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Is it worth keeping a card for Phsyx anymore?

I

Insomniator

Diamond Member
I currently have 9600GSO 768's in SLI and will possibly upgrade to a GTX 460/470 in the near future. Is it even worth keeping one of the 9600's in my comp as a physx card or are they so old that it doesn't make a difference?
 
Wasn't the minimum like 16 or 32? I remember a friend had an 8400GS and it would'nt work with Physx as it didn't have enough SPs
 
The minimum is a 8600 I think but performance can actually go down I believe if it becomes a bottleneck. Keysplayr I think did some testing on that. Don't remember the link though.
 
thilanliyan said:
The minimum is a 8600 I think but performance can actually go down I believe if it becomes a bottleneck.
Click to expand...
Ah, not good news. I have an 8600GTS and an HD4770. I was contemplating upgrading the 4770 to a GTX 460 when I move to a higher-res monitor, and I was thinking I could swap the 4770 with the 8600GTS so I could then use the 8600GTS as a PhysX card along with the 460, while the 4770 takes the place of the 8600GTS on the older PC. This way, both machines will be upgraded, and the oldest card (8600GTS) won't just be thrown away.

Alas, I suppose it is not meant to be.
 
jvroig said:
Ah, not good news. I have an 8600GTS and an HD4770. I was contemplating upgrading the 4770 to a GTX 460 when I move to a higher-res monitor, and I was thinking I could swap the 4770 with the 8600GTS so I could then use the 8600GTS as a PhysX card along with the 460, while the 4770 takes the place of the 8600GTS on the older PC. This way, both machines will be upgraded, and the oldest card (8600GTS) won't just be thrown away.

Alas, I suppose it is not meant to be.
Click to expand...

He did say the minimum was an 8600, which is what you have.
 
From Nvidia:

Which NVIDIA GeForce GPUs support PhysX?
The minimum requirement to support GPU-accelerated PhysX is a GeForce 8-series or later GPU with a minimum of 32 cores and a minimum of 256MB dedicated graphics memory. However, each PhysX application has its own GPU and memory recommendations. In general, 512MB of graphics memory is recommended unless you have a GPU that is dedicated to PhysX.
Click to expand...
 
I wouldn't use less than a 9600GT/8800GT/9800GT for PhysX. I hope single slot cards will be enough for awhile.
 
Well my 9600's are 96sp's but its interesting that games are requesting higher. How come I haven't seen or heard anything about it actually doing anything? With a freakin GTX 260 just for Physx I better see some crazy shit. I mean... half life 2 from a million years ago seemed to have some pretty good physics effects... on any single card.
 
Insomniator said:
Well my 9600's are 96sp's but its interesting that games are requesting higher. How come I haven't seen or heard anything about it actually doing anything? With a freakin GTX 260 just for Physx I better see some crazy shit. I mean... half life 2 from a million years ago seemed to have some pretty good physics effects... on any single card.
Click to expand...
well the point is that if you have a very strong card then it can handle the graphics and physx as well or better than having a lower end dedicated card. in other words with a gtx480 having a 9600gso wont be much of a help but if your main graphics card was a gtx260 then sure the 9600gso would be a great addition for a dedicated physx card.
 
nvidia could probably help their sales if they would go back to allowing amd cards to use a 2nd nvidia card for physix. Physix by itself isn't much, but having the option to run it in a year or two on your old hardware certainly is at least worth considering. kind of like having a crossfire mobo, you might still buy nvidia but if all things are equal you would probably lean towards amd.
 
Insomniator said:
Well my 9600's are 96sp's but its interesting that games are requesting higher. How come I haven't seen or heard anything about it actually doing anything? With a freakin GTX 260 just for Physx I better see some crazy shit. I mean... half life 2 from a million years ago seemed to have some pretty good physics effects... on any single card.
Click to expand...


A 260 for PhysX alone is ridiculous, let alone anything higher. Especially considering the small in-game offerings I've seen it give in games that use it on the gpu.
 
Would a 9800gtx+ 512meg card be a good fit to use as a phsyx card with a GTX470? Also, any issues with using both nvidia cards on a AMD motherboard?
 
Phynaz said:
This.

Only an utter moron would spend $100 on Physx.
Click to expand...

I hope you are right! I just paid an extra premium for a 3x PCIE mobo, so I might supplement with a PhysX card someday to my Crossfire. Hopefully I never will have to as PhysX will die. I hope I never have to support such a closed, biased, useless technology. Amazing things have been done with Havok, PhysX is just marketing money maker.
 
Grooveriding said:
And PhysX is worth about $20, not $100.
Click to expand...


Exactly. From the little I have seen of it, $20 is being generous. I like stuff on sale so $8 sounds even better.

Maybe if it ever came to be where PhysX enabled games were a big improvement so most people were thinking "I've got to have that!"...

then it would be worth $50 or so.
 
I wouldn't use a separate card for PhysX alone, especially not an old/slow one.
It will consume a lot of power, generate a lot of heat and noise, and probably doesn't really improve that much over just having a GTX460/470 doing physics alongside the rest.
Fermi is supposed to be quite a bit better at running multiple kernels concurrently than the older generation, which should translate in better mixed PhysX/graphics performance.
I guess I'll find out how well my GTX460 1GB does soon enough.
 
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