GeForce GTX 750 Ti Review: Maxwell Adds Performance Using Less Power

GPGPU: Floating-Point Performance

Single-Precision, Good. Double-Precision, Bad.

Nvidia's mainstream Kepler-based GPUs offered double-precision compute performance that was 1/24 as fast as its FP32 math. Maxwell is ever worse at 1/32. Of course, that's purely theoretical until we double-check it with real-world benchmarks.

The Folding@Home benchmark is particularly good for comparing graphics cards under OpenCL. We had to do without CUDA-based numbers this time around because the Maxwell-based card wasn't properly recognized. This is simply something we'll have to put together later.

How big is the difference between single- and double-precision, really? Our benchmark results indicate a 8:1 ratio between them on Nvidia's GeForce GTX 750 Ti (Maxwell). That's quite a bit weaker than the GeForce GTX 760's (Kepler) 4:1 in this metric (Explicit Solvent).

But GM107's comparatively strong single-precision performance is what sticks out; it's able to compete with much more potent graphics cards. By the time you get to its double-precision numbers, compute throughput ends up just below where we would have expected it.

Single-Precision Benchmarks (SP)

Double-Precision Benchmarks (DP)

We're not sure what to think about GM107's increasingly hobbled FP64 capabilities. You can either say double-precision performance is really bad, or the single-precision numbers are really good. Regardless, at the end of the day, artificial limitations meant to prevent cheap desktop cards from being viable workstation parts are no less irritating.

Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini is an Editor Emeritus at Tom's Hardware US. He edits hardware reviews and covers high-profile CPU and GPU launches.
  • meluvcookies
    on performance, I'll take the extra frames of the 265, but damn, for 60w, I'm totally impressed by this card. both the 750Ti and the R7 265 would be decent upgrades from my aging GTX460.
    Reply
  • s3anister
    But without the big cooler, GTX 750 Ti is daintier than a lot of sound cards we've tested.

    I'm pretty sure you meant to type "video cards" on page one there. Cheers.
    Reply
  • Bloob
    Ah, I just love some healthy competition.
    Reply
  • Bloob
    Also
    It’s difficult to make this story all about frame rates when we’re comparing a 60 W GPU to a 150 W processor
    Is a bit confusing.
    Reply
  • cangelini
    But without the big cooler, GTX 750 Ti is daintier than a lot of sound cards we've tested.
    I'm pretty sure you meant to type "video cards" on page one there. Cheers.
    Actually meant sound card :) It's definitely smaller than a small video card, but I even have sound cards here that are larger.
    Reply
  • Sangeet Khatri
    Well.. there is not a lot of performance in it, but I love it for a reason that it is a 60W card. I mean for 60W Nvidia has seriously nailed it. The only competition is way behind, the 7750 performs a lot less for similar wattage.Let's see how AMD replies to this because after the launch of 750Ti, the 7750 is no longer the best card for upgrading for people who have a 350W PSU.I don't generally say this, but Nvidia well done! Take a bow.
    Reply
  • houldendub
    Nice little card, awesome! I feel like this would be an absolutely awesome test bed for a dual chip version, great performance with minimal power usage.
    Reply
  • Randy David
    Anybody else notice the lesser shaders and TMUs on the Zotac card in GPU-Z?
    Reply
  • thdarkshadow
    The whole time I was reading the review I was like it isn't beating the 650ti boost... :( but then I remembered it uses less than half the power lol. I am impressed nvidia. While I make purchases more on performance than power consumption I can still appreciate what nvidia is doing
    Reply
  • houldendub
    12707408 said:
    Anybody else notice the lesser shaders and TMUs on the Zotac card in GPU-Z?

    Don't take this as fact, but the drivers look newer for the Zotac card than the others, possibly just a bug with the older drivers? The cards are advertised as having 640 shaders anyway.

    Also weird, the GPU-Z screenshot is taken with Windows 8, whereas the Gigabyte and MSI cards are on Windows 7. The mystery continues...
    Reply