GTX 770 Classified for PHYSX and GTX 970 Windforce for Everything else

[JHammy123]

My system has a GTX 770 Classified in it now and i just received my GTX 970 Windforce Edition. My original plan was to swap the 770 with the 970. I've been reading up on two different cards in one PC without using SLI. Is this a good idea to use 770 for PHYSX and my 970 for everything else? I have triple monitors also. How would i go about doing this? Is a 750 Watt power supply large enough? Would it be better to use GTX 770 for side monitors and 970 for middle/main monitor? Is that possible without SLI?

PC Specs:
Corsair Carbide Series (Case): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...
Asus z87 pro (MotherBoard): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...
i7 4770k (CPU):http://www.amazon.com/Intel-i7-4770K-Quad-Core-Processor-BX80646I74770K/dp/B00CO8TBQ0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420660466&sr=8-1&keywords=intel+core+i7+4770k
Gtx 770 Classified (GPU): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...
GTX 970 Windforce (GPU): http://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-GeForce-Graphics-GV-N970G1-GAMING-4GD/dp/B00NH5T1MS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420657345&sr=8-1&keywords=gtx+970+windforce
Hard Drive: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...
SSD: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...
Optical Drive: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...
Corsair H100i (CPU Cooler): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...
Ram: http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Vengean...

 

[photonboy]

Hit and Miss:

The GTX770 will only benefit a game as a dedicated PhysX card if it completes its calculations fast enough that the GTX970 isn't left waiting.

This is going to vary significantly between games. It's PROBABLY going to benefit most games however in many cases the frame rate difference may not be significant. The Batman games are a good test and you can use the game benchmarks (though AC's was dropped in the new Steam version after Microsoft dropped Gaming For Windows).

Basically you need to try a game with the GTX970 by itself AND with the GTX770 to see how frame rates compare. Note that you need to pay attention to the most demanding uses of PhysX but I believe FRAPS would be ideal to monitor the average and low FPS scores over a similar area.

 

[Eggz]

That would work pretty well, and a 750 w PSU will be fine because PhysX won't max out the 770. PhysX is really pretty, and offloading it to a second cards helps in PhysX titles, even though there aren't that many. But if you play them and don't have anything else to do with the 770, by all means use it! Just keep in mind that it won't be used most of the time, and your primary bottleneck will be CPU-based because games using PhysX use mostly single-threaded SDKs that overload a single core even though other cores are unused. I have a dedicated PhysX card, and it helps in PhysX tiles for increasing the min and max frame rate, but not so much the average. That's great in your case because it will mean a less choppy experience, which is from better min frame rates.

I've done testing of my own on this topic. To set it up, be sure to completely wipe your drivers using Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU). I'll paste instructions on how to do that below the line under this post. Once your back up and running with new drivers, go to Nvidia Control Panel (right click desktop to open it), and on the left panel, select "PhysX and Surround." Be sure the main 970 is the primary card, and the 770 is set to PhysX. It will be obvious from the graphic when you see the settings in Nvidia Control Panel. Also, the "Auto" setting will detect things properly so the faster card (i.e. 970) is the main driver and the slower card (i.e. the 770) is the PhysX driver. If auto didn't do that, you can manually select it in a couple seconds.

Below are my tests using a dedicated card. The screen shots for "with driver problems" shows what happens if you don't use DDU before installing things. Basically, it won't work right. After using DDU, though, there was a great performance increase in Nvidia's PhysX benchmark.

Link to my PhysX Benchmarks --> https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B0DnoLWfOUZxbGdsSFk5NmFIVW8&usp=sharing

Using a 750 ti with my 780 ti, I got a 42.8 boost to the average FPS and a 116.9 boost to the max! That's a best-case scenario, but still impressive.

780 ti only: 101.6 (max) and 79.3 (average)
780 ti + 750 ti: 218.5 (max) and 122.1 (average)

Look to the following links for games rather than synthetic benchmarks like I used.

Here is a very good resource on dedicated PhysX for you to look through if you haven't already ("Using 750 ti as a dedicated PhysX card"): http://alienbabeltech.com/main/using-maxwells-gtx-750-ti-dedicated-physx-card/

It basically shows that a 750 ti does really well for PhysX, so you should expect performance to be at least as good with your 770 (probably better if your CPU can keep up):

And another called "How much difference does a dedicated PhysX card make?": http://www.volnapc.com/all-posts/how-much-difference-does-a-dedicated-physx-card-make

This one shows that putting a little GTX 650 on PhysX does a better job with PhysX than even two Titans in SLI (in most cases, but read whole article for overall picture):

________________________________________________________________________
[HOW TO USE DDU TO CLEAR DRIVERS FOR FRESH INSTALL]

Old graphics drivers can get corrupt or have conflicts that mess things up unless you clean everything out using Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU). Here is the download link to the latest version of DDU:

http://www.guru3d.com/files-get/display-driver-uninstaller-download,14.html

It will start downloading automatically. Run it. Let it take you to Safe Mode by restarting the computer. When prompted, check the box to remove the C:\nvidia and C:\AMD folders. Use the option to clean and restart. That will put you back in Windows without any graphics drivers in addition to what Windows will use to display basic stuff.

