7870+ Best dedicated PhysX Card

[nate_09]

I currently own as well the title says, an (XFX Core edition) 7870,

I am planning on playing a few games that use physX,
So, I remembered about the nvidia PhysX driver hack that allows you to have a dedicated physX card when a primary non-nvidia card is present.
1st question..what gpu would you suggest to use as a dedicated physx Card?
I was looking at either a gts 450 or a gtx 650...they were kinda close in price.


2nd Question, would my PSU be enough? I own a Corsair builder series cx600W v2 PSU..600 Watts..
My other system Specs include:
i5 2500k..OC'd to 4.3 ghz
120 gb sandisk extreme ssd
500 gb sata 2 WD HD
8GB DDR3 1333 GSKIL RAM

I usually shop on Amazon.

Thanks alot

 

[Guest]

the gtx 650 would be much better. thats without sreaching for a buttload of benchmarks/reviews/forums discussions for *proof*.

however i highly suggest you research about the ability to hack the drivers to allow physX when a non nvidia card is detected. last i read up was it seemed to be very buggy and involved hours of frustration lately.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

you can still enable cpu acellerated physx without a nvidia card. I would try it like that first and see if the performance is acceptable and if it adds anything visually that makes it worth it, if not, go the 650 due to lower power consumption.

 

[darksparten]

If you have a good CPU you can just have your CPU do all the Physics stuff, my hex-core handles it fine, and your i5 should do good with it too.

 

[nate_09]

I was getting pretty low frames in borderlands 2, fps dropped to 20's..that was with physx on high i think..

 

[daeder]

I remember Mirrors Edge requires an Nvidia card to do PhysX. And Batman Arkham Asylum is not even playable with my 6950 with PhysX on high.

Quad core isn't helping. It is just Nvidia pushing there PhysX.

 

[Guest]

there are several articles discussing how nvidia allegedly crippled physX running on the cpu. an example is when batman AA came out and the physX was tested by [H]ardOCP
Batman: Arkham Asylum & PhysX Gameplay Review

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 with PhysX Enabled on the CPU

This test was performed with the GTX 285 installed and PhysX acceleration enabled on the CPU. The game was configured for the fullest PhysX option available.

With the GeForce GTX 285 installed and PhysX running on the test system’s quad-core CPU, core 1 saw the most usage, averaging 44%, with a peak of about 97%. The CPU as a whole averaged 39% usage, peaking up to about 71%.


NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 with PhysX Enabled on the GPU

This test was performed with the GTX 285 installed and PhysX acceleration enabled on the GPU. The game was configured for the fullest PhysX option available.

With graphics and PhysX running on the same GTX 285 GPU, our CPU usage changed hardly at all. Core 0 was the most heavily loaded, at an average of about 51% and a peak utilization of 97%. Across all four cores, we saw an average utilization of 35%, and a peak of 71%. That is only 4% lower on average than with PhysX running entirely on the CPU.

so the theory is if physX was at least optimized somewhat to run on the CPU then the usage would have greatly decreased with it offloaded onto the gpu . .

 

[nate_09]

So...OT...can my psu handle another card? and what card would be recommended ?

 

[Guest]

So...OT...can my psu handle another card? and what card would be recommended ?

not OT at all, its your thread

yes.

now according to the AMD page a reference 7870 uses one 6 pin power connection but many "non reference" designs use 2.

tell ya what i have done: my 570 uses both the PCI-E power connections on my PSU; same set up as yours (but uses 6 pin not the 6+2 pin). the 550ti i use for physX is plugged into a 2x4 pin molex to 6 pin PCI power connection. the 48 amps on the 12 volt rail is more than enough to run all that esp. since the 550ti will never go above 40% load being physX only.

really any dedicated physX card would only need one 6 pin - it doesn't need to be a high end card. also that CX600 has 46 amps on the 12 volt rail so the 552 watts would be more than enough.


also the 650 or a cheap 550ti would make great physX cards going any lower would put a hamper on the processing - well for a nvidia set up maybe any would be a benefit with an AMD if you get it configured:

[flash=560,315]http://www.youtube.com/v/cbww3dhzK0M[/flash]