Coin Mining Performance, Power, Sound and Conclusions
I know it’s a touchy subject, but we did want to see what these cards could actually pull in terms of coin mining / cryptocurrency performance. Here is our best result, courtesy of the overclocked EVGA GTX 750 Ti FTW.
Click to Enlarge
Our result showed performance at about 326 khash/s which is 10-11% faster than the performance of the overclocked reference card we tested last month. Worth noting is our discovering that in at least this architecture, memory clock speed increases can dramatically increase your hashing rate, so if you can bump that up to 6.0 GHz instead (which we did in our screenshot above) of the 5.4 GHz two of these cards run at on stock, you’ll see a big advantage.
Power consumption was very similar across all three retail cards, in both stock and overclocked settings. Under a full gaming load, we saw system wide power consumption vary by just 10 watts, from 201 watts to 211 watts depending on the card. Under overclocked conditions that only moved to 211-216 watts – not a lot of variance to be found. Based on our performance testing, overclocking testing and now power testing, I find it hard to believe that adding that 6-pin power connector to the GTX 750 Ti (as EVGA and Galaxy did) was really necessary. Is it hurting anything? Not really, unless you are a user that wants to use a graphics card without an auxiliary power connection in your system.
Sound levels were another story though, with a wide range of results. The quietest card was the one with just a single fan, the PNY GTX 750 Ti XLR8 OC that registered 31 dbA at idle and 31.9 dbA under a full gaming load. Here’s the break down.
| EVGA GTX 750 Ti FTW | Galaxy GTX 750 Ti GC | PNY GTX 750 Ti OC | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sound Idle | 36.6 dbA | 32.3 dbA | 31.0 dbA |
| Sound Load | 36.8 dbA | 33.4 dbA | 31.9 dbA |
Clearly the EVGA card was the loudest and it was immediately noticeable on our open test bed. As I mentioned on the first page, because of the fan controller used on the EVGA card there was really no difference in sound levels between idle and load testing – and that was shown in our GPU-Z recording where fan speed never drifted off of 42% during any kind of stock testing. Only after putting on our overclocked settings did we see the fan speed go higher.
It’s an odd place to be – the EVGA GTX 750 Ti offered the best cooling with the most stable clock speeds at the highest overclock, but it did so with a dramatically louder configuration that COULD be a lot better with a different controller. It would appear that cost savings on these mainstream cards bit them just a bit.
Pricing and availability can be a hassle for anyone looking for the PNY or Galaxy cards – they are currently only for sale on each company’s own website. The EVGA however is widely available on Amazon.com and Newegg.com, starting in the $175 range. If the other two models can actually be purchased reliably for $159 then they present a value proposition against the EVGA model. (Update: The PNY GTX 750 Ti OC listing did show up on Amazon.com.)
As a group, I was very happy with how the assortment of retail GeForce GT 750 Ti cards turned out and if you’re NVIDIA, you have to be happy with this kind of partner response. The EVGA GTX 750 Ti ACX FTW is the fastest and most overclockable of the three cards I looked at but has the caveat of unnecessarily high noise levels. The PNY GTX 750 Ti XLR8 OC is the smallest card and the only one that doesn’t require a 6-pin power connection, just like the reference model. It has the highest clocks out of the box, but with a less substantial cooler than the EVGA, the clocks are less consistent and when overclocked it and the EVGA card are neck and neck. The Galaxy GTX 750 Ti is a good middle ground with a solid cooler, quieter design and still has a good amount of headroom for enthusiasts to tweak.
PNY GeForce GTX 750 Ti XLR8 OC
EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti ACX FTW
Galaxy GeForce GTX 750 Ti GC
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.