• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

GTX 660 Ti for £243 worth it?

Ocean Breeze

Ocean Breeze

Ocean Breeze

Associate
Joined
1 Jul 2009
Posts
728
Location
Shropshire/Paris
No Competitor hinting please

I curently have an MSI 7870, but I want a quieter card and physx. I also prefer Nvidia.

Should I swop my 7870 for the 660 Ti?
 
Well the performance is about the same so you wont notice the difference. You will lose money if you sell your 7870 so its up to you how much you value physx.
 
Because nVidia has just squandered it as a marketing tool.

It's barely used in games, and when it is, it's really gimmicky effects.

I also recall something about them forcing physics processes to be restricted to a single core in multi core processes to make it look like the GPU is needed for the effects.

http://www.realworldtech.com/physx87/

It's like the whole tessellation thing, when working with developers on tessellation implementations, insisting that their tessellation performance was so much better (the performance as of course better) by using flawed examples where objects would be tesselleted way beyond what you'd be able to detect, or objects wouldn't even be properly tessellated. For example, a mesh would be tessellated, but the topology would be the same, it wouldn't look smoother, polygons would just be divided up many times.

Real tessellation is supposed to alter the topology of a mesh, for example adding more segments to a tubular object, so that it looks like a smooth tube, rather than a "tube" with 24 segments. They would make sure the tube's existing segments would be divided without altering the boundary shape of the tubular object.

It's all about the check box features, which sucks ass and is a hindrance to games development moving forward for the developers that they "worked" with. They are of course not all to blame, as it takes a willing developer to go along with it.
 
Last edited:
gregster said:
http://www.physxinfo.com/index.php?p=gam&f=all


Plenty of games on that list use it, so I don't feel it is a joke and my first notable experience was Mirrors Edge which looked awsome with it.
Click to expand...
I'm talking about GPU PhysX, most of those games simply use the CPU.

The physics in Mirror's Edge were very nice, definitely. It didn't need a GPU to run them though, they were fairly basic. That's the point I was making, the physics processing was forced to run only on one core of a CPU, therefore if you had PhysX on and got to more physics intensive areas of the game, the game would chug making it look like you NEED an nVidia GPU to run the PhysX in that game.

Read the article I linked to you.

GPUs CAN be far far better at doing physics calculations, but in the real world nVidia just wanted to use it make them look better rather than to actually improve the whole physics in games thing.

Less than 10% of games in that list even use hardware physics, doesn't that kinda say something to you about it? Most of the ones that do are also sequels following on from a game before it that also used it on the same engine.

I have no idea about forcing single thread but you will argue with me because you own AMD.
Click to expand...

Uhh my brain. You asked me a question, I answered it. You claim to have no idea, then suggest there could ever be an argