Is it worth keeping GTX275 around as a PhysX card?

[zeock9]

I play a few games like Skyrim and R:TW2, but otherwise use no physics engine driven programs or software.

I'm planning on upgrading my good ol' GTX 275 to something similar to GTX 880 this fall, and was wondering if it's worth keeping it in my system, given its age and power consumption, to be used as a physx gpu purely for gaming purposes.

Or is newer, more powerful gpu more than enough to handle physics calculations while gaming so my old 275 is completely irrelevant and/or unnecessary?

Thanks guys

 

[I/O]

I tried the same with my GTX 275 but ... it was not worth it . The extra heat and power consumption was not worth the hassle. Plus the only two games I own Metro games and BL2 are the only ones that have Physx and I do not even play them anymore and did not notice a difference other than the extra heat, power consummation and noise generated from the 275 as dedicated Physx parallel processor.

 

[96Firebird]

I assume you will be keeping the card as a backup regardless (I don't think you can fetch much for it if you try to sell it), so you might as well try it out when a game comes out that you want to play that has hardware accelerated PhysX.

 

[zeock9]

I assume you will be keeping the card as a backup regardless (I don't think you can fetch much for it if you try to sell it), so you might as well try it out when a game comes out that you want to play that has hardware accelerated PhysX.

Thanks for your input,
I guess I'm at a predicament because I'm not sure if my current PS rated @700w can handle both my main gpu and the 275 especially since I plan on overclocking everything.

Do you know if gpus running primarily as PhysX cards draw their full TDP?

 

[96Firebird]

Do you know if gpus running primarily as PhysX cards draw their full TDP?

That I do not know.

If I were a guessing man, I'd say you'll be fine so long as you have a quality 700W PSU. Using this review, it shows a GTX 275 at 311W at full load with an i7-965 (130W TDP). I'm not sure what the rest of your system looks like, or if you'll be upgrading other components with your new video card, so I can't really comment on how much power your system will likely consume. Even still, we don't even know how much power the GTX 880 will use.

 

[Deders]

Give it a try but I expect you'll find that in most cases the 880 will be faster on its own.

It won't draw it's full tdp, I expect 750W will be fine on an Intel system. An overclocked AMD 8 core might be a different matter.

That being said that generation of cards doesn't have the refined power saving features of Fermi and Kepler so it will draw more power than modern cards when idle.

When I had an SLI setup with 9800GTX+'s, I'd dedicate one to PhysX for the games that needed it and found the GPU usage was fairly light in comparison to the main card.

The new 750/TI's have been proven to be effective PhysX cards should the need arise.

 

[zeock9]

Thank you everyone for your answer,
much appreciated!

 

[EliteRetard]

A GTX 275 may not be worth a lot, but it's not useless either.
As an example I have an XP 2500+ system with a 9800pro, and a C2D E6600 system with a 320MB 8800GTS. I have a third system with an AMD 64 FX that needs a GPU.

I have a lot of old games that actually run better on the old hardware, and these parts tend to fail due to age/use so I keep an eye out for good replacements/spares. So if you don't have any use for it, don't toss it in the trash...there's actually people out there who would want it.

 

[lavaheadache]

I would want it....

 

[DigDog]

during the 600 series it was proven that a 8800GTS dedicated to physics would actually make the system slower, as the 88 took more time to handle the phy compared to what the 680 would do on its own doing both.

 

[lavaheadache]

during the 600 series it was proven that a 8800GTS dedicated to physics would actually make the system slower, as the 88 took more time to handle the phy compared to what the 680 would do on its own doing both.

it all depends on how loaded the primary gpu is with other stuff.