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
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.