physx worth enough to NOT switch to AMD card?

[watchmen77777]

I am running 9600gso SLI now.
just upgrade to I5 750 and thinking of getting 5770 CF.
will PHYSX be worth to wait for Nv new card in july?

 

[thedosbox]

You're just going to get a whole load of nVidiots and fanATIcs in here.

Rather than rely on their opinions, follow these simple steps:

- How many of the games that have the additional eye-candy offered by PhysX do you play?
- Find some youtube videos of the PhysX effects in these games and watch them a few times.
- Ask yourself if it's worth it.

 

[blanketyblank]

doubtful, but why not just get a single 5850(roughly same cost as 5770 CF a little lower performance but fewer problems) and keep one of your 9600gsos?
That way you can have both (though with modded physx drivers).

 

[watchmen77777]

doubtful, but why not just get a single 5850(roughly same cost as 5770 CF a little lower performance but fewer problems) and keep one of your 9600gsos?
That way you can have both (though with modded physx drivers).

wow you can? i didn't know that. let me do some reach online then. any quick link or direction to where I can read more of this? thanks!

 

[happy medium]

I'd wait till June 1st and see what the gtx 465 brings.
I'm sure your sli'ed 9600's can wait till then.

There will also be gts 450 and gts 440's out in June. They will perform on 5770 and 5830 levels. Might want to see what they bring to the table.

If you can't wait buy 2 5770's for about 320$. The 5850 goes for 310$ and is slower then the 5770's crossfired.

 

[happy medium]

doubtful, but why not just get a single 5850(roughly same cost as 5770 CF a little lower performance but fewer problems) and keep one of your 9600gsos?
That way you can have both (though with modded physx drivers).

Mr' Blank, The 5770's will outperform a 5870, what makes you think a 5850 is only a little slower?

Plus you get twice the tessalation power with 2 cards vs 1 5850.

To be honest he should just wait if he can. A gtx 465 ,gts 450, gts 440 might shake up prices a little.

 

[Udgnim]

if you have to ask, imo, no

 

[watchmen77777]

Mr' Blank, The 5770's will outperform a 5870, what makes you think a 5850 is only a little slower?

Plus you get twice the tessalation power with 2 cards vs 1 5850.

To be honest he should just wait if he can. A gtx 465 ,gts 450, gts 440 might shake up prices a little.

ok. sounds reasonable. i will wait. hope it is worth it. thanks

 

[extra]

The answer is almost certainly no. But it might be yes depending on what games you play.

5770 cf rocks, i can vouch for that. But selling one of your 9600's (or both) and grabbing a 470 would be cool, too.

 

[manimal]

The thing about waiting is you could always wait a few more months for some new fantastic product or some imaginary price drop. How long did people wait for Fermi? The real question is are there any new games that are you playing now that are not cutting it?

Sure you may save 20-40 bucks in july when the new cards are out. Or you may not...How many people at 5800 launch decided to wait for fermi to come out and the prices to drop?

 

[blanketyblank]

Mr' Blank, The 5770's will outperform a 5870, what makes you think a 5850 is only a little slower?

Plus you get twice the tessalation power with 2 cards vs 1 5850.

To be honest he should just wait if he can. A gtx 465 ,gts 450, gts 440 might shake up prices a little.

I know 5770 CF outperforms a 5870 most of the time by a small margin, but a 5850 can usually also OC to 5870 level or beyond. If the difference between the 5870 OCed to the max and the 5850 OCed to the max is relatively small (maybe 15% in my estimation).
The difference between the 5850 and 5770x2 should be about the same. For the tradeoff of keeping a second slot free and eliminating crossfire issues I'd consider that a fair tradeoff.

As for info about the ATI + NVidia hybrid physx I mentioned:
http://www.ngohq.com/graphic-cards/17706-hybrid-physx-mod-v1-03-a.html

 

[nenforcer]

I haven't heard of any of the recent big releases even supporting PhysX, i.e. COD:MW2 or BF:BC 2.

