Gigabyte GTX 750 Ti WindForce 2X OC 2GB Review

Introduction, Specifications and Packaging I've tested a lot of GTX 750 Ti graphics cards so far and none of them have really impressed me at all. A lot of vendors seem to have assumed that because Maxwell is an impressive cool running GPU they can skimp out on the quality of the cooling solution. There are a lot of vendors doing this but it's good to see there are also a lot who are not doing this. Gigabyte's GTX 750 Ti WindForce 2X OC is a graphics card that is definitely not skimping out anything. Not only does it have a massive out of the box overclock but it also has a heat pipe based cooling solution and dual HDMI for 4K support. What's even better is Gigabyte are going with their traditionally aggressive pricing which puts a lot of other graphics card vendors to shame. Specifications Analysis Gigabyte have performed a massive 195/209 MHz overclock on their GTX 750 Ti WindForce 2X OC graphics card. They've also managed to keep the price competitive with offerings from other vendors despite having a better cooling solution and a much larger overclock - impressive stuff. Packaging and Bundle The packaging points out the 4K via 2 HDMI ports and the massive overclock. Gigabyte also appeared to have gone for a new mascot in the form of an owl. The back details the product's key features which you can find in more detail on the product page here. Included is a driver and utility CD, a quick start guide and dual molex to 6 pin adapter. A Closer Look The WindForce 2X cooling solution here uses dual 8mm heat pipes, dual 80mm fans and a reasonably large aluminium fin heatsink. The card is very short at 20cm/8 inches. The blue PCB might put a few people off but at this price point it is acceptable. The heatsink extends over the length of the PCB slightly. The top reveals one of the 8mm heat pipes and the 6 pin power connector. The cooling design is open to allow for exhaust into the case. The rear I/O has dual DVI and dual HDMI. The dual HDMI allows for 60 Hz 4K as each HDMI output can do 30Hz 4K. I like this display configuration, it is the first time I've seen it on a card I've reviewed and it really makes sense. Test System and Procedures Introducing our Newest Test System and Methodology When it comes to reviewing a graphics card we previously had a static test bench in which we put every graphics card we reviewed to give comparable results. However, the big flaw in this approach is that every graphics card used the same hardware so that we had stupid scenarios where we ended up testing a HD 7730 or GT 640 with an Intel Core i7 3960X and ASUS Rampage IV Extreme X79 motherboard - hardly a realistic scenario by anyone's judgement. With our new "low to mid range" test system we're looking to change that by using a different, and more appropriate, platform. We're opting for Intel's Z87 platform and a more modest Core i5 4440, and we're downsizing from 16GB to 8GB of RAM with a slower frequency of 1866 not 2133MHz. I did contemplate using a Core i3 4330 but I feared this might lead to GPU bottlenecks, especially as we got towards those mid range graphics cards. Based on current pricing (correct as of March 23rd 2014) this combination of the Gigabyte G1 Sniper Z87, Intel Core i5 4440 and 8GB of 1866MHz RAM costs $450 compared to the $1670 of the previous aforementioned parts. We think this is an important change for delivering more realistic and useful content to you, our readers. As this is a "low to mid range" test system we will primarily be focusing on specific GPUs (correct as of March 23rd 2014) which are the AMD R9 270 and below and the Nvidia GTX 660 and below. For clarity this means the following GPUs: For AMD we have the R7 240, R7 250, R7 250X, R7 260, R7 260X and R7 265 while for Nvidia we have the GT 630, GT 640, GTX 650, GTX 650 Ti, GTX 650 Ti Boost, GTX 750 and GTX 750 Ti. The second major change was the resolutions we test at. Since these are "affordable" graphics cards we will be testing there is no logical reason to test QHD (2560 x 1440), UHD (3840 x 2160) or Triple HD (5760 x 1080). Instead we used Steam's Hardware Survey to determine the three most popular gaming resolutions as we feel this is what you, our readers, will want to see the most - those resolutions are 1366 x 768, 1600 x 900 and 1920 x 1080. The third major change is our choice of games. After initiating a poll on our site to determine the most popular games you wanted to see in our graphics card reviews we've ditched Alien Vs Predator, Dirt Showdown and Sleeping Dogs in favour of Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag, Battlefield 4 and Call of Duty Ghosts. Finally, to address recent developments in cryptocurrency mining we have added scrypt hashing performance of Nvidia and AMD graphics cards as well as different metrics of compute performance for people who use their graphics cards for other non-gaming purposes (e.g. OpenCL and OpenGL accelerated workloads). Acoustic Testing - Measuring Noise Levels We take acoustic measurements under three different scenarios: desktop idle, Furmark and Unigine Heaven. We take these measurements