Installing an Nvidia GPU for Physx

[amang]

Hi there,

 

I am considering to add another Nvidia card into my rig (either GTX580 or GTX480) for running Physx routines in some games.

 

My current spec are as follows:

Intel i7 980x 3.33Ghz || Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD9 || 12Gb DDR3 Corsair Dominator 2000Mhz || Seagate Barracuda Sata3 2Tb 7200RPM || XFX 5970 HD 2Gb x 2 (Crossfire) || Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD || Thermaltake Xaser VI w/ Water Cooling || Logitech Z-5500D 5.1 THX || Pioneer BDR-205BK 12X BD Writer || Corsair AX1200w || Win7 Ultimate X64

 

With my current setup, is it worth installing it or not? Any advice from forum members is highly appreciated.

 

Cheers,

amang

[TheHippi]

Hi there,

 

I am considering to add another Nvidia card into my rig (either GTX580 or GTX480) for running Physx routines in some games.

 

My current spec are as follows:

Intel i7 980x 3.33Ghz || Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD9 || 12Gb DDR3 Corsair Dominator 2000Mhz || Seagate Barracuda Sata3 2Tb 7200RPM || XFX 5970 HD 2Gb x 2 (Crossfire) || Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD || Thermaltake Xaser VI w/ Water Cooling || Logitech Z-5500D 5.1 THX || Pioneer BDR-205BK 12X BD Writer || Corsair AX1200w || Win7 Ultimate X64

 

With my current setup, is it worth installing it or not? Any advice from forum members is highly appreciated.

 

Cheers,

amang

If you just want a Physx card, get a gtx 460 or a 450. Using a 480 or a 580 is overkill for just PhysX.

[El_Capitan]

Get two GTX 580's in SLI, then a 3rd for PhysX until they get tri-SLI optimized. Looks like you have the money for it...

[IVIYTH0S]

Get two GTX 580's in SLI, then a 3rd for PhysX until they get tri-SLI optimized. Looks like you have the money for it...

This except just two 580 will be fine

[VaporX]

Anything over a GTS 450 for pure PhysX would be just a waste of money. According to nVidia a GTS 250 will easily handle all PhysX loads.

[slick2500]

Using an ATI card as your primary and Nvidia as your Physx card can be tricky.

[pkilway]

Tom's hardware did an article on this about a month ago.

 

Analysis: PhysX On Systems With AMD Graphics Cards

 

It seemed at that time the GTX 240, a second-hand 9600GT or second-hand 8800 GTS 512 were the sweet spot for dedicated physx price/performance. Specifically the chart dealing with scaling on the nVidia cards

Edited December 28, 2010 by pkilway

[amang]

Thanks for the input, guys.

 

Using an ATI card as your primary and Nvidia as your Physx card can be tricky.

There is a site dedicated to this sort of mod: http://physxinfo.com. And that is what I am trying to achieve

 

It seemed at that time the GTX 240' date=' a second-hand 9600GT or second-hand 8800 GTS 512 were the sweet spot for dedicated physx price/performance. Specifically the chart dealing with scaling on the nVidia cards[/quote']

Thanks a lot for this reference. This helps me a great deal. The test in the article was done sometime in November 2010, so it is still pretty much relevant to current situation. Unfortunately, after some research on pricing of GTX2xx and GTX4xx, it seems that it is still worth to go with GTX460 considering the marginal price difference. A Gigabyte GTX285 is currently sold at around $250AUD, whereas at the same price I can get a factory-overclocked GTX460 from EVGA or Gigabyte.

 

My next conundrum is whether my current PSU will support an additional GTX460. Any idea?

[Alexandre]

My next conundrum is whether my current PSU will support an additional GTX460. Any idea?

Use this PSU power calculator to see how much power you need.

If you want the most efficient use of your power supply, use the calculator and double the wattage you get from it to see what wattage you would need (PSUs are most efficient when they are under 40%-60% load).

 

EDIT: My bad this calculator doesn't have support for Nvidia + 5970's in crossfire (Unless you buy the "pro" version) so probably wont be useful

Edited December 29, 2010 by Alexandre

[mattyamdfanboi]

Ummm why r u even mentioning the price if a gtx285???

 

A gtx 240 is what was mentioned and it's far cheaper than a 285...

[SpeedCrazy]

I might consider letting you have my second gts 250 for cheap. (cant say what cheap is without some research).

[amang]

Use this PSU power calculator to see how much power you need.

Thanks Alexandre. I will give it a try.

 

A gtx 240 is what was mentioned and it's far cheaper than a 285...

it's damn hard to find a second hand GTX240 in the market here. A brand new GTX285 is sold at around the same price as a brand new GTX460 here (heaven knows why.......). If you are located in Melbourne, Australia, do you know any place where I can get this 240 card?