Dedicated Physx Card... Did I waste Money

[BadBoiBirt]

Right, despite the Title please no silly comments about how I may of just mugged myself off because I dont think I could take it!!! only joking, hello all! newcomer here in need of some advice.

my specs are as follows and my issue will follow that, I just need to know if there is bottlenecking or some underlying issue I cant see.

Motherboard: P7P55D-E PRO
CPU: INTEL i5 661 @ 3.33
Memory: 8GB Corsair Dominator 1600mhz 7-8-7-20 @ 1333mhz (CPU restriction)
Main Card: Asus GTX 580 Directcu ii @ factory clock speeds
Dedicated Physx: Asus GTX 550 Ti Directcu ii @ factory overclock GPU 975 ghz
PSU: Corsair HX1050 Modular
HDD: Samsung spinpoint F3 7200rpm

Right so thats my baby! I have swapped every component over the past year and not one item is over a year old except the CPU and Memory...

Now my problem is my Main GPU, I dont believe it is performing right. Before I purchased the "Dedicated PPU" (because i play Physx games) I ran Benchmark tests in Arkham City - DirectX9 (average of 40 fps low of 18), Mafia II (average of 29 fps), and Metro 2033 (average of 26fps low of 6). Now, to me these are very very low results for the £400 worth of hardware i purchased when I bought the 580 and I have seen tests done with similar Rigs online pulling off above 50fps in Mafia II.

So being stupid and gulable (after watching Linus Tech Tips) I thought a dedicated Physx Card would improve matters. According to this video my build should be hitting an average of 56fps and my GTX 580 alone should be doing 49fps... BUT!!! I have seen an improvement of 2fps across all 3 games since installing the GTX 55ti.

Help!!

Am I bottlenecking somewhere along the line or perhaps have a DUD 580???


any comments welcome.

Thanks guys

 

[bystander]

You didn't mention your resolution. That might change things.

You are most likely bottlenecking, meaning your 580 wasn't being fully utilized before adding a dedicated card and it already had left over power to handle the PhysX as it was.

You could try overclocking your i5 and see how it effects your performance.

 

[ewood]

I agree with bystander. The circumstances make me think its is your CPU that is the bottle neck, not the new 580. Try OCing (4-4.2ghz in you can) and it you see a noticeable gain maybe you should consider buying a i5 760 and OCing it a bit.

OCing your cpu would also let you up the frequency of your ram a bit since you will be raising the reference clock.

 

[BadBoiBirt]

Thanks very much for the tips guys. I suspected it was the i5... Can you recomend any good walk through sites for newbie over clockers??? I had noticex today thet BF3 alone eats 80% of my CPU power I have also removed my 550 du to major heat issues whilst playing BF