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

By Chris Angelini, Don Woligroski, And Igor Wallossek
published

MSI GTX 750 Ti Gaming OC

MSI GTX 750 Ti Gaming OC

MSI´s GTX 750 Ti Gaming follows Nvidia's reference design, forgoing an auxiliary power connector. But it does include an oversized cooler, which probably could have cooled the 60 W GM107 GPU passively. 

Even still, MSI's configuration doesn't have to get very loud to do its job well; the card never gets hotter than 51-52 degrees Celsius, and fan speeds top out between 32 and 33 percent. That also means noise under load is barely louder than at idle. In fact, our acoustic measurements don't even appear plausible because the differences fall within the tolerances of our hardware.

Dimensions, Weight, And Connectors

The dimensions we measure almost never match the figures you get from manufacturer specifications, which is why we present our own data using the distances shown in the following image.

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Auxiliary Power ConnectorNone
Connectors1 x DVI-D (Dual-link)1 x HDMI1 x D-Sub (analog)
Form FactorDual-slot
Pros+ Very cool+ Very quiet
Cons- Relatively tall
MeasurementsLength LHeight HDepth D1Depth D2250 mm121 mm36 mm4 mm
Weight533 g

As usual, GPU-Z provides us an overview of the card's specifications:

Front and Back View

Side Views

Chris Angelini
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.
231 Comments Comment from the forums
  • 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