Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

After many years of being a console gamer, I purchased a pre-built gaming PC a few years back for my 18th birthday. The only bottleneck in its performance was the GPU, an Nvidia GT610. While the PC was a huge step up from my last computer in terms of performance, it just wasn't cutting it. It was frustrating being unable to play newer games at higher resolutions. As an essentially broke college student (at the time) I grew upset and backed away from PC gaming for a while. Flash forward to early 2014. The media was abuzz with article after article boasting the performance of Nvidia's new card, the GTX 750ti, calling it an Xbox killer, PS4 slasher, all of that. "Plays Titanfall better than Xbox One at 1080p" was a frequent comment made by journalists referring to this card. I let the hype build in me until I finally decided to put my tax return towards this card. Is it as good as you'd think? I've owned this card for about 6 months now. PROS: -Price point. $150 is super cheap for this level performance, though I imagine with more people finding out about this card, the price will rise. (I paid around $140 for mine after rebate.) I was beyond excited when I finally got it, and could see what it could do. For somebody who's just getting into building a PC, or upgrading their current desktop tower, I can definitely recommend this card as a great starting point! -Graphics capabilities. This card plays just about anything with ease. I enjoy playing games at 1080p and this allows me to do that for most games on high settings with minimal optimization. Straight out of a fresh game installation, you can expect to play most newer games at 35-60 FPS. The problem with some games is that they feature poor optimization-- for example, I play GTA IV maxed out, and I average probably 40 FPS with my modest rig. Game graphics are just simply not universal, even on powerful builds. However, many mainstream titles I can play on "Very High" or the equivalent and get a solid 45-60 FPS during play time (due to their elevated optimization.) This card is great! I love it. It truly allows me to achieve full enjoyment out of games. While results may obviously vary from PC to PC, some games I've personally tested to work and perform greatly (40-60 FPS) on High at 1080P with the card are: Assassin's Creed IV, Alien Isolation, Batman Arkham City, Battlefield 3/4 Skyrim, F1 2014, Fallout 3, Far Cry Blood Dragon, Metro Redux Collection, Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, Mirror's Edge, Primal Carnage, Titanfall and Sniper Elite 3. With a bit of graphical tweaking it's not hard to get great graphics and great framerates. -Runs cool/low power consumption. This card doesn't ever really seem to get too hot. My case fans seem to run quieter as well, since the large fan on this card effectively disperses heat and helps keep parts cool. The card itself only draws 60w of power which is very convenient, and only has a minimum power supply wattage requirement of 300w, which, in this day and age, likely comes with a very modest store bought desktop, if that. -Not noisy. I don't know what other reviewers are talking about... this card has the quietest fan out of my whole rig. My old graphics card (Nvidia GT610) was exponentially louder. The fan is large and actually takes up most of the card. You can control the speed of the fan in percentages, using the included software (discussed below.) -Maxwell architecture. Maxwell is Nvidia's newest card architecture, which allows the card to run 2x more efficiently than last generation's Kepler architecture, with less than half of the power consumption. This is the first card available with that architecture and I imagine many more cards will adopt it in the future, until the next generation of Nvidia cards comes out (with something even better :P) -Ease of installation/use. The card doesn't run on external power, which is one of the main reasons I bought it. Simply take out your old card, pop the new one into the PCI-Express slot, and hook it up to your monitor. You're all ready to go. Took me less than 5 minutes to set up the new card. Pop it in, boot up your computer, install the drivers and boom. Prepare yourself for glorious gaming. Installation took a few minutes but once I got it all ready to go, it was full speed to fun! -Nvidia Shadowplay support. The 700 family of Nvidia's GPUs all support Nvidia Shadowplay, which is currently in beta. Shadowplay is a video recording software, similar to Fraps or DXTory, but unlike those programs which record video from the CPU, lowering framerates and clogging up hard drives with large file sizes, Shadowplay records video from your GPU itself directly, at 1080p (with an option for other resolutions like 240/480/720/in-game,) without any watermarks, and at incredibly small file sizes! This is a huge thing for gamers, especially those who like to record themselves. I've had great luck recording video using Shadowplay, and strongly recommend it. -Ease of overclocking. The card itself ships with EVGA's proprietary software, "EVGA Precision X." It's a powerful program that allows you to boost the performance of your card and tweak just about every feature. It's very useful and helps you to overclock your card (though the SuperClock edition of the 750ti has a higher base block, which is why I bought it.) You can definitely get some extra performance from the card straight out of the box using Precision X! It's easy to use and I enjoy using it to boost performance. While I wouldn't recommend going too crazy with it, it's a great tool to help you achieve better performance figures from your 750ti. CONS: -None. Owned the card for a little over 6 months now with no problems. It not only lived up to all of my expectations but totally surpassed them, blowing them away into the dust. In short, this card will take basically whatever you throw at it, and get back up for more. It represents a phenomenal value in performance graphics cards. For the PC gamer on a budget, I would recommend this card as it will hold its value and performance for the years to come. This card makes PC gaming more accessible. I have no complaints about this card. From its ease of installation to its exceptional performance (especially considering its price point) there's very little to dislike about the card. I cannot stress enough how great this card is. I've had nothing but a great experience with it in the half year i've owned it. Kudos to Nvidia for their revolutionary, exceptional card, and as always, EVGA delivers a consistent, high quality OEM card with the modern PC gamer in mind. Another satisfied customer. MY RIG (For those interested): -Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64 Bit SP1 -1TB HDD -Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2 motherboard -AMD FX4100 quad-core CPU @3.9gHz -16GB DDR3 RAM -Nvidia GeForce GTX750TI 2GB VRAM GPU