HD5970 and GT240 dedicated PhysX

[Speedway]

the GTS 250 will help a lot more in Physx than the GT240. that 850w PSU should be able to handle the GTS 250 just fine. Also, about the GTS250 heating up your HD 5970; it's going to happen with the GT240, but I wouldn't worry about that since you sig claims you have 11!!! case fans, so it should exhaust the heat pretty fast

 

 

Sorry this just isn't true! The 240 runs PhysX just under the 250, especially as a dedicated card like Nyt wants. I mean if you are trying to decide between these 2 cards as your main gpu then yea of course GTS 250 every day of the week and twice on Sundays. But, that isn't the discussion here, and when you are talking about PhysX only, these 2 cards have a very minimal difference.

 

For PhysX:

 

GTX 260 > GTS 250 > GT 240 > 9600 GT

 

This statement is barely true going from the top to the bottom, when PhysX is set on high and gaming at 1920x1200. 6FPS difference from the GTX 260 to the 9600GT. I think this will help you Nyt!

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/batman-arkham-asylum,2465-8.html

 

Basically, you are getting almost the same PhysX performance from the GT 240 as you do the GTX 260, especially when gaming at high resolutions and PhysX set on high! So get the 240, save the power and heat, and call it a day!

[joel.monteiro]

yea so if the gts 250 and the gtx 260 are similar performance, the GT240 should also perform the same as them,

[CowKing]

i still think the GTS 250 is going to do better in the future

[tkrow21]

i still think the GTS 250 is going to do better in the future

 

You can't argue with facts.

[Speedway]

Fact - the GTS 250 is a much better gpu in terms of a single card performance than the 240!

 

Fact - as a dedicated PhysX card the tiny performance gain that the 250 brings vs the 240 is going to mean NOTHING in real world gaming, 1-3FPS maybe, if your lucky

 

Fact - the 240 will use less power, produce less heat, and basically match the performance level of the 250

 

Fact - neither the 250 nor the 240 should ever be used in the same sentence as the word "future" when discussing gpu technology

 

For the 250 owners here, I am not saying that the 240 is as good as your card, so please don't take any offense by my reasoning. The point of this post is not to discuss the obvious benefit of having a 250 over a 240 if that is the only card you are running in your system. Nyt, the OP was asking about a dedicated PhysX card to go with his 5970, and I am giving him simple facts about how these 4 Nvidia (260, 250, 240, 9600) cards as dedicated secondary PhysX cards will perform almost identical at the res he is gaming at.

 

Just for the record I'm also saying that the 240 will perform almost as well as the GTX 260, as it pertains to this post!

Edited August 16, 2010 by SpeedwayNative

[ir_cow]

you guys do know Nvidia made it so if you have a ATI card you can't use PhysX unless running hacked drivers right? i don't know if they changed this but it was like that for a while.

Edited August 16, 2010 by hornybluecow

[CowKing]

the 240 is a great card for the energy usage and processing power, but even that dedicated PPU that Ageia made right before being bought out struggled with Dark Void with medium and high settings. Maybe he won't see a difference now, but in a couple years he will.

[Speedway]

you guys do know Nvidia made it so if you have a ATI card you can't use PhysX unless running hacked drivers right? i don't know if they changed this but it was like that for a while.

 

Yea, Nvidia did try to block this setup! But, there has been a working fix out for awhile now using Nvidia drivers. I currently run the 197.45 drivers on my dedicated PhysX setup and it works flawlessly!

 

the 240 is a great card for the energy usage and processing power, but even that dedicated PPU that Ageia made right before being bought out struggled with Dark Void with medium and high settings. Maybe he won't see a difference now, but in a couple years he will.

 

 

Ok, really this ATI + PhysX setup is only beneficial if you are playing games that utilize PhysX. There are a few, but really only a few! Saying anything about gpu technology 2 years down the road and referencing the 240, 250, or any freaking card out right now, including my 5970 or a 480 is kinda funny! Don't get me wrong, cards that were at the top of the game 2 years ago will still play many of todays games, but the res and settings have to be turned down. The point of gpu technology is to play at higher resolutions and with more "eye candy" so if anyone 2 years from now is thinking "man why did I get this 240 as a dedicated PhysX card, instead of that 250 that was out" needs to have their head examined! The technology is just advancing so fast, this would NEVER be any kind of a good point.

 

There is NO such thing as future-proofing a PC, and if there was, it would not be the difference of a GT 240 and a GTS 250 alongside your ATI main card running PhysX.

 

I hope this makes my point more clear

 

So Nyt, please trust me on this! Remember you ended up seeing what I was saying about the 480 temps when your climate changed! Heat is a concern with you, and you are only sacrificing an insignificant amount of performance going with the GT 240 vs the GTS 250, or even vs the GTX 260!

[Nyt]

Thanks Speedway , Im definately going to listen to you . Im going to get the GT240.

[Jump4h]

Mafia 2: 5970 stock, i7 930 @ 3.1 Ghz. Everything maxed out, physx HIGH. average fps: 17

5970 + 9800GT physx. Average fps: 34

 

I must say quite nice but not worth the effort. Oh well, now that I've installed it I can atleast enjoy the experience

[krazypoloc]

I'm going to try this as soon as I get my new rig up and running with a 9600GT.....

 

Thanks for the info guys.

[slick2500]

Just fyi Nvidia accidentally released drivers a few months back that allowed for an ATI card as the main and an Nvidia card as the Physx card, the driver version is 257.15, but you have to find the correct version of this driver, there are 2 versions floating around the original and the new one, the newer version does not work. Just google it and you should be able to find it. Worked like a charm with my 4890 and 8800GTS.