Hands-On: NVIDIA GTX 750 Ti Graphics Card

NVIDIA engineers have been hard at work developing a new graphics platform that pushes the limit of both performance and efficiency: it’s called Maxwell. NVIDIA has just released the first GPUs based on Maxwell, the GeForce GTX 750 and GeForce GTX 750 Ti. In this article I’ll share my first-hand experiences with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti, a powerful graphics platform with corresponding graphics cards starting at just $139.99.

A reference card based on the new GTX 750 Ti GPU

Graphics cards based on the GTX 750 and 750 Ti are easy to work with and versatile because of their compact size, and the fact that they are bus powered. You don’t need to worry about having PCI-e power for these cards thanks to the super-power-efficient Maxwell architecture that these GPUs are built on.

Here are some specs for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti:

• CUDA Cores: 640
• Base Clock: 1,020 MHz
• Boost Clock: 1,085 MHz
• Memory Configurations: 2GB or 1GB/128-bit GDDR5
• Memory Speed: 5.4 Gbps
• Power Connectors: None
• TDP: 60W
• Outputs: 2x DL-DVI, mini-HDMI Displayport 1.2 (Optional)
• Bus Interface: PCI Express 3.0

And here are some detailed specs for the GTX 750 Ti as seen in GPU-Z:

GPU Details as shown in the GPU-Z tool from TechPowerUp

It’s remarkable that you can get this kind of GPU horsepower at an entry-level price point. The specs look great on paper, but the real story is told when you put your GPU to the test with intense PC gaming. In order to put this card through its paces, I decided to run the GTX 750 Ti with BF4 to see how it would perform.

Test 1: BF4 @ 1920x1080 Resolution

I started with the most common PC gaming screen resolution: full-HD (1920x1080). BF4 played very well at this resolution with the GTX 750 Ti with no noticeable stutter or lag.

Running FRAPS, I observed FPS values ranging from 74 FPS on “Medium” settings to 52 FPS at “High” settings, and 36 FPS on “Ultra” settings. As you can see, the GTX 750 Ti performs quite well with BF4 at full-HD screen resolution.

Test 2: BF4 @ 2560x1440 Resolution

My second test was to play BF4 at WQHD screen resolution (2560x1440) with the GTX 750 Ti. Just as with the full-HD tests, BF4 gameplay was smooth, but FPS values were best on “Medium” settings.

Actual FPS values from this test were 55 FPS for “Medium” settings, 30 FPS for “High” settings, and 23 FPS for “Ultra” settings.

If you are looking for a graphics card that is compact in size, easy on the budget, and will rock DirectX games at full-HD or WQHD resolution, the GTX 750 Ti is definitely worth a look. I’m off to do more “testing” – catch you all later!