Using 8800GT as Physx card a good idea?

[Deders]

You'll be better with just the 680 for sure.

 

[2is]

You'll be better with just the 680 for sure.

Old thread... I just resurrected it to confirm I tried it and that the results were not good. And I actually tried it with a 650Ti as the primary on a test bed I have setup. I didn't bother pairing it with the 680 since I've went SLI since then.

 

[jiffylube1024]

In addition to being pretty much useless for Phys X, an 8800GT or GTX 260 will consume another 40-120W of power all the time for minimal benefit. It's not really worth it.

 

[Golgatha]

Yeah, the 8800 GT will definitely handicap your system if you use it as a PhysX card.

For today's PhysX games, you need at least a GTX 460, or even better, a GTX 650 Ti if you want to use PhysX at it's highest settings.

Anything above a GTX 650 Ti is overkill..

I did some testing and found anything above a GTX 650 is overkill. An 8800 GT will actually give you worse performance than just having a GTX 680.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2327223


Batman Arkham City Results

Titan Alone = 16, 60, 42 FPS

Titan + GT 430 = 13, 60, 49 FPS

Titan + GTX 650 = 32, 60, 54 FPS

Titan + GTX 570 SC = 34, 60, 55 FPS

Titan + GTX 770 SC = 35, 60, 56 FPS

 

[UNhooked]

GTX 650 prolly the best card to handle Physx

With that said I am currently running a GT 640 with my GTX 780 and it works quite well in Borderlands 2

Read this nice round up

http://1pcent.com/?p=135

http://1pcent.com/?p=169

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1722811

 

[Carfax83]

I did some testing and found anything above a GTX 650 is overkill. An 8800 GT will actually give you worse performance than just having a GTX 680.

A base GTX 650 is too slow imo. It might be fine for current PhysX games, but with more coming down the pipeline with more advanced effects (Witcher 3 comes to mind), you'll need a faster card. PhysX requires two things, CUDA cores and core speed.

A GTX 650 Ti has twice as many cores as the regular version, and is clocked almost as high, so it performs much better. It also doesn't cost that much more than the base version.

 

[Deders]

I did some testing and found anything above a GTX 650 is overkill. An 8800 GT will actually give you worse performance than just having a GTX 680.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2327223


Batman Arkham City Results

Titan Alone = 16, 60, 42 FPS

Titan + GT 430 = 13, 60, 49 FPS

Titan + GTX 650 = 32, 60, 54 FPS

Titan + GTX 570 SC = 34, 60, 55 FPS

Titan + GTX 770 SC = 35, 60, 56 FPS

Is that using the AC benchmark? Do you have Vsync or frame limiting enabled as the maximum seems to stay the same no matter what.

I'm also highly dubious as to the minimum framerates as like the benchmark in its predecessor it seems to record very low framerates when the screen goes black, which in turn affects the average framerate.

That's not to say that an 8800GT isn't fast enough for AC.

 

[toyota]

he must have vsync enabled because the bench does not have a framerate cap. and the game itself has a 62 fps cap. btw you can circumvent the 62 fps cap in the game by running the bench first then playing the game. they may have patched that though by now.

 

[Golgatha]

Is that using the AC benchmark? Do you have Vsync or frame limiting enabled as the maximum seems to stay the same no matter what.

I'm also highly dubious as to the minimum framerates as like the benchmark in its predecessor it seems to record very low framerates when the screen goes black, which in turn affects the average framerate.

That's not to say that an 8800GT isn't fast enough for AC.

It is the built in AC benchmark and vSync was enabled, which is why the max numbers are 60 FPS. I was only interested in the min and average framerate numbers. Basically the GT 430 was slowing down the Titan as a dedicated PhysX card, and going above a TI 650 made no improvement in min/avg framerrates, which is why I came to the conclusion that a TI 650 is ideal to pair with a high end system. If you're doing SLI already, the benefits of an additional PhysX card seem to be pretty trivial IMO. I have no way of testing that unless someone wants to loan or give me another Titan to play with though. Also, I would consider having an absolute min 30 FPS as the metric for playable to me.

 

[Makaveli]

A base GTX 650 is too slow imo. It might be fine for current PhysX games, but with more coming down the pipeline with more advanced effects (Witcher 3 comes to mind), you'll need a faster card. PhysX requires two things, CUDA cores and core speed.

A GTX 650 Ti has twice as many cores as the regular version, and is clocked almost as high, so it performs much better. It also doesn't cost that much more than the base version.

Will have to see if this is true as we get into next year.

i've not ran into any performance issues with Physx titles and my 650 superclocked card yet.

 

[Deders]

It is the built in AC benchmark and vSync was enabled, which is why the max numbers are 60 FPS. I was only interested in the min and average framerate numbers. Basically the GT 430 was slowing down the Titan as a dedicated PhysX card, and going above a TI 650 made no improvement in min/avg framerrates, which is why I came to the conclusion that a TI 650 is ideal to pair with a high end system. If you're doing SLI already, the benefits of an additional PhysX card seem to be pretty trivial IMO. I have no way of testing that unless someone wants to loan or give me another Titan to play with though. Also, I would consider having an absolute min 30 FPS as the metric for playable to me.

Well like I said the minimum framerates aren't always accurate as it is still measuring between scenes. Using fraps my 670 definitely doesn't go below 30fps (probably higher than that) during the actual scenes. It also averages 60FPS.

Having a frame limit is also going to affect the averages.