Then download GeForce Experience from this link:

http://www.geforce.com/geforce-experience/download

Install it, open it, and install the drivers through the program. If the windows doesn't fit on your screen because the resolution is messed up, click anywhere inside the Catalyst window to make sure it the active window, and then press on your keyboard "Window+Up Arrow." That will maximize the window and force it to fit on your screen so you can click on things.

After the new driver installs, restart - even if it doesn't require you to restart. You'll then be in Windows with new - and only new - graphics drivers.

 

[JHammy123]

Sounds Good! I edited my question. I forgot to add that i have triple monitors and play a lot of Eyefinity/surround games.Mostly why i upgraded to the 970. Would i be better off doing something different with both graphics cards to use them more effectively. Or is using one GPU for PHYSX the best i can do? Your help is greatly appreciated! Thanks!

 

[Eggz]

You can't really do anything else with mismatched cards. If you want more performance, you'll need SLI (i.e. 970 x 2+). You could plug one monitor into the 770, but it wouldn't be a primary gaming display. It would just do independent stuff. Actually, I think you can do that AND have it dedicated to PhysX at the same time. The downside would be that you wouldn't have that monitor for Surround. Up to you. Besides, I don't think the 970 is powerful enough on its own to max out games across three 1080p displays anyway. You probably know that and turn things down, though, from owning the setup.

On the upside, you might be able to maintain a working desktop on the monitor plugged into the 770 while you game on the 970

 

[JHammy123]

That would be nice to keep one monitor for workspace. I have noticed with games like farcry 4 it doesn't allow you to do anything else unless you quit the game entirely. If i sell off my 770 Classified and buy another 970. Would 2 GTX 970's in SLI run most games like FarCry 4 and/or BF4 at 5760x1080 at 60PFS+? My 770 Classified would run BF4 5760x1080 on medium settings at 60FPS and Ultra settings at 30FPS. How will the 970 compare. I also heard that the 970 Windorce edition is a great card to over clock. Would that help? Once again, Thanks a bunch for your help!

 

[Eggz]

With FC4, you're talking about a game that's pretty much impossible to max out on the most current hardware, so don't get too caught up on that. I think you'll be able to run it with a beautiful image across three screens using 970 SLI. The tradeoff would be PhysX if you sold the 770, unless you buy a more suitable card like the 750 ti. If you have room for three cards, using 970 SLI and a 750 ti for PhysX would be basically a little supercomputer dedicated to pixel-pushing.

What CPU do you have? It would take a lot of keep up with all of those GPUs.

 

[JHammy123]

Oops, Forgot to list that. i have the i7 4770k. Don't have the money right now for another 970. I was just curious. I think ill use my 770 for PHYSX and new 970 for everything else. Will running non Physx games hurt the performance of my PC?

 

[Eggz]

Not at all. Your PC will perform in non-PhysX games as if you only have the 970, which is still really good. Overclocking your i7-4770k CPU to a faster (yet stable) speed will also help. You cores will be working hard to feed both the PhysX card that the main GPU information for rendering, especially because modern PhysX games use old PhysX SDKs and often old DirectX. The older versions rely only single cores, so the PhysX part of things essentially reduces your 4770k to a single-core Pentium 4 (roughly). That's not entirely true because other cores will still do non-PhysX stuff, so you'll still get use out of the 4770k. It's a great CPU! Enjoy!!!

 

[17seconds]

Nice posts Eggz.

 

[Eggz]

Nice posts Eggz.

Thanks! That means a lot coming from you. I've been meaning to submit a sticky or tutorial - whatever it would be called - on dedicated PhysX cards because there's not much good information about it in one place, and Tom's seems like the place to have it. Do you know how I would go about doing that?

 

[17seconds]

Nice posts Eggz.

Thanks! That means a lot coming from you. I've been meaning to submit a sticky or tutorial - whatever it would be called - on dedicated PhysX cards because there's not much good information about it in one place, and Tom's seems like the place to have it. Do you know how I would go about doing that?

Try this link. I went back out the main "Forum" page, and there were links to the Tutorial section there.
http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/new_thread.htm