PhysX Card

[hostage67]

Originally Posted by dolshina

Guess I'll weigh in here with my opinion.

As you can see by my sig, I run a pair of GTX 580 cards, and a GTX 460 dedicated to PhysX. I've had this multi GPU configuration for about a year now.

So far I own 3 games that utilize PhysX, Metro 2033, Mafia II, and UT3. All three are beautifully enhanced by the PhysX technology. It's very unfortunate that it's not written into all games. Some folks blame AMD for this, and some blame Nvidia for a multitude of reasons. The reasons for the limited use is not important. The fact is that I don't see the limited use changing anytime soon. I installed a 460 to handle PhysX because a had the card sitting on a shelf, and it seemed foolish not to utilize it. Running a pair of 580 cards, the only enhancement I saw by off loading the PhysX calculations to the 460, was about 15 extra fps. This may be critical in benchmark contesting, but in every day real world use, it doesn't make any difference if a game is running at 90 fps, or 75 fps.

I've attached a photo taken from my G13. I was running the benchmark in Mafia II at the time with the PhysX module set on HIGH. GPU1 & GPU3 represent the 580 cards. GPU 2 is the 460. The first column is temp, the second is % load, and the third is % fan speed. You can see that the 460 is running at 69% load, so don't let anyone tell you that any old cheapo card is all that's needed for PhysX. I see that in forums all the time, and it's a total myth. I wouldn't use anything less than a 9800GTX+ for a dedicated PhysX card and my benchmark tests prove it over and over again.

Having said all that, I would sum it up this way. If you're entering Leaderboard contests, and want to be all you can be, you need a dedicated PhysX card. However, if you're running a single, powerful, state of the art GPU, or a pair of moderately strong GPUs, then a dedicated GPU for PhysX alone just isn't needed.

That's certainly true, but if he's only getting 30fps, then an extra 15fps would bump him up to 45fps which would certainly be nice. I have no idea what his current FPS is, but if it's high like yours then obviously it wouldn't be worth a whole lot, but if he's running low fps, then offloading certainly might be worth while.