at the end of a five minute window of each, this is to ensure the maximum fan speed for the duration is reached to ensure the most accurate acoustic reading is taken. We use a decibel meter to take the measurement approximately 25cm away from the graphics card aligned at the same vertical height as the fan with the sensor pointing towards the graphics card. We disable the CPU fan, use an SSD instead of a HDD and isolate as much background noise as possible to get the most accurate results. Temperature Testing Like with our acoustic tests we take temperature tests under three different scenarios: desktop idle, Unigine Heaven and Furmark. We use TechPowerUp's GPU-Z utility to record the minimum desktop idle temperature and the maximum temperature during five minute runs of Furmark and Unigine Heaven. We also provide the ambient room temperature alongside those 3 temperature readings as we've had extensive user feedback about delta temperatures expressing their dislike and confusion towards the measure. When we test passive graphics cards we target the airflow of an 800 RPM 120mm case fan at the graphics card with an approximate distance of 30cm to simulate the airflow of a case fan, this is because passive graphics cards running on an open-air test bench are adversely affected by the still air of the room compared to inside a case where the channelled airflow of case fans allows them to function more effectively. Power Consumption Measurements Power consumption is again similar to acoustic and temperature tests. We use the desktop idle state, Unigine Heaven and Furmark scenarios to acquire power consumption figures. We use a killawatt meter to grab total system power consumption from the socket. During these tests we ensure all background applications are closed to ensure power consumption is influenced as much as possible by the GPU, not other system components or processes. During Unigine and Furmark we take the power consumption figures after 1 minute of the 5 minute run has passed, this is because after an extended period of time graphics card power consumption tends to drop as thermal or power limit throttling kicks in. It is also because we want to take the power consumption readings at the same stage of the Unigine Heaven and Furmark tests to ensure comparability. We acknowledge that measuring power draw from the wall is not the most effective measure but this is the only method available to us at the current point in time. Performance Summary To formulate our performance metric we use a weighted average method and each benchmark or test gets a weight of 1 out of a total calculation with 10 weights (meaning all resolutions and variations of the same test are only ever one weight). Those 10 weights are 1 for each test we so that means 7 games (listed below) and 3 benchmarks (also listed below). We calculate the relative score for each card in each test by dividing the cumulative frame rate/score of each card by the average cumulative frame rate/score from all the graphics cards in group. We then take those 10 relative scores and average those for each card, before dividing those averages by the average of the card being reviewed in the test so that the value of the card being reviewed is 1 and every other card’s performance metric is in relation to it. The end result are numbers that vary around 1 with 0.5 being half the performance of the tested card and 2 being double the performance of the tested card. We then convert those numbers into percentages to make them more readable so 1 becomes 100% and 0.5 becomes 50%. Test System: Motherboard - Gigabyte G1 Sniper Z87 (Read our review here) Processor - Intel Core i5 4440 (Turbo Enabled) RAM - 8GB (2 x 4GB) 1866MHz 9-10-9-27 CPU Cooler - Corsair H100i with Quiet Fan Profile Power Supply - Corsair HX1050W Main Storage Drive - Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD Chassis - Lian Li T60 Test Bench Displays - LG Flatron IPS224 Operating System - Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit We would like to thank Corsair, Gigabyte, Intel, Kingston, Lian Li and all our other partners who supplied us with test equipment and hardware. Their generosity makes our testing possible and without them we wouldn't be able to produce the reviews we do, so thank you! Benchmarks Used 3DMark 11 - Performance and Extreme Presets 3DMark (2013) - Firestrike and Firestrike Extreme Presets Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0 - Extreme Preset BasemarkCL - Unoptimised, all tests ComputeMark - 1920 x 1080, Normal Luxmark - GPU test only CUDAMiner - auto-detect settings CGMiner - manual tuning of settings which varies between the graphics card being tested Games Used Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag - High, MSAA2X, SSAO Batman Arkham Origins - Normal, MSAA2X Battlefield 4 - Ultra Preset Bioshock Infinite - Ultra Preset Call of Duty Ghosts - Ultra Preset Metro Last Light - Very High, AF4X Tomb Raider - Ultra Preset Resolutions Used 1366 x 768 1600 x 900 1920 x 1080 Hardware Used Plug "killawatt" style electricity usage meter Benetech GM1351 decibel meter Software Used CPUID HWMonitor TechPowerUp GPU-Z Windows 7 Professional 64-bit Furmark Additional Comments Graphs using FPS measurements are sorted by their 1080p value as this is the most popular gaming resolution Power consumption, acoustic and temperature graphs are sorted lowest to highest unlike game/benchmark graphs that are sorted highest to lowest. 