Power, Temperature and Noise
Higher-than-default clocks normally go hand-in-hand with a higher voltage curve. EVGA's GTX 750 Ti FTW is the hungriest of the four Maxwell-infused cards. The additional 15-20W takes off some of the GTX 750 Ti's lustre, but system-wide power consumption remains below equivalent AMD parts.
Strapping on an efficient heatpipe-based cooler on the GTX 750 Ti is like using a sledgehammer to drive a nail. Though not quite as cool as Gigabyte's WindForce, the ACX cooler keeps the higher-wattage FTW card pinned to a maximum 51°C.
Much like the previously-reviewed Gigabyte, EVGA's fan profile is too aggressive when there's little or no GPU activity, resulting in idle noise level being noticeable. The fans' decibel rating looks good in the graph, especially under load, but they're certainly more audible than those present on other cards' - the pitch is a little higher than expected.
[Update] EVGA appears to be aware of the card's unbalanced acoustics and has released a BIOS update that it claims will "reduce the fan noise level while the card is idle."
We've tested this new BIOS, which updates the card to 82.07.25.00.53, and found that while the fan-speed is still at 42 per cent, the pitch is certainly lower. Our idle-load decibel reading drops from 34.4dB to 33.5dB.
