The GTX 750 Ti arrives as Energy-efficient 28nm Maxwell

Performance summary charts & graphs

Here are the summary charts of 21 modern PC games and 4 synthetic tests. The highest playable settings are generally chosen and it is DX11 when there is a choice; DX10 is picked above DX9, and the settings are generally maxed unless specified on the chart. Specific settings including AA are listed on the Main Performance chart. The benches are run at 1920×1080 and 2560×1600.  2500×1600 is ridiculously stressful for a entry-level card and we specifically picked this resolution to stress the new Maxwell architecture to the absolute limit so as to look for any weakness, especially compared to the GTX 480, the Fermi flagship introduced less than 4 years ago.

First we want to consider the “Big Picture” which brings all of our video cards into a hierarchy.  Please note that the GTX 750 Ti, the GTX 650 Ti, the GTX 480 and the GTX 780 Ti were all benched with GeForce 334.69 versus the HD 7770, R7 270X and the R9 290x with Catalyst 13.12 on Haswell platform at 4.0GHz, and equalized to the 4.5GHz results on Ivy.  All of the cards are at stock speeds except for the +135MHz core/+550MHz memory offset for the GTX 750 Ti, the Vapor-X HD 7770 at 1100MHz/1300MHz, and the R9 290x at the Uber setting.

Main Overall Summary chart

This chart is huge.  Let’s break it into smaller parts.  First of all, the GTX 480 artifacted badly in Firestrike although it was able to deliver a final score. Secondly, video cards with less than 2GB of vRAM are unable to run Max Payne 3 at the maximum settings that we chose.  Also, with Assassin’s Creed IV, there was no setting for PhysX for Radeons nor for the GTX 750 Ti although the GTX 650 Ti and other GeForce cards have the option.

We did a lot of extreme testing of the new Maxwell architecture by placing unreasonable loads on it with extreme AA or SuperSampling, high resolutions and extreme or ultra settings.    Let’s first compare the GTX 750 Ti at stock and overclocked speeds to the GTX 480 and to the GTX 650 Ti it replaces;

The results are very clear.  The GM107 entry-level Maxwell GTX 750 Ti completely outclasses the GK106 Kepler GTX 650 Ti.  When extreme settings or high resolution is used, the older GPU generally falls flat.  In a similar manner, the GTX 480 is stronger at extreme settings and/or the highest resolutions although the GTX 750 Ti does extremely well at the 1920×1080 resolution it was designed for – even at maxed out and extreme settings.  It is also very game engine dependent – in GRID 2, for example, the GTX 750 Ti is stronger than the GTX 480, and extreme settings in Tomb Raider cripple the GTX 480 frame rates.  In other games, the GTX 480 is stronger although the power consumption is 4 times higher than with the 60W TDP GTX 750 Ti.

Let’s now look at the two Radeons that we are able to compare with the GTX 750 Ti – the slower HD 7770 overclocked card that can stand in for R7 260 and HD 7790, and the much more expensive R9 270x which as a upgraded HD 7870 is significantly faster than the R7 265.The $149 GTX 750 Ti blasts past the overclocked $110 HD 7770 and should have no problem beating the $120 HD 7790/R7 260 easily also.  By extension, we can see it will beat the $129 R7 260X also although it runs into a wall with the $50-$100 more expensive R9 270X (originally launched at $199 and premium priced in the USA due to being good at Crypto-currency mining).

The GTX 750 Ti is quite a strong performer and overclocked it nearly matches the stock GTX 660 and demolishes the GTX 650 Ti that it replaces. It also runs completely away from the HD 7770 overclocked class of card and by extension, the Bonaire HD 7790/R7 260X Pitcarin cards.  Let’s head for our conclusion.