Minggu, 16 Februari 2014
Written by Paulo Proenca on 16 February 2014 at 17:00
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GeForce GTX 750 Ti We now have the first concrete details on the Maxwell architecture, including the specifications Of Nvidia's new Maxwell based GPUs that sees the chip giant make new strides in terms of energy efficiency...
First, let's take a look at the shader performance, energy efficiency and core configuration of the 28nm Maxwell Cores.
1. The First Revision of the Maxwell Architecture
1.1 Shader Performance & Energy Effiency
135% Performance Per Core Over Kepler - That's right. Maxwell Cores are in theory very powerful. We are looking at a much larger L2 Cache and, among other improvements, even faster video decoding and encoding. What does 135% mean? It means that one Shader Processing Unit (roughly) is 1.35 times faster than one Kepler Core. This means that a Maxwell Graphics Card might have less Shader Processing Units than a Kepler Graphics Card and yet perform better. It's pretty much what we saw happening when Nvidia moved from Fermi to Kepler.
2X Performance per Watt: Maxwell Cores are even more energy efficient. We will see that by looking at the GeForce GTX 750 Ti's rated TDP board. Not only does the GPU not require any power connectors whatsoever (!), but it performs better than GeForce GTX 650 Ti. How can a graphics card that relies entirely on the PCI slot for power, be so powerful?
1.2 Core Configuration
The First Maxwell core to make an appearance is the GM107. The latter will offer 128 Shader Processing Units and 8 TMUs per SMX. The Maxwell core also features two 64-bits memory controllers and 16 ROPs. Thus, the most powerful version of the GM107 chip used on the GeForce GTX 750 Ti will offer 640 Shader Processing Units (128 x 5), 40 TMUs (8 x 5) and 16 ROPs.
The GM107 Core is built using a 28nm technology, with only the second revision cores of the Maxwell architecture set to make use of the upcoming 20nm fabrication process. This will be used on the more powerful cards, such as the GeForce GTX 860 Ti to GeForce GTX 880 range.
2. Meet the GeForce GTX 750 & GeForce GTX 750 Ti
AMD has been flooding the market in recent months with their competitive mainstream graphics cards. The Radeon R7 250 for those gaming on a tight budget, the recently released Radeon R7 250X, and of course the Radeon R7 260 & Radeon R7 260X for the 1080p gaming enthusiasts who don't want to splash out $300.
Now, NVIDIA is countering AMD's recent reign with two graphics cards of their own: the GeForce GTX 750, recommended for eye-candy gaming at 720p, and the GeForce GTX 750 Ti, for reasonable gaming at 1080p resolution.
2.1 GeForce GTX 750
The GeForce GTX 750 succeeds the well-loved GeForce GTX 650. In comparison to its predecessor we are looking at roughly 33% more Shader Processing Units which, as said above, are more powerful. The card should be over 20% faster than the GeForce GTX 650 and offer very solid performance. The TDP is even lower than the already efficient GeForce GTX 650; even lower-end PSUs will be up the job of powering this .
However, not everything is roses. The Memory Bandwidth remains the same and at a peak transfer of 80.0 GB/s. This is still very good value but the card will not be able to perform very well when gaming at 1080p. You might want to think twice if you're looking to game at that resolution. Furthermore, the 2GB versions will be bottlenecked by the Core itself and will be used as marketing to lure consumers into paying more for what is essentially the same product.
GeForce GTX 750 looks to be the perfect choice for those tight-budgeted folks using integrated or entry-level graphics.
2.2 GeForce GTX 750 Ti
The GeForce GTX 750 Ti technically succeeds the GeForce GTX 650 Ti and the GeForce GTX 650 Boost Edition. The configuration is actually inferior: 640 Shader Processing Units against 768. However, and as repeatedly said above, these are more powerful. That fact paired with higher core-clock frequencies leads to a reasonable performance boost over its predecessor.
What makes the GeForce GTX 750 Ti very appealing is its extremely low rated board TDP. You won't find anywhere in the market a GPU this powerful with such a small power consumption and heat dissipation.
Again, the memory bandwidth remains the same and even with such power, the 2GB versions might not offer enoughextra performance over the 1GB variation.
The GeForce GTX 750 Ti is a worthy replacement for gamers still spoting the old GeForce GTS 450 or Radeon HD 5670 GPUs, as they will get an over 30% performance boost and in all honesty won't need a new PSU.
So, what do you think? Impressed by the extremely low rated board TDP? Perhaps you expected more performance..or maybe what you really want to know is the price? Let us know below!
