GPU Physics Question

I know its not an answer either way but i have read personally a couple of reviews now (magazines im afraid) that say the reviewer has tried it but no dice and i have also heard from others posting on forums that it has been done. So just be carefull and make sure what you are told is correct before you shell out for a board.
Mactronix

You probably will not need an sli board because both cards are not working together like they would in sli/cf mode. Its like having an nvidia/ati card and a dedicated ageia physics card. Makes logical sense. You should be fine without an sli board as long as you have two pcie slots i dont see why it wouldnt work.

no

Just remember that a physics card IS NOT A PERFORMANCE thing. its an EYE CANDY thing, and in some case you can loose some fps.

USING a physx card is for EYE CANDY and yes you can use 2 diff cards (8 series and higher i think)

Edit 1 : Game List http://developer.nvidia.com/object [...] mpany.html


Edit 2 : List of card that support Cuda Physx http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_learn_products.html

If oyu have already read reviews about (or tried) physx, you know that with PHYSX enebled you gain more eye candy.

Take a look at this review or find other. they all tell the same thing ... few game support it, but NICE eye candy ...

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/v [...] html#sect1

I would just like to add that I"m interested as gpu physics for future games, After all my reasoning for buying a new board would be to get my system through 1 mybe even 2 years.

Normally when I upgrade my GPU the old one goes into the spare parts bin. If I'm able to put it into the second pci-e slot for physics I don't see how it would be a waste, even if it is just for eye candy.

However I'm gathering that inorder to do this I will need to identical cards? I'm I correct? Would it be the same for ati?

Yes, but are they connected by a bridge or not?

As I understoot, one don't need SLI to have PhysiX enabled. It is enough to have second PCIe... So any chipset (including P45, X38, X48) with more than one GPU slot should do.
So let's assume one uses P45 so there will be 2 PCIe slots.
If one GPU is used, than that GPU will run @x16. But if 1 slot is GPU and the other slot is again GPU but set as PhysiX card (no SLI, just setting in the driver), what will be the link of the first PCIe slot (the one with the GPU for rendersing)? Both will be at x8 as if CF?

at stupido
depends on the the mobo. many of the mobos with pci-e 2.0 will split it evenly into 2 pci-e 8x slots. Not a big deal as pci-e 1.0 at 16x = pci-e 2.0 at 8x. But i've seen some mobo's that have pci-e 2.0 16x slot and 1 pci-e 16x slot running at the slower 8x though.

at boulard83
Oh thanks for the info. funny cuz i remember hearing about how ati was going to do physX on gpu first. (it was suppose to work much like nvidia current setup)

Anyway I went ahead and picked me up a nice asus maximus II. Later in I'll try and get another gpu and see just how it works. Anyone got any games I should give a try? From my understanding games based on the unreal engine should do it and I actually do have unreal tournament III. I'll post a update in a few days when my new cooler comes in and I can rebuild my system.

I cannot see nvidia just giving up on cuda with the resources they must have and are putting into it.