The only 2 games I want to play enabled with PhysX are Mirrors Edge and Batman:Arkham Asylum.

 

[happy medium]

I know 5770 CF outperforms a 5870 most of the time by a small margin, but a 5850 can usually also OC to 5870 level or beyond. If the difference between the 5870 OCed to the max and the 5850 OCed to the max is relatively small (maybe 15% in my estimation).
The difference between the 5850 and 5770x2 should be about the same. For the tradeoff of keeping a second slot free and eliminating crossfire issues I'd consider that a fair tradeoff.

As for info about the ATI + NVidia hybrid physx I mentioned:
http://www.ngohq.com/graphic-cards/17706-hybrid-physx-mod-v1-03-a.html

Mr. Blank , You forget you get 2x overclocking with the 5770's and they will reach 950 core with no voltage boost. That give you better then a 5870 overclocked to 1000 core for 320$. A 5850 can't beat that.

 

[Patrick Wolf]

I have 4 games that use Physx that I'm just skipping untill nvidia releases a card I deem acceptable. Fermi 2, 3 maybe? I've got over a hundred other games I could play in the mean time.

I may hate Physx, but I still want it if it's there. It's going to die out eventually anyway. It's not significant enough and proprietary isn't very popular.

 

[blanketyblank]

Mr. Blank , You forget you get 2x overclocking with the 5770's and they will reach 950 core with no voltage boost. That give you better then a 5870 overclocked to 1000 core for 320$. A 5850 can't beat that.

I don't know about that. From what I've seen the scaling for 5770 OC isn't all that good.
http://www.overclock.net/ati/638429-contagion-review-crossfire-radeon-5770s-vs.html

According to this guy's test going from stock to 1000/1400 for 5770 CF which is a fairly big OC (~18% clockspeed alone) resulted in only like 11% boost from stock crossfire. Assuming you can get the 5850 to run at the level of a stock 5870 (which is like within 5% of 5770x2 at stock) than that's basically about 15%.

I never said a 5850 would beat crossfired 5770s. Just that it is a little slower.

 

[Sylvanas]

I am running 9600gso SLI now.
just upgrade to I5 750 and thinking of getting 5770 CF.
will PHYSX be worth to wait for Nv new card in july?

Do you intend on playing the following games: Scared2, Batman: AA, Mirror's Edge, Cryostasis? If yes, do you want to lose about 40% of your frame rate? If yes, get an Nvidia card and make use of PhysX.

doubtful, but why not just get a single 5850(roughly same cost as 5770 CF a little lower performance but fewer problems) and keep one of your 9600gsos?
That way you can have both (though with modded physx drivers).

Modded old driver's that don't support new hardware and will likely stay that way incorporating none of the advancements of newer drivers.

Nvidia will not allow you to use an ATI card as primary and an Nvidia card as PhysX

 

[Rezident]

I am running 9600gso SLI now.
just upgrade to I5 750 and thinking of getting 5770 CF.
will PHYSX be worth to wait for Nv new card in july?

No I don’t think so, it’s barely noticeable in most games even if you’re looking for it. PhysX looked good in a couple of games such as Mirror’s Edge and Batman: AA, but it’s little pieces of eye candy, I would not base an important hardware decision on something gimmickey like that.


I actually played Batman AA first time on an ATI card. I’d heard such amazing stories about the PhysX in Batman that I swapped in an Nvidia card to replay the game - expecting amazing eye-candy, there were some falling bits of debris but other than that the playthrough felt the same as with the ATI card. I was disappointed with the supposedly amazing PhysX. A lot of the hype appears to be just marketing.

 

[Martimus]

Nvidia will not allow you to use an ATI card as primary and an Nvidia card as PhysX

Which is the sole reason I won't buy an nVidia card (unless it is really cheap). I know that they may not support their product in the future, as shown by their current stance on this. I just can't trust them. Of course if I get it really cheap, then I could deal with this insecurity, but at the moment they are not cheap enough for me to consider.

