GTX 1070 - Keep gtx 770 and get a Motherboard that fits two GPUs, or give the 770 to a friend?

zombieslime · Aug 2, 2016

Hiya, complete PC noob here!

I have a pretty simple question; I'm buying a GTX 1070 rather soon, and I was wondering if I should

1) Purchase a new motherboard that can fit two cards and use the GTX 770 I'm currently running, as a dedicated PhysX card, which I've heard boosts FPS in PhysX-heavy games, like Borderlands 2(?), (and I'm guessing Borderlands 3 as well).

Or, 2) Neatly package the old 770 in a cardboard box, and send it to a kinda poor friend of mine who runs some really old card (can't remember exactly which though, it's worse than the 770 though).

What kind of performance boost does a dedicated PhysX 770 give?

Cheers! <3

kaptainkuftic · Aug 2, 2016

It'll help Physx heavy games, but not a ton. Typically your better card is better at running Physx calculations anyway. I vote for sending that friend of yours the 770.

If you /really/ want a Physx card, maybe have your friend send you his old card, that way everyone gets the best of both worlds.

Mr Kagouris · Aug 2, 2016

770 as a PhysX card might've been somewhat useful if you were getting a 900-series graphics card, while a 1070 would render it practically useless. Better to send it to that poor friend of yours.

Rogue Leader · Aug 2, 2016

Give it to your friend. That GPU won't give you enough of a boost to be worth it, and in fact may even slow things down.

zombieslime · Aug 2, 2016

kaptainkuftic :

His old card is AMD, does that impact the PhysX fps boost?

kaptainkuftic · Aug 2, 2016

zombieslime :

Actually, I don't think you can use AMD cards as Physx cards.

Just give the 770 to your friend. I don't think it'll do you much good to hang onto it.

Rogue Leader · Aug 2, 2016

zombieslime :

You can't use a card in PhysiX with an AMD card. That feature has been disabled for quite a while.

There is a "hack" to get it to work, its not worth it, and uses very old drivers making it not particularly helpful..

tical2399 · Aug 2, 2016

zombieslime :

Rogue Leader :

As someone who actually has this card running as a physx card I can tell you 100% it helps ALOT. When I got my 980 ti I asked the same question and people on here wrongly parroted the "the 980 ti is more than strong enough" nonsense. Let me tell you, it aint.

I play borderlands 2 and pre sequel alot, and when you use anything very particle heavy like explosive guns or the missiles from vehicles you fps will die screaming even with a 980ti. I'm talking into the 30s and 20s i play at 1440p and my pgu is not sweating at all when physx is not in play. The second weapon physx come into play, bad.

I started using my 770 for physx and have had no issues. Keep the 770, I'm telling you. And before anybody asks, I do not have physx set to the cpu.

engineer5261 · Aug 2, 2016

If you are gaming at 1080p I would recommend that you use the 1070GTX and not bother with buying another motherboard (and possibly another power supply if you current psu can not handle the higher power draw). My experience with using a weaker card for physx did not yield fruitful results (if memory serves me right I believe I used a 680GTX w/550ti handling physx ... turns out I was taking an FPS hit and running higher power consumption).

I suggest you save yourself and your friend some money, and send him your 770. He will be really grateful to you as well

Rogue Leader · Aug 2, 2016

tical2399 :

zombieslime :

Rogue Leader :

As someone who actually has this card running as a physx card I can tell you 100% it helps ALOT. When I got my 980 ti I asked the same question and people on here wrongly parroted the "the 980 ti is more than strong enough" nonsense. Let me tell you, it aint.

I play borderlands 2 and pre sequel alot, and when you use anything very particle heavy like explosive guns or the missiles from vehicles you fps will die screaming even with a 980ti. I'm talking into the 30s and 20s i play at 1440p and my pgu is not sweating at all when physx is not in play. The second weapon physx come into play, bad.

I started using my 770 for physx and have had no issues. Keep the 770, I'm telling you. And before anybody asks, I do not have physx set to the cpu.

The 1070 is more powerful than the 980ti, also he will need to buy a new motherboard to be able to do this. IMO not worth the expense to change out boards etc for this, when its questionable how much it will help, especially going forward.

If he had a board that could handle it and he could try it out I'd say sure, but he doesn't.

tical2399 · Aug 2, 2016

Rogue Leader :

tical2399 :

The 1070 is more powerful than the 980ti, also he will need to buy a new motherboard to be able to do this. IMO not worth the expense to change out boards etc for this, when its questionable how much it will help, especially going forward.

If he had a board that could handle it and he could try it out I'd say sure, but he doesn't.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1070-8gb-pascal-performance,4585-3.html
This article shows the 1070. being 5, 3.5, 8.4, 5.3 and 7.1 fps faster in the tested games. Thats 5.86 fps avg faster. That's not going to be enough to stop BL from having stupid low fps when heavy physx are in play. OP, keep your 770.

Edit: meant 1070.

Mr Kagouris · Aug 2, 2016

PhysX suffers from Nvidia locked platform syndrome, hence not widespread enough to warrant the cost of keeping the 770.

Rogue Leader · Aug 2, 2016

tical2399 :

Are we looking at the same article? You said 1080, however your numbers are for the 1070 which is fine.

And again, this would require him to spend $100+ on a new motherboard to do. Spending that money to benefit from a feature in only certain games, a feature that many speculate is on its way out does not make much financial sense. Even the website for it is nearly dead : http://www.physxinfo.com/

And in one of the other threads you talk about there are users who do not see the slowdowns you did. We don't know if hes running 1440p, but if he is not, then there really is no problem.

