EVGA has launched no less than ten cards based on Nvidia's new, power efficient Maxwell architecture. EVGA has six different GTX 750 cards and four GTX 750 Ti cards. All of them are based on the GM 107 GPU, but cards with the Ti suffix have 640 shaders and 2GB of memory, while the plain GTX 750 feature 512 shaders and 1GB of memory. In addition to reference GTX 750 cards, EVGA also has two SKUs with 2GB of memory. The GTX 750 Ti also has 16 ROPs, 40 TMUs and five streaming multiprocessors (SM). The GTX 750 has four streaming multiprocessors, 16 ROPs and 32 TMUs.

Nvidia's Maxwell architecture deliver exceptional power/watt efficiency which was made possible by redesigning and optimizing the existing Kepler architecture. The GTX 750 and GTX 750 Ti use about half as much power as old GTS 450 and GTX 550 Ti cards - they can even deliver smooth 1080p gaming without external power. The GTX 750 Ti delivers a twofold improvement in performance over the GTX 550 Ti.

Today we will be taking a quick look at the EVGA GTX 750 Ti FTW ACX. The FTW (For The Winn) moniker indicates that this is a factory overclocked card, while the ACX stands for Active Cooling Extreme. The product code for the 750 Ti FTW ACX is P/N 02G-P4-3767-KR.

The reference Geforce GTX 750 Ti will sell for $149 and will compete with the Radeon HD R7 265. The EVGA card comes with a factory overclock and a custom cooler and these extras will add a 20$ premium to the MSRP. In the Eurozone the 750 Ti FTW ACX card is available for about €150.

The GTX 750 Ti is said to have a 60W TDP and the GTX 750 has a 55W TDP. The card does not even use the full potential delivered by the PCIe slot (75W). However, EVGA decided to add a 6-pin power connector to the Geforce 750 Ti FTW ACX to allow up to 25W additional power (or 30% increase in power delivery). The extra juice should allow better overclocking.

The EVGA GTX 750 Ti FTW ACX is just one of many cards with a non-reference cooler and there are other factory overclocked models from other vendors as well, however the FTW is among highest clocked GTX 750 Ti cards out there.  The reference card comes with a base clock of 1020MHz (1085MHz Boost) and the FTW card comes with a Base clock 1189MHz (1268MHz Boost). The reference memory bandwidth is 86.4 GB/s, and it is the same on the EVGA card because the memory is not overclocked and it works at 5400MHz GDDR5.

The GTX 750 Ti also comes loaded with GeForce GTX gaming technologies like Nvidia GameStream, G-Sync (with included DisplayPort connector) and GeForce Experience.

The card ships in a neat little package that outlines the basic features, such as Nvidia G-Sync technology and comes with 2GB GDDR5 memory. EVGA's global warranty is three years on all graphics cards which have the -KR suffix in their product code. The product code for the 750 Ti FTW ACX is P/N 02G-P4-3767-KR.

In the box you'll find:

-A quick installation guide
-Driver DVD
-A small note about PCIE 3 compatibility
-EVGA full size poster (NEW POSTER)
-EVGA case badge
-DVI to VGA dongle
-1x Molex to 6-pin power adapter

EVGA is constantly working to improve its custom components and come up with cards capable of trumping the competition. This time EVGA’s GTX 750 Ti FTW uses the ACX (Active Cooling Xtreme) cooler and non-reference PCB with additional power capabilities. We already had a chance to try out the ACX cooler on earlier cards, including the GTX 780 Ti Superclocked ACX. The new ACX cooler for the GTX 750 Ti uses two slots but it is much smaller than the GTX 780 ACX cooler. However it is twice the size of the reference GTX 750 Ti cooler, so we expect to see good results in terms of performance. The EVGA 750 Ti FTW ACX is 111.15mm (4.376”) tall and 228.6mm (9”) long and only weighs 1.35 pounds. The reference GTX 750 Ti measures 115mm x 150mm.

Just to illustrate the difference, this is what a reference GTX 750 Ti looks like. The low TDP, courtesy of the new Maxwell GPU, allows Nvidia to use a simple all-metal heatsinkthat reminds us of Intel's stock CPU cooler from yesteryear. At the time the Intel coolers really weren't all that good. The GPU on the GTX 750 Ti FTW is factory overclocked by 169MHz so the ACX cooler has a lot more heat to deal with compared to the reference card cooler. The EVGA GTX 750 Ti Superclocked uses a cooler loosely based on the reference design, but EVGA inserted a copper core in the base which resulted in about 5 degree Celsius lower average temperatures.

The DVI port on the card supports both DVI-I and DVI-D. You can also connect a VGA monitor using a DVI to VGA dongle which is included in the box. Additionally you will get standard HDMI and DisplayPort connectors. You may use all three outputs at the same time. The reference card comes without a DisplayPort connector, but it includes one mini-HDMI connector and two DVI ports, one of which supports analog VGA output.

The card some with 6-pin power connector which is necessary to keep the card juiced up. EVGA used 3+1 power phase design (3 GPU + 1 memory).