3DMark (2013) "The new 3DMark includes everything you need to benchmark your hardware. With three all new tests you can bench everything from smartphones and tablets, to notebooks and home PCs, to the latest high-end, multi-GPU gaming desktops. And it's not just for Windows. With 3DMark you can compare your scores with Android and iOS devices too. It's the most powerful and flexible 3DMark we've ever created." From Futuremark.com. 3DMark 11 "3DMark 11 is the latest version of the world’s most popular benchmark. Designed to measure your PC’s gaming performance 3DMark 11 makes extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to consistently and reliably test DirectX 11 under game-like loads." From 3DMark.com. Unigine Heaven 4.0 "Heaven Benchmark with its current version 4.0 is a GPU-intensive benchmark that hammers graphics cards to the limits. This powerful tool can be effectively used to determine the stability of a GPU under extremely stressful conditions, as well as check the cooling system's potential under maximum heat output. It provides completely unbiased results and generates true in-game rendering workloads across all platforms, such as Windows, Linux and Mac OS X." From Unigine.com. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag "Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag is a 2013 historical action-adventure open world video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the sixth major installment in the Assassin's Creed series, a sequel to 2012's Assassin's Creed III's modern story and a prequel to its historical storyline. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag received positive reviews, with critics praising the open world gameplay, side-quests, graphics and naval combat." From Wikipedia. Batman: Arkham Origins "Batman: Arkham Origins is a 2013 action-adventure video game developed by Warner Bros. Games Montréal and released by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment for Microsoft Windows and the PlayStation 3, Wii U and Xbox 360 video game consoles. Based on the DC Comics superhero Batman, it follows the 2011 video game Batman: Arkham City and is the third main installment in the Batman: Arkham series. The game, played from a third-person perspective, focuses on Batman's combat and stealth abilities, detective skills, and gadgets for combat and exploration. Arkham Origins is the first game in the series with multiplayer capability." From Wikipedia. Battlefield 4 "Battlefield 4 is coming to PC, powered by the advanced technology of DICE’s proprietary Frostbite 3 engine. Blur the line between game and glory in Battlefield 4. With dynamic destructable environments, vehicular combat, and the chaos of all-out-war with 64 players, Battlefield 4 on PC will be an unmatched interactive experience. In addition to its hallmark multiplayer, Battlefield 4 features an intense, dramatic character-driven campaign that starts with the evacuation of American VIPs from Shanghai and follows your squad's struggle to find its way home. There is no comparison. Immerse yourself in the glorious chaos of all-out war, found only in Battlefield." From Battlefield.com. Bioshock Infinite "BioShock Infinite is a first-person shooter like you’ve never seen. Just ask the judges from E3 2011, where the Irrational Games title won over 85 editorial awards, including the Game Critics Awards’ Best of Show. Set in 1912, players assume the role of former Pinkerton agent Booker DeWitt, sent to the flying city of Columbia on a rescue mission. His target? Elizabeth, imprisoned since childhood. During their daring escape, Booker and Elizabeth form a powerful bond -- one that lets Booker augment his own abilities with her world-altering control over the environment. Together, they fight from high-speed Sky-Lines, in the streets and houses of Columbia, on giant zeppelins, and in the clouds, all while learning to harness an expanding arsenal of weapons and abilities, and immersing players in a story that is not only steeped in profound thrills and surprises, but also invests its characters with what Game Informer called “An amazing experience from beginning to end." From Bioshockinfinite.com. Call of Duty: Ghosts "Call of Duty: Ghosts is a 2013 first-person shooter video game developed by Infinity Ward, with assistance from Raven Software, Neversoft and Certain Affinity, and published by Activision. It is the tenth primary installment in the Call of Duty series, and the sixth developed by Infinity Ward. The video game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii U on November 5, 2013, with Treyarch handling the port for the Wii U." From Wikipedia. Metro: Last Light "Metro: Last Light (formerly Metro 2034) is a first-person shooter and horror video game developed by Ukrainian studio 4A Games and published by