If he had another reason for getting a better motherboard then sure, but he does not.

engineer5261 · Aug 2, 2016

tical2399 :

Rogue Leader :

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1070-8gb-pascal-performance,4585-3.html
This article shows the 1080. being 5, 3.5, 8.4, 5.3 and 7.1 fps faster in the tested games. Thats 5.86 fps avg faster. That's not going to be enough to stop BL from having stupid low fps when heavy physx are in play. OP, keep your 770.

Weigh the pro's and con's of using 770 for physx:

+ve
An average of 5 FPS in very select/limited titles

-ve
Cost of new motherboard (and possibly PSU)
Higher power consumption
More heat inside your case
You friend suffers longer with his old card

zombieslime · Aug 2, 2016

tical2399 :

zombieslime :

Rogue Leader :

As someone who actually has this card running as a physx card I can tell you 100% it helps ALOT. When I got my 980 ti I asked the same question and people on here wrongly parroted the "the 980 ti is more than strong enough" nonsense. Let me tell you, it aint.

I play borderlands 2 and pre sequel alot, and when you use anything very particle heavy like explosive guns or the missiles from vehicles you fps will die screaming even with a 980ti. I'm talking into the 30s and 20s i play at 1440p and my pgu is not sweating at all when physx is not in play. The second weapon physx come into play, bad.

I started using my 770 for physx and have had no issues. Keep the 770, I'm telling you. And before anybody asks, I do not have physx set to the cpu.

I see. What would a motherboard that can fit two cards cost? And is my 600W Power Supply enough for two cards?

Rogue Leader · Aug 2, 2016

What CPU and PSU do you have, and what board do you have now?

tical2399 · Aug 2, 2016

engineer5261 :

tical2399 :

Weigh the pro's and con's of using 770 for physx:

+ve
An average of 5 FPS in very select/limited titles

-ve
Cost of new motherboard (and possibly PSU)
Higher power consumption
More heat inside your case
You friend suffers longer with his old card

You don't get avg of 5 fps increase with the physx card. With my 770 my fps never go below 60 even with heavy physx. On the 980 ti on its own, it drops to 20-30s. I showed the 5 fps avg to show that a 1070 is not in fact enough for BL on full physx.

You wanna game on pc, you pay to have the nice stuff.

I've been using physx for a while, first with the 770 and 660 ti as phys, then 980 with 770 as physx and now 980 ti with 770 as physx after using evga step up program. None of my temps are out of the normal range.

The power usage is negligible, most trustworthy sites have shown that power saving with gpus are minimal. Also the physx card is not running 100% at all times so its even less.

let his friend get his own card, how is that his problem?

tical2399 · Aug 2, 2016

zombieslime :

tical2399 :

zombieslime :

Rogue Leader :

As someone who actually has this card running as a physx card I can tell you 100% it helps ALOT. When I got my 980 ti I asked the same question and people on here wrongly parroted the "the 980 ti is more than strong enough" nonsense. Let me tell you, it aint.

I play borderlands 2 and pre sequel alot, and when you use anything very particle heavy like explosive guns or the missiles from vehicles you fps will die screaming even with a 980ti. I'm talking into the 30s and 20s i play at 1440p and my pgu is not sweating at all when physx is not in play. The second weapon physx come into play, bad.

I started using my 770 for physx and have had no issues. Keep the 770, I'm telling you. And before anybody asks, I do not have physx set to the cpu.

I see. What would a motherboard that can fit two cards cost? And is my 600W Power Supply enough for two cards?

If its a quality gold rated psu then 600 is plenty. As far as mob, that depends on what other feature you may want.

zombieslime · Aug 2, 2016

tical2399 :

zombieslime :

tical2399 :

I see. What would a motherboard that can fit two cards cost? And is my 600W Power Supply enough for two cards?

If its a quality gold rated psu then 600 is plenty. As far as mob, that depends on what other feature you may want.

Features as? I really don't need any over-the-top stuff, as long as I can have at least 16GB of ram, two GPUs and something like an i7-6700k.

Mr Kagouris · Aug 2, 2016

tical2399 :

As previously stated, PhysX is not only scarce, but pretty much on its way out. It makes no sense to invest in even just a new motherboard for it. Borderlands 2 is pretty much the only game where PhysX can actually give you performance hits, and even then its implementation is gimmicky at best.

You wanna game on pc, you pay to have the nice stuff

That's plain BS. Thanks to Nvidia PhysX is nothing more than a gimmick, not what I'd classify as "the nice stuff".

let his friend get his own card, how is that his problem?

Vulgar language warning:

<MOD EDIT: yeah no.... can't have that>

It's not his problem, but he doesn't need the GTX 770 in any way. You're literally arguing for him to keep the card and invest in a new motherboard because of the FPS hit from PhysX in one game.

zombieslime · Aug 2, 2016

Mr Kagouris :

tical2399 :

As previously stated, PhysX is not only scarce, but pretty much on its way out. It makes no sense to invest in even just a new motherboard for it. Borderlands 2 is pretty much the only game where PhysX can actually give you performance hits, and even then its implementation is gimmicky at best.

You wanna game on pc, you pay to have the nice stuff

That's plain BS. Thanks to Nvidia PhysX is nothing more than a gimmick, not what I'd classify as "the nice stuff".

let his friend get his own card, how is that his problem?

Vulgar language warning:

<MOD EDIT: yeah no.... can't have that>

It's not his problem, but he doesn't need the GTX 770 in any way. You're literally arguing for him to keep the card and invest in a new motherboard because of the FPS hit from PhysX in one game.

I'm leaning towards not keeping it, as I don't need PhysX, I'm used to having it off/low, and with the 770, my friend could play a lot of games with me that were previously impossible due to atrocious fps.

GTX 1070 - Keep gtx 770 and get a Motherboard that fits two GPUs, or give the 770 to a friend?

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