PhysX questions unanswered

[Danny1234]

I have been researching the new Sandy Bridge CPUs and chipsets. I intend to build a nice budget upgradable gaming rig. I am stuck on the PhysX Graphics Card issue. "New information" about PhysX is sparse to say the lest. Here are the questions that continue to pop up in forums everywhere.

1. Will my old PhysX capable Graphics PCIe card increase performance of my new Nvidia GTX 4xx/5xx card in PhysX games?

2. Do the new GTX4xx/5xx cards make dedicated physX cards unnecessary in PhysX gaming?

3. What slot can be used for a dedicated PhysX card ( PCIe, PCIeX16, PCIeX8/4 in second SLI slot .....)?

4. Dose the CPU or GPU handle the PhysX workload, and dose the new Sandybridge CPUs affect PhysX in any way?

There are alot of Benchmarks and reviews covering Physx Dedicated card, but there all dated in 2008-2009. Forums are full of mass confusion with no real answers. Looking for answers based in the here and now 2011. Any help would be great, thx.

 

[lothdk]

I have been researching the new Sandy Bridge CPUs and chipsets. I intend to build a nice budget upgradable gaming rig. I am stuck on the PhysX Graphics Card issue. "New information" about PhysX is sparse to say the lest. Here are the questions that continue to pop up in forums everywhere.

1. Will my old PhysX capable Graphics PCIe card increase performance of my new Nvidia GTX 4xx/5xx card in PhysX games?

That depends on what card it is you currently have for PhysX, it might not be strong enough to make a difference when in combination with a new fast card (in the case of 5xx) some of the slower 4xx might see a difference, again, depending on what card you have for PhysX and the actual video card.

2. Do the new GTX4xx/5xx cards make dedicated physX cards unnecessary in PhysX gaming?

A dedicated PhysX card correctly matched to the video card will give better frame rates.

3. What slot can be used for a dedicated PhysX card ( PCIe, PCIeX16, PCIeX8/4 in second SLI slot .....)?

As a video card used for dedicated PhysX card does not need the bandwidth as it would normally when used for graphics, a x4 slot would suffice.

4. Dose the CPU or GPU handle the PhysX workload, and dose the new Sandybridge CPUs affect PhysX in any way?

Unless you have a Nvidia video card to handle PhysX it will be handled by the CPU (slow!).

There are alot of Benchmarks and reviews covering Physx Dedicated card, but there all dated in 2008-2009. Forums are full of mass confusion with no real answers. Looking for answers based in the here and now 2011. Any help would be great, thx.

I am not sure where this mass confusion is, but there is benchmarks and reviews out there showing you exactly what you are asking.