The FTW ACX cooler uses a 2 wire fan, so the RPM must be controlled by voltage.

The card has 2GB of GDDR5 memory, courtesy of Samsung. The chip designation is K4G41325FC-HC03. All memory modules are at the GPU side of the PCB. As you can see from the picture the card does not come with an SLI connector.



The GTX 750 Ti does not support SLI.

Testbed:
- Motherboard: Intel DZ87KLT-75K
- CPU: Intel Core i7 4770K, 4x3.5GHz (Haswell)
- CPU Cooler: EVGA
- Memory: 2x4GB Corsair DDR3 2400MHz  
- Harddisk:   Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB
- Case: CoolerMaster Cosmos II
- Operating System: Win8.1 64-bit

- Motherboard: EVGA Z-87 Stinger
- CPU: Intel Core i7 4770K, 4x3.5GHz (Haswell)
- Memory: 2x4GB Corsair DDR3 2400MHz 
- Harddisk:   Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB
- Case: EVGA Hadron Air
- CPU Cooler: EVGA
- Operating System: Win8.1 64-bit

Drivers:

- Nvidia GeForce 334.89 WHQL drivers
- AMD Catalyst 14.2 V1.3 Beta for Windows®

While idling the GPU temperature ranges from 26 to 28 degrees Celsius. Oddly enough the fans are silent in idle mode. To be fair they are only audible once you get really close to the chassis, otherwise you won't hear them. However, users looking for absolute silence should look elsewhere.

If on the other hand you plan to use it in a more or less standard system, the card is quiet enough, as you won't hear it next to your CPU cooler, PSU and other components. Sadly though we were not able to silence the fans by reducing the RPMs, because the 750 series use a 2 wire fan, so the RPM must be controlled by voltage. Note that the minimum fan speed is set at 42% RPM and we could not lower it. 42% (or around 1800RPM) is the lowest voltage the fans can operate at. Keep in mind the 42% does not really correspond to noise level when compared to other cards because the RPM that is tied to 42% will vary from card to card.

Once we started gaming the temperature shot up to a rather modest 49 degrees and the fans did a good job. Interestingly, under load the GTX 750 Ti FTW is silent compared to most of the cards we had a chance to test so far. It's a pity that it's not completely silent in idle.

In terms of power efficiency, we can report that the EVGA GTX 750 Ti FTW ACX can draw a bit more juice (some 10W more) than the reference GTX 750 Ti. This is the result of its its high factory overclock, but as you can see from the graph below the whole system draws less than 200W. The R7 265 is a little bit faster in games, but GTX 750 Ti FTW is much better in terms of power consumption. In idle we measured just over 100W for the whole system.

As you can see from the image below showing the default settings for the GTX 750 Ti FTW ACX, the Power Target slider is set to maximum.

The card comes with a high factory overclock which sets the GPU base clock at 1189MHz, while the reference GPU base clock is set at 1020MHz. Nvidia's GPU Boost 2.0 takes the average GPU clock to 1085MHz for the reference GPU and to 1268MHz for the FTW card. The GPU clock offset slider can still be adjusted, so we tried it and using the standard voltage and AUTO fan settings we managed to push the GPU 90MHz over the factory clocks. The overclocking potential is very good considering that this is a factory overclocked card - and a relatively cheap one at that.

Memory overclocking is vital in any attempt to squeeze out more performance from a graphics card. Our memory overclocking run resulted with a total 150MHz (effective 600MHz) overclock.

As far as availability goes, the GTX 750 Ti is in stock all over the place and in Europe you can pick one up from 120 to 150 euro. EVGA treats the GTX 750 Ti FTW ACX as a premium product that has a bit more to offer than reference GTX 750 Ti cards, so it is priced accordingly - it will set you back about 150 euro, depending on the market.

Is it worth the premium? Our tests indicate that it is about 13 percent faster than reference cards, which cost quite a bit less. However, the ACX FTW has better cooler and high factory overclock, with addtional overclocking potential thanks to the beefier cooler and 6-pin power connector.

The R7 265 on the other hand is not a real competitor at this point - mainly due to the fact that the card is simply not available in Europe. Even when they show up in retail, they should cost about 150 euro. Oddly enough the GTX 650 Ti is still on sale and it is priced at 140 euro, a pointless price compared to the new GTX 750 Ti.

The GTX 750 Ti deliver 35 percent greater efficiency per watt compared to AMD's R7 265. For years AMD touted superior performance per watt, but the tables have turned. Even the 169MHz factory overclock did not increase power consumption substantially on the EVGA GTX 750 Ti FTW ACX.

Bottom line, the EVGA GTX 750 Ti FTW ACX offers exceptional performance per watt and thanks to its hefty factory overclock it can take on the R7 265, which is faster than the reference GTX 750 Ti. The ACX cooler has great cooling performance in 3D, but our only complaint is that it is not completely silent in idle. Depending on the level of in-game eye candy, 1080p gaming should not be a problem for the EVGA GTX 750 Ti FTW ACX in current titles.