5870 crossfire + GT 220

mstang783

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I have 2 x 5870 crossfire and I'm thinking about buying a gt220 as a dedicated physx card. I have an Asus P6x58d motherboard and it runs at x16 x16 x1 or x16 x8 x8. Is this a good idea?
 
Well if you wanna play say Batman and see all the goodies, not many options:

The ATI owners here seem pretty hot on it:

http://www.ngohq.com/graphic-cards/16223-nvidia-disables-physx-when-ati-card-is-present-28.html#post82812

Intro to the subject here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-ATI-physx-patch-gpu,8786.html

Lotta peeps don't seem to see PhysX as much of a big deal but I was pretty impressed by Batman....(I don't play many games but after seeing the demo, I had to try it). THG and Anandtech folks seem to think so too, but in the end only you can decide if it's worth the $65 to you. The 2nd link gives you a chance to see PhysX enabled / disabled side by side.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/batman-arkham-asylum,2465-11.html
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/batman_arkham_asylum_physx_performance/page2.asp
 

mstang783

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What about using x16 x16 x1?
 


PhysX does not have much of a performance hit. Some Benchmarks I've seen show about 0-2% performance hit in FPS.

There is no integrating of physX processing, nor any integrating of it with an ATI gpu in it's use. PhysX is an API designed to do math on a GPU instead of the CPU, since the GPU is better equipped to do math. PhysX has nothing to do with rendering graphics, there are no integrating issues.

I've done this myself with 2x 5870's and a 9800gt. It worked great. Here is a guide that I used: http://www.overclock.net/graphics-cards-general/633137-guide-enable-ati-nvidia-physx-single.html

If you plan to use a 2nd monitor for an extended desktop, but not eyefinity, you do not need to do step 2, just plug your 2nd monitor into the physX card.