Deep Silver for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It was released in May 2013. The game is set in a post-apocalyptic world and features a mixture of action-oriented and stealth gameplay. The game exists in the universe of the novel, Metro 2033, and its sequels, written by Russian author, Dmitry Glukhovsky, but does not follow any direct storylines from the books. Metro:Last Light takes place one year after the events of Metro 2033, proceeding from the canonical ending from the novel, ending where Artyom chose to call down the missile strike on the Dark Ones.Metro: Last Light features technology which boasts of lighting effects and improved physics claimed to set a new graphical benchmark on the PC and consoles." From Wikipedia.org. Tomb Raider "On 5 March 2013, Square Enix released Tomb Raider, billed as a reboot of the franchise. In Tomb Raider, the player is confronted with a much younger Lara Croft who is shipwrecked and finds herself stranded on a mysterious island rife with danger, both natural and human. In contrast to the earlier games Croft is portrayed as vulnerable, acting out of necessity, desperation and sheer survival rather than for a greater cause or personal gain." From Wikipedia.org. Performance Summary With our reviews stuffed full of a large number of benchmarks and games at different resolutions and using different settings it can be difficult to get a feel for the overall performance of a graphics card we are testing. As a result we've created a performance summary metric. The metric is simple, but my explanation isn't, if you're interested in that explanation then see the test systems and procedures page. CryptoCurrency Mining Performance (Scrypt) In response to growing enthusiasm to the world of cryptocurrencies we have started to benchmark graphics card for their mining power. While Bitcoin mining is pointless and unprofitable on consumer hardware, Scrypt mining can still be profitable due to the current absence of Scrypt ASIC miners. We use CGMiner for AMD cards and CUDA miner for Nvidia cards to benchmark their Scrypt Hashing performance. You can see configurations for Scrypt-hashing and more Scrypt hashing results here. Our results are by no means the absolute best that is possible for each of the graphics cards we test, these results are based on the factory clock speeds of the graphics cards and we do not spend that much time tweaking to find the optimal settings. You WILL be able to achieve better performance through better optimised settings and by overclocking. Though we hope these results should give you a rough idea of what to aim for if you choose one of the graphics cards we have tested. Please note we are using the recent major update for CUDA miner that dramatically increases Nvidia mining performance. Compute Performance The rise of GPU acceleration, GPGPU and various forms of parallel computing mean that the compute performance of GPUs is a noteworthy consideration when choosing which graphics cards to buy. We run three GPU compute benchmarks to give you an idea of how much compute performance each graphics card has. Basemark (OpenCL) Basemark CL by Rightware is a comprehensive benchmark tool designed to measure the performance of OpenCL 1.1 implementations on various devices ranging from desktops to embedded systems. Basemark CL uses OpenGL ES 2.0 or OpenGL 2.1 for rendering, depending on the platform. From Rightware.com. ComputeMark (DX11 Compute) ComputeMark is first 100% DirectX 11 Compute Shader benchmark and ultimate GPU burner. From ComputeMark.com. Luxmark (OpenCL) LuxMark is a OpenCL benchmark tool. The idea for the program was conceived in 2009 by Jean-Francois ‘Jromang’ Romang. The idea was quite simple, wrap SLG inside an easy to use graphical user interface and use it as a benchmark for OpenCL. From LuxRender.net. Noise Levels The noise levels produced by a graphics card is an increasingly important consideration for PC users and Gamers these days. While fan noise is unlikely to ruin the gaming experience, no one likes a noisy graphics card and no one will argue with the fact that quieter is better. Many users are willing to sacrifice temperatures to gain a noise advantage, but with better cooling solutions being developed it is increasingly common to be able to get both better cooling and better acoustic performance than a reference solution on most custom cooled graphics cards from Nvidia and AMD partners. That said both AMD and Nvidia have stepped up their game too with regards to acoustics on their reference coolers. Ultimately, acoustics will always be a big deciding factor when there is often very little differentiation between graphics cards using the same GPUs. For more details on our acoustic testing procedures please see the test systems and procedures page. Power Consumption With electricity becoming increasingly expensive across most parts of the world the need for computer components to become power efficient has never been more relevant. Graphics cards are often the most power hungry components inside a desktop system so having an efficient graphics card is very important to keeping power