Seperate card for Physx

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Rune322

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I know it's possible and found a guide on how to do it. However I am wondering what a good card would be to handle that. Before I go into more detail about my question I will have to give my specs.

750w Corsair HX750 PSU
i5-2500k OC'd to 4.6Ghz
16GB PC3200 DDR3
GTX680 2GB
Vertex3 120GB SSD
2xWD 300GB Velociraptor HDD
1xWD 1TB 7200RPM HDD
Windows 7 OS

My goal is to basically get a bigger SSD and upgrade the 1TB Drive to 2-3TB so I can put the Veloci's in Raid0 and only my operating system on the SSD.

Now my question is based on my specs, what would be a good card for a budget of $100, $150, $200 be. I was debating the 650ti for the Physx card, but I don't know if that is overkill. Also do I need to have both Nvidia cards or could I use my old HD6970 as the physx card?

Thanks for the responses.
 
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TopLuca
Don't do it ! Separate physix cards are just a waste of money , you're better off with a newer card overall or just leave your card to do all the physix processing , in some cases it will give you a worse performance if its not a very good card used for Physix and in that case its a complete overkill and waste of money

Check this video out for more info : ( Might be little bit old but explains it ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbww3dhzK0M
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TopLuca

TopLuca

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Don't do it ! Separate physix cards are just a waste of money , you're better off with a newer card overall or just leave your card to do all the physix processing , in some cases it will give you a worse performance if its not a very good card used for Physix and in that case its a complete overkill and waste of money

Check this video out for more info : ( Might be little bit old but explains it ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbww3dhzK0M
 
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JackNaylorPE

JackNaylorPE

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Any cheap nVidia card you have laying around..< $100..... AMD cards don't do PhysX

A 680 is pretty powerful so you may not see a significant difference. THG hasn't touched on it in a while but last time they did, they saw a real gain. If your 680's not straining when you turn PhysX on as opposed to off, I wouldn't bother.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/batman-arkham-asylum,2465-11.html

Turning on PhysX isn't necessary for gameplay, and you'll never miss it if you don't see the effects. However, when PhysX is enabled, it adds superlative nuances and really creates some “wow” moments. The chunky explosions, cloth effects, paper, fog, and environmental detail enhancements are very cool.......

The good news here is that a GeForce GT 220 can be had for as little as $65 online, and as a dedicated PhysX card, it will guarantee that the High PhysX setting won't bottleneck performance. Even at 1920x1200, the GT 220 produced a minimum frame rate of 36 FPS as a dedicated PhysX card. Using more expensive solutions as dedicated PhysX processors didn't produce appreciably higher frame rates, so the GeForce GT 220 is a real PhysX champion for the price..

..... he eye candy is a lot of fun to watch. Once you've turned it on, it's not something you'll turn off if your hardware can handle it.
Click to expand...

If you had an old build that you were about to toss, I'd grab the nVidia GFX card out and give it a shot. Buying a used 650 on e-bay might cost ya $35 - 440 but again, unless you see substantial performance drops on the 690 with it on versus off, i wouldn't bother.
 
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Rune322

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Overall you both gave me great answers and I thank you both for taking the time to reply. The video gave me an idea, and overall the gain should I get a 650ti(which i have been debating) probably wouldnt be worth the cost. So I will just stick with my GTX680 and either eventually sell it to put towards a 780ti or the next line of cards that should come out I'm assuming sometime later this year to early next year. Thanks again guys for your help.
 
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TopLuca

TopLuca

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Your Welcome , Wait till maybe the Christmas and if you have the money grab the new GTX 880 ;)
 
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TopLuca

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High end cards stand the test of time. You can still get away with your card for 3 more years no problems.
 
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JackNaylorPE

JackNaylorPE

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Or wait till Christmas when someone updates their old box and gives you his old 640 for helping him build it :)

Generally you have to go up 3 generations to see a noticeable improvement

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

I don’t recommend upgrading your graphics card unless the replacement card is at least three tiers higher. Otherwise, the upgrade is somewhat parallel, and you may not even notice any worthwhile difference in performance.
Click to expand...

The 580 was single tier up from the 480 and the 780 was single jump up from the 680. We normally see a bigger jump from the odds to the evens as was true of 580 - 680 but dunno as yet as we will see that this time.

The one thing the 880s will do is kick down the price of the 690s and 1 2nd 680 in SLI would be the most cost effective improvement you can make at that time.
 
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Rune322

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Yea, I realize now why I got my GTX680. Thanks again for the replies. Glad to know this will last me quite some time. I am going to consider a second 680 later this year to early 2015 then most likely.
 
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JackNaylorPE

JackNaylorPE

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Well.... I did a lot of data collection for the 5xx series and found an average of 170 - 175%. That is 2 cards got ya 175% of the fps as 1 card.....many sites just list that as saying is 75% meaning ya got 75% more....same thing just different way of saying it. Either way 40 goes to 70 fps.

The 6xx series was a bit less....i saw reports from 60% to 170% which of course depends on the games, settings and resolutions chosen.

The 780 you can look at here:
http://us.hardware.info/reviews/4632/35/geforce-gtx-700-series-sli-review-geforce-gtx-760770780-in-sli-and-3-way-sli-geforce-gtx-780---scaling

It's hard to average there cause there's so many "weirdalities" (that word is my own invention). For example:

Elder Scrolls goes up just 2.5% at 1920 x 1080 on "Normal" (255 fps => 262 fps) but gets 60% on high (147 fps - 235 fps). Well who in their right mind would run on only normal when they were getting 250 fps ? So when they includes thos numbers in the averages, ya gotta discount those numbers.

Metro Very High = 76.1%
The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim = 60.0%
BF3 is now fixed the 7.4% for adding 1 card and 74,6% for adding 2 is an obvious profile error.
Crysis 2 DX11 - 1920x1080 - Ultra Hi-res Edge AA = 67.1 %
Unreal 3 DX11 Benchmark = 65,6%
Dirt: Showdown = -8,3% (another obvious profiling error....dunno if that was fixed)

You can look at the rest but remember that it takes the card makers a while to work out the kinks...obviously when new games come out, the single card scenario gets tweaked 1st .... takes cupla weeks for nVidia to get the SLI profiled worked up and they continue to improve over time. AMD takes a bit longer

Here ya can see that SLI scaling on th 680 as they tested at 1980 res was 62 %
http://us.hardware.info/reviews/2661/12/nvidia-geforce-gtx-680-quad-sli-reviewed-sli-scaling
 
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