Suggestion for dedicated Physx card? (Single 780 ti not cutting it)

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Zaku77

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May 21, 2014
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Does anyone have any good suggestions for a secondary GPU I could throw in for Physx? I have been beyond frustrated at Borderlands 2 performance when Physx is on, and it sounds like having physx on plus max settings can cause atrocious performance in many other games, too.

With that said, I want to grab a secondary GPU just for that. I'm frustrated that my 780ti classified isn't cutting it on its own, but such is life, and I just want the better performance. I have a 750 W power supply, so I'm hoping that is enough to run a lower end card. I'm assuming something like a 660 would be a good option? I was looking at doing a 660ti, but it seems those might have been discontinued recently, as they are not showing up at a lot of retailers anymore.

Anyway, suggestions would be great. And here is my current setup:
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Zaku77/saved/3k4NnQ
 
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Zaku77

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1080P, attempting 60 FPS. Please check out my link to see my specs (the CPU is OCd to 4.5, though). I've seen many other threads of people with high end builds like mine also having these problems. It's frustrating and nonsense, but I can't find any way around it, so I'm just trying to throw more hardware at the problem lol. The only other thing I've seen is that it may run worse on Windows 8. But that seems like an iffy explanation at best.
 
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serge44

serge44

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You need to find the real cause for this. A 780Ti should be laughing with both hands tied behind its back for running Borderlands 2 at 1080p at highest graphic details, including Physx. You shouldn't really need that extra GPU for it. It may even make things worse as it will only make your system more complex, and thus harder to find the real issue.

My first guess would be CPU bottleneck, but apparently that's not your case, you have a solid CPU. Why don't you try pulling down your OC a bit? Hell, even try bringing it back to stock speeds and see if it helps. Sometimes aggressive overclocks that go beyond what the CPU actually can handle can pass stability tests but hurt performance.

Another simple possible solution - Please make sure that Physx in Nvidia Control Panel is assigned to your 780 GPU and not to your CPU.

If none of these help, you might want to check for conflicting programs, update drivers and stuff like that to find the real cause of your problem.

Hope this helps. Cheers.
 
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cub_fanatic

cub_fanatic

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yeah, I can play BL2 on my laptop which has a dual core i5 and integrated HD 4000 graphics nearly maxed out in 720p (actually 1366x768) with physx on and set to normal. I am easily getting 30+ FPS minimum. A 780ti with a 3570k should be able to run BL2 maxed out in 1080p with physx maxed out 4 or 5 times simultaneously assuming you have enough RAM. It does sound like you might have physx set to the CPU. Make sure it is dedicated to the GPU only. If that isn't the problem and driver update didn't do it, you might want to try the beta driver. Also, make sure all the other game related software is up to date like Directx and C++.
 
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Zaku77

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I tried using my stock, default bios with no OC, and my performance got even worse. So I guess it's fairly processor heavy? Physx is set to the 780 ti--did that last night, and I was hoping it would be as simple as that. I am running the latest beta drivers for the GPU, and I just uninstalled and reinstalled the Physx drivers separately, too.

I have the latest Direct X, not sure about C++--windows update isn't showing anything that I still need. What other drivers could potentially be related to this? Thanks for the attempted help so far!
 
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cub_fanatic

cub_fanatic

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Maybe you should be looking at your temps if you haven't already. CPU, GPU, etc. What is your room temp? Case temp? Also, check that there aren't any shady processes running in the background. Do a full malware scan (Malwarebytes AM) as well as a virus scan (any of the dozens of freeware ones will do, they all scan for the same viruses). All of this is just basic maintenance. Throw in a visual inspection of the inside of your case, make sure the fans are all working, no dust build up, no wires blocking air flow, etc. And if you can, do a memtest scan. I also suggest using apps like OCCT, CPU-Z, GPU-Z and Core Temp for monitoring temps and running tests, Hard Disk Sentinel for monitoring the health of your SSD and HDDs, Fraps for giving you accurate frame rate readings, among others. Another handy app is Razer game booster which will free up resources for you automatically when you load a game up and then turn everything back on that it turned off after you exit the game. And if you aren't using MSI Afterburner already, that is the best app for OC'ing GPUs. Uninstall any GPU overclocking apps besides MSI AB. And, finally, in the Nvidia GF Experience app, optimize BL2 and the rest of the games that it detects. It will tweak the Nvidia control panel settings for each individual game and make a profile for each game based on optimal settings that they used when testing the latest drivers.

 
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Zaku77

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My temps are all quite nice. Games seem to stay a good bit cooler than the torture tests, which is quite nice. The PC is only about 2 weeks old, so no dust built up. I should probably run malware/spyware tests, but again, it's only two weeks old, so I just don't see that being a likely scenario. I'm not currently OCing the GPU because it comes with a hefty stock overclock, and pushing it any more than this--without voltage increases--seems to make it pretty unstable. I have a friend that has this on a 3.0ghz CPU and 660 ti, and I seem to be getting pretty identical performance to him. It's kind of a joke. I have seen a lot of threads around with people having similar setups to mine--or even better with 780ti sli--also having these inexplicable Physx performance issues. Unfortunately, I've not been able to find a fix from any of those sources, and it sounds like those people don't usually find one either. I suppose it just has inexplicable problems for some people because a magic fix just doesn't seem to exist. :/
 
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JUICEhunter

JUICEhunter

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I've played BL2 on 3 different GPUs (same i7 2600 CPU) a 6850, gtx670 and 780ti and can tell you the game scales down well but doesn't scale up as well. I had good settings with my 6850, was able to max it with 670 but had slow downs during crazy parts, slightly and I mean slightly lower settings completely stopped during same parts.

Playing Tina's DLC on my 780ti maxed ran amazing, had a slow down which surprised me when there were a lot of special units all shooting at me, so I turned PhysX from high to low hasn't dipped since. Can't say I see a difference. I learned that not all game engines are perfect at all times, will an update fix happen? Most likely not.

Also remember the same games on consoles just have lower settings during those intense scenes. PC's don't really get tested/changed that way because either you can turn something down, in this case the thing that is causing the problem or the hardware eventually gets so powerful that it doesn't matter eventually.
 
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catswold

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I'd be surprised if you could really see much of a difference if a 780ti isn't cutting it by using a separate Physx card, the demand just isn't that great.

However according to juicehunter's post there is some drag. If you wish to try, you don't need very much card to handle the Physx side of graphics. A GTX 460 would probably be overkill.
 
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Zaku77

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I came across this article, and I decided to go this route. I'm hoping that more and more games get Physx, but it's honestly worth it for all the Batman games, Ass Creed, and Witcher 3 alone.

http://alienbabeltech.com/main/using-maxwells-gtx-750-ti-dedicated-physx-card/
 
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stokes1790

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Just thought I'd point out that you article you linked has the 780 ti getting 67 fps at 1600p with full max setting without the dedicated physx card, and 102 fps at 1080p in BL2. So I would venture to guess that your bottleneck lies somewhere else.
 
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