pj-schmidt
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2004
- Messages
- 356
After seeing the Borderlands2 PhysX demo I have been inspired to try testing a dedicated card for physx processing.
My computer is a Intel i7-2600k overclocked to 4.4Ghz with 16GB of DDR3-1600 ram. My main graphics card is a GTX 660 Ti. I had a GTX 460 laying around, so I put that in my box as well to be my PhysX card.
My first test was to max the settings in Batman: Arkham City and run it at 1080p. I then ran the built in benchmark. Below are the results.
72 fps avg - GTX 660ti only
73 fps avg - GTX 660ti + GTX 460
The dedicated card is basically not worth the electricity to run it in this scenario.
The second test was to switch to surround mode with my 3x 1080p monitors (5760x1080). Re-running the benchmark gave me my second set of numbers.
39 fps avg - GTX 660ti only
43 fps avg - GTX 660ti + GTX 460
In this case the dedicated card added 10% increase in frame rates which is definitely noticeable.
My Thoughts:
1.) If your main card is not working hard, the added overhead of a dedicated physx card is not worth it.
2.) Quantity of memory on the physx card is almost irrelevant. The max amount used during the test was 175MB. Don't pay for extra memory if you're looking for a dedicated card.
3.) During scenes with large amounts of physx effects, the GTX 460 was momentarily maxed out. I suspect that cards slower than a 460 will have a hard time keeping up with being dedicated physX cards for modern games and drag the main card lower instead of helping.
3.) Scenes with little physx effects left the 460 doing almost nothing while the main card continued to run hard. If you have two identical cards, running them in SLI is a much better use of their combined performance.
Hope this is helpful. Let me know if you have any questions. Keep in mind, this was just a quick test for my entertainment and not intended to be comprehensive or conclusive. I may post more as I do more testing.
~daPhoosa
My computer is a Intel i7-2600k overclocked to 4.4Ghz with 16GB of DDR3-1600 ram. My main graphics card is a GTX 660 Ti. I had a GTX 460 laying around, so I put that in my box as well to be my PhysX card.
My first test was to max the settings in Batman: Arkham City and run it at 1080p. I then ran the built in benchmark. Below are the results.
72 fps avg - GTX 660ti only
73 fps avg - GTX 660ti + GTX 460
The dedicated card is basically not worth the electricity to run it in this scenario.
The second test was to switch to surround mode with my 3x 1080p monitors (5760x1080). Re-running the benchmark gave me my second set of numbers.
39 fps avg - GTX 660ti only
43 fps avg - GTX 660ti + GTX 460
In this case the dedicated card added 10% increase in frame rates which is definitely noticeable.
My Thoughts:
1.) If your main card is not working hard, the added overhead of a dedicated physx card is not worth it.
2.) Quantity of memory on the physx card is almost irrelevant. The max amount used during the test was 175MB. Don't pay for extra memory if you're looking for a dedicated card.
3.) During scenes with large amounts of physx effects, the GTX 460 was momentarily maxed out. I suspect that cards slower than a 460 will have a hard time keeping up with being dedicated physX cards for modern games and drag the main card lower instead of helping.
3.) Scenes with little physx effects left the 460 doing almost nothing while the main card continued to run hard. If you have two identical cards, running them in SLI is a much better use of their combined performance.
Hope this is helpful. Let me know if you have any questions. Keep in mind, this was just a quick test for my entertainment and not intended to be comprehensive or conclusive. I may post more as I do more testing.
~daPhoosa