PhysX questions

They make noise, too.

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RaptorZX3
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PhysX questions

Post by RaptorZX3 » Fri Mar 21, 2014 9:39 pm

i've built a Core 2 Quad Q6600 not long ago, i'll have 8gb of DDR2-800 in it, and i have a BFG Geforce GTX 280 in it (slightly stock-overclocked), but i have another PCIe x16 slot.

i have a few questions.

1- Is it worth it using another video card for PhysX operations only?
2- If yes, which low-power/hopefully silent card do you suggest me to use for this?

Jay_S
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Re: PhysX questions

Post by Jay_S » Fri Mar 28, 2014 12:19 pm

RaptorZX3 wrote:Is it worth it using another video card for PhysX operations only?
That's hard to answer without more info. What games do you play that use PhysX? For me, it's Borderlands. What resolution are you pushing? I have a single GTX 660Ti which is doing PhysX. My monitor is 1920x1200. With PhysX set to high, I do notice framerates drops in Borderlands. Medium looks equally nice and has much less effect on framerates. Low disables all sorts of nice effects, so I avoid low.

For my money, I'd enjoy the GTX280 right now while saving for a platform upgrade. My GTX 660Ti was previously paired with a C2D. I upgraded to an Ivy Bridge Core i5 3570K, keeping the GTX660Ti. I was blown away by the performance increase in games (Skyrim and Borderlands at the time).

Be sure to take a look at the 750Ti thread
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=67140

quest_for_silence
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Re: PhysX questions

Post by quest_for_silence » Sat Mar 29, 2014 1:28 am

RaptorZX3 wrote:1- Is it worth it using another video card for PhysX operations only?
2- If yes, which low-power/hopefully silent card do you suggest me to use for this?

If you enable PhysX, you do need a dedicated card, with modern games, as PhysX requires high GFlops & high Texel rate, so lots of CUDA cores, preferably the one with computing power, and lots of MHz: any modern graphics is hit by it, even a mighty GTX 680, GTX 770, and so no...
But then a good PhysX card with modern games it could be at least as fast as the GTX280: does it worth?

A long while ago, along with a GTX 275, I used a 9600 GSO 384Mb as a PhysX card, and with the games of the time it was good.
Today I don't know whether it's enough or not (however, gaming resolution will also matter).

If I were in the market for a quiet PhysX card, more probably that not I won't buy anything less than a passive GT640, but probably I would also look to a used GTX460 1Gb, like a Gigabyte OC (a GTX 560Ti could be surely better, but I don't know any reasonably quiet).

ohhgourami
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Re: PhysX questions

Post by ohhgourami » Sat Mar 29, 2014 11:57 am

Does anyone know if it's possible to run a PhysX card on the top PCI-e x16 lane and a primary GPU on a lower x8 (PCI-e 3.0)?

I'd like to have mine setup this way because of cooling and noise (passive physx and 4-slot main gpu). It seems bandwidth would not be an issue, but would there be issues with priority?

quest_for_silence
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Re: PhysX questions

Post by quest_for_silence » Sat Mar 29, 2014 12:06 pm

ohhgourami wrote:Does anyone know if it's possible to run a PhysX card on the top PCI-e x16 lane and a primary GPU on a lower x8 (PCI-e 3.0)?


Why not? Nowadays there's an about unnoticeable penalty at 8x.

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