bills under control. Power is often correlated to heat and so lower power consumption means a graphics card is likely to run slightly cooler and put out less heat into your system meaning your other components will run cooler with improved longevity. AMD and Nvidia have both made power consumption an integral part of the way graphics cards dynamically overclock so the need for graphics card vendors to use efficient VRM and PCB designs is becoming important to maximise performance. See details of our power consumption testing procedure on the test systems and procedures page. Temperatures The cooling solution which graphics card vendors choose to implement is one of the main differences that consumers have to contend with when choosing a graphics cards. Apart from their acoustic properties, the thermal properties of graphics card coolers are extremely important. Lower temperatures are always better and with AMD and Nvidia opting to use dynamic overclocking algorithms that take temperature into account it is important that graphics card vendors use high performance cooling solutions in order to maximise performance. The era of graphics cards reaching dangerous temperatures are now in the past but the importance of lower temperatures still remains. Lower temperatures mean better stability, longer component longevity and lower fan speeds. That said temperatures are one of the most important non-performance related properties on a graphics card. For details on our temperature testing procedures please see the test systems and procedures page. Overclocking & Overclocked Performance The overclocking ability of a graphics card is an important buying consideration irrespective of whether the graphics card is low end or enthusiast level. I'm sure everyone will agree that the more extra performance from overclocking - the better. In our overclocking we push each graphics card to its maximum stable core and memory frequencies. Typically we also raise the power limit to the maximum and where possible raise the voltages if this results in higher overclocks being achieved. We always aim for "24/7" stable overclocks that DO NOT result in potential heat on longevity issues so if we do raise the voltage it is still kept within safe parameters. The latest beta version of MSI's Afterburner software is the overclocking utility of choice: this is because MSI Afterburner Beta versions typically allows you to circumvent overclocking restrictions - particularly those set by AMD. The Gigabyte GTX 750 Ti was already overclocked very far out of the box but I was surprised to see it went even further reaching an incredible 1335/1414 MHz on the core and 1625MHz on the memory. Here's how it stacked up against other GTX 750 Ti graphics cards: Gigabyte GTX 750 Ti WindForce 2X OC: 1335/1414MHz core/boost and 1625MHz memory (Hynix) Nvidia reference GTX 750 Ti : 1155/1220MHz core/boost and 1688MHz memory (Hynix) KFA2 GTX 750 Ti OC: 1297/1375MHz core/boost and 1575MHz memory (Samsung) ASUS GTX 750 Ti OC: 1277/1355MHz core/boost and 1500MHz memory (Samsung) Final Thoughts Pricing Gigabyte's GTX 750 Ti WindForce 2X OC is currently selling for $162.99 on Newegg slightly cheaper than its MSRP of $169.99. In the UK this particular model has not become available yet but I anticipate it will cost around £115-120 given the slower model sells for about £110. This graphics card has a two year Gigabyte warranty. Overview I've been waiting to say this for ages but finally this is a GTX 750 Ti that I am happy to personally recommend. Compared to other GTX 750 Ti graphics cards I have tested this unit has dramatically better cooling thanks to its heat pipe based design and it has much better performance thanks to its significant out of the box overclock. The card is also quiet, compact and has a supplementary power connector for when you want to push your overclocks a little further and get maximum stability. Talking of overclocking and this card overclocked the best out of all GTX 750 Tis I have tested despite already coming with a very high factory overclock. Gigabyte were sensible to choose Hynix memory chips over the inferior Elpida and Samsung chips that simply do not overclock as well. It is also worth mentioning Gigabyte are providing full 4K support via dual HDMI. Few other vendors offer full 4K support, the only one that comes to mind is EVGA who offer a DisplayPort on some of their cards. There is very little to say about this card that is negative. The only thing I've managed to pick up on is the blue PCB which may not be to everyone's taste, but that's it. Pros Massive out of the box overclock Competitive pricing Effective heat pipe based cooler Solid overclocking potential Dual HDMI for 4K support Cons Blue PCB (subjective) "Gigabyte's GTX 750 Ti WindForce 2X OC is probably one of the best, if not the best, GTX 750 Ti graphics cards on the market when all things are considered. It has amazing performance, great overclocking potential, a brilliant cooling solution and best of all it is competitively priced. Kudos to you Gigabyte, this is a job well done." Thank you to Gigabyte or providing this review sample.