EVGA GTX 750 Ti ACX FTW
We spent some time with three different retail GeForce GTX 750 Ti cards and they all have different characteristics.
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti has been getting a lot of attention around the hardware circuits recently, but for good reason. It remains interesting from a technology stand point as it is the first, and still the only, Maxwell based GPU available for desktop users. It's a completely new architecture which is built with power efficiency (and Tegra) in mind. With it, the GTX 750 Ti was able to push a lot of performance into a very small power envelope while still maintaining some very high clock speeds.
NVIDIA’s flagship mainstream part is also still the leader when it comes to performance per dollar in this segment (for at least as long as it takes for AMD’s Radeon R7 265 to become widely available). There has been a few cases that we have noticed where the long standing shortages and price hikes from coin mining have dwindled, which is great news for gamers but may also be bad news for NVIDIA’s GPUs in some areas. Though, even if the R7 265 becomes available, the GTX 750 Ti remains the best card you can buy that doesn’t require a power connection. This puts it in a unique position for power limited upgrades.
After our initial review of the reference card, and then an interesting look at how the card can be used to upgrade an older or under powered PC, it is time to take a quick look at a set of three different retail cards that have made their way into the PC Perspective offices.
On the chopping block today we’ll look at the EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti ACX FTW, the Galaxy GTX 750 Ti GC and the PNY GTX 750 Ti XLR8 OC. All of them are non-reference, all of them are overclocked, but you’ll likely be surprised how they stack up.
The EVGA GTX 750 Ti ACX FTW
In the world of EVGA, the FTW label is bestowed to only the best of the best graphics cards they sell. The highest overclocks, the best coolers, etc. The GTX 750 Ti FTW with the EVGA ACX custom cooler is really no different.
This card is quite a bit larger than the reference design which subtracts a bit from the appeal for fitting into ultra-small cases and tight designs. The dual fans on the heatsink keep the GPU very cool at the cost of noise.
When we first got in the EVGA FTW model I complained about sound levels immediately to them and with that feedback they released an updated firmware that lowers the noise of the fans by a big step. The issue appears to be that EVGA chose to go with a non-PWM fan design on this card and as such the fan speed just can’t go any lower than the 42% we saw in our testing. What is kind of annoying about that is at stock settings, this card never goes ABOVE 42% fan speed under a full gaming workload. That means the card doesn’t increase in sound level while gaming (which seems good) but that it could easily be quieter at idle than EVGA decided to go with.
EVGA did include a 6-pin power connector on this model while also extending the heatsink past the PCB design in a very similar fashion to the GTX 660 cards from the previous generation.
External display options include a single dual-link DVI port, full size HDMI and full size DisplayPort. That should be plenty for a card that really isn’t designed for gaming on multiple panels and that doesn’t support multi-GPU SLI configurations.
For style points, the EVGA GT 750 Ti FTW has that in hand with a dark matte finish and a lack of any flashy, overly colorful components.
The out of box clock speeds for the EVGA card are set at 1189 MHz base clock, 1268 MHz Boost and 1350 MHz / 5.4 GHz on the memory bus. Those GPU clocks are 169 MHz higher than the reference speeds which should net a performance advantage of around 10%.
The EVGA GTX 750 Ti FTW is currently selling on Newegg.com for $179.
Where are the single-slot
Where are the single-slot cards? I know a lot of gamers won’t want a single slot cooler due to the increased amount of noise they inevitably produce, but for those of us with different needs (i.e. GPGPU work, coin mining, folding), stacking a ton of cards into a densely-populated motherboard would be ideal.
Galaxy might be making what
Galaxy might be making what you are looking for: http://www.galaxytech.com/__EN_GB__/Product2/ProductDetail?proID=517&isStop=0&isPack=False&isPow=False
I’m just wondering what
I’m just wondering what happened with the 750 Ti contest. It’s been nearly a week since it ended, will you guys reveal the winners soon?
The card linked still
The card linked still requires two slots as the cooler sits higher than one. I really don’t see how this is a “slim” model. They should have spread the cooler out with a larger fan and made it use 1.5x slots; that would use two slots but have a gap for air.
I’m not even sure if cards that only use 1x slots would work for MULTIPLE cards well. You’re likely better off using HALF the number of 2x slot cards.
put automatic captions on at
put automatic captions on at the start of the video and this happened http://imgur.com/40iuSEA
seems accurate for our videos
seems accurate for our videos
I secretly whisper that into
I secretly whisper that into the mic at the beginning of every video. 🙂
Thanks for the review, guys.
Thanks for the review, guys. I’ve been keeping my eye on these early Maxwell reviews. Perhaps a 750ti build for a non-1080p gaming rig, or a friend who may not need Ultra settings for every game. Hopefully when more Maxwell parts are released the miners won’t scoop them all up.
http://www.cryptocoinsnews.co
http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/category/news/
the above sight has good info for cryptocurrency news
The most important thing for me is that the new asics for litecoin mining are being delivered in July.
all this really means is that pretty soon GPU mining is going to die out soon.
I am happy to have sold off my CF’d 7870 tahiti LE and 7950 twin fzr for a profit. I am without any gaming ability for now but i will buy back in at a low point again soon.
as a reference to when buying was good I had picked up my tahiti le for $215 about 7 months ago and the 7950 for $205 a couple of months after and I sold them both for $550. I needed the cash and am happy for the first time in my life I made a profit off of used hardware but damn do I miss my gaming rig.
Can’t wait till the EVGA FTW
Can’t wait till the EVGA FTW model drops below$150. Maybe a 4th of July sale?
Thinking of updating my
Thinking of updating my beater system. How much of a performance gain is it compared to a 7770 Ghz edition @ 1200p? Just playing Hawken, and Titan Fall.
I’ve been listening to your
I’ve been listening to your podcast. You folks at PC Perspective know about hardware. Recently started buying hardware for a new Gaming PC build and so far I’ve got these hardware parts:
GIGABYTE Z87-HD3 MOBO
Haswell Core i5 4570 processor
Asus VS278Q-P Monitor
So its a bit frustrating right now for me choosing a graphics card because as you might know, the vast selection in specs and budget concerns along with future proofing is confusing. Can the fine folks at PC Perspective recommend a well suited card ?
I do plan on playing TitanFall and later this year maybe upgrade the processor.
Thanks.
-Corona
How can you see no advantage
How can you see no advantage to the 6 pin pcie when the EVGA had a flatline stable overclock which technically put it ahead of the pny overall?
“Even though all three cards can overclock well above their stock speeds, and that equates to quite a bit over the reference speeds, clearly the EVGA card gives us the best result, followed closely by the PNY.”
Actually, the PNY outdoes all
Actually, the PNY outdoes all other cards, because whilst it is not shown in this video (yes I own one), the PNY overclocks to 1372 mhz core clock automatically, and the memory overclocks to 3005 mhz. No bias, just facts.