PhysX card?

[jerome2710]

Hi all!

I'm a bit confused about people adding an extra GPU voor something called "PhysX"..
Currently I have a Asus P6T, i7-920 and Corsair 1600 memory. So I need a DVD-drive, HDD, GPU and some extra stuff and I'll be complete.

Because of my young age and my parents complaining about school, I can buy these stuff in July.. My first intention was to leave the GPU behind and borrow one from a friend and buy a monter GPU in August. But with the extra PhysX card in mind, I'm planning to buy an EVGA 9800GT in July and two GTX285 FTW's in August.

How do you guys think of this? Could you explain what PhysX is for? How many 285's can I put on a P6T using a PhysX card? And the big question; is it worth it!?

Thanks guys!

 

[Mousemonkey]

Save your (or your parents) cash and just get one GTX285, an extra card for PhysX is not worth it and there are going to be new cards coming in the autumn or early winter(hopefully).

 

[HVDynamo]

^ + 1

PhysX is just what it sounds like, Physics acceleration. Barely any games use it, and as long as you have an Nvidia card (8000 series or newer) you can run PhysX on the same card you run your graphics on. You don't need a stand alone GPU to do it.

 

[jerome2710]

Thanks a lot guys!
But one little question more; Why do I see so much rigs with an extra PhysX card? Is that requierd for some kind of competition orso?

 

[HVDynamo]

Mostly you see those rigs because people just have to have the best of everything even though it isn't necessary and costs a ton for just a little performance boost. Basically adding an extra card to run PhysX on just takes the strain off of your main GPU since it would be doing both graphics rendering and Physics calculations. Since you are planning on getting a GTX 285 by the sound of it that card will have plenty of horsepower to play the game nicely and doing PhysX calculations if you want to try it out at most resolutions.

 

[jerome2710]

Thanks, I think my question is answerd. Don't buy a PhysX card straight away