of grey turned random colours). If they can work out the kinks in this thing and underclock it a bit, it sounds like a good candidate.It feels like it's been a long time since anything new showed up in the half-height video card game.