Reference efficiency of a pair of gear drive without planetary motion is the base to calculate efficiency of the whole planetary gear train. The authors find reference efficiency for speed increase is higher than that of the same drive used for speed reduction. This is different from the earlier viewpoint. New equations are derived for correctly calculating the reference efficiency of spur gear and helical gear with internal conjugate and external conjugate either in the state of speed increase or speed reduction respectively. The equations are also used to calculate efficiency of 2K-H planetary gear train.