 

[MrK6]

I am running 9600gso SLI now.
just upgrade to I5 750 and thinking of getting 5770 CF.
will PHYSX be worth to wait for Nv new card in july?

I would advise you against 5770CF and suggest going with a single 5850 (or 5870 if you want to extend your budget or aren't much of an overclocker). You can see many people in here have already stated "but 5770CF is even faster than a 5870!" and "this benchmark shows yada yada yada" and while this is true, raw FPS isn't everything. You'll have a much better gaming experience on a single card than you will with multi GPU. What do I mean by "better?" Well, it will be smoother (better synced), fewer drops in FPS, and more consistent performance. Multi GPU is great if you need to get performance and there simply isn't any other way to do it (i.e., SLI/CF of flagship cards), but if you can get a single-GPU solution that has performance comparative to a multi-GPU solution, you'll want the single-GPU solution.

That said, you could run a 5850 with one of your 9600GSO's as a PhysX solution. As stated, NVIDIA officially blocked this in their drivers. However, there are work arounds with hacked drivers using Windows 7. It's kind of a pain in the ass, but it's possible and will be the cheapest way for you to check out hardware PhysX with as little risk.

I would also advise against using a single NVIDIA GPU for both rendering graphics and PhysX (i.e., picking up a GTX 470). As much as NVIDIA would like you to believe, their cards can't handle PhysX and rendering at the same time, at least not well, and your performance usually tanks.

As far as whether or not this is all even worth it, your call. I've never found PhysX to be a compelling reason to base a graphics card purchase on. However, you should take a look a few of the games and see if you think it's worth it for yourself (using your 9600GSO's would be a cheap way to do it now before you switch).

 

[shangshang]

Like someone said, I would not base a hardware buying decision one one feature that not all games use and even those that do use the feature use it sparingly. I liked Physx originally, but since the initial hype, I'm of the opinion that it will die out due to proprietary. Furthermore, turning on Physx will decrease framerate. So that's a wash.

That's all I have to say about Physx with respect to buying decision.

 

[JRW]

I own an EVGA GTX 480 and can honestly say Physx wasn't a big draw for me. So far the ONLY game I really liked with Physx effects is Batman Arkham Asylum.

Just Cause 2 with the Nvidia specific options enabled is also nice, especially now that I have a card that can run them @ 60fps (Bokeh filter / GPU Water simulation) but I dont think those are Physx related?

 

[Xarick]

the filtering options are both nvidia only.
I keep debating this thing myself. It real boils down like this. If you have an ATI card you can't even consider those options (unless you do the second gpu thing). Or if you are like me and can only have one gpu then you may never use physx, but the option is available.

 

[evolucion8]

The latest moded drivers works like a charm with the latest Forceware.

 

[KIAman]

Step 1: First, ask yourself if you like physx. This is determined by playing a game like Mirror's edge or Batman AA with physx on.

Step 2: If step 1 is "I don't care" then answer = no
If step 1 is "I don't even notice anything different" then answer = no
If step 1 is "I don't like physx" then answer = no
If step 1 is "I like physx" then move to step 3

Step 3: Determine all the games that will have physx in the future

Step 4: Determine if you like those games and likely to play them compared to other games

Step 5: If step 4 is a yes, then answer = yes
If step 4 is a no, then answer = no
If step 4 is "I like them but I like to play non physx games too" then move on to step 6

Step 6: Look up performance charts between AMD and nVidia

Step 7: Determine performance and price point between an AMD and nVidia card

Step 8: If step 7 produces no price difference, then answer = yes
If step 7 produces nVidia price favor, then answer = yes
If step 7 produces AMD price favor, then move to step 9

Step 9: Determine price difference and see if price it is worth step 4

Step 10: If price difference is not worth step 4 then answer = no
If price difference is worth step 4 then answer = yes

 

[shangshang]

^ there should be a step: how much will turning on Physx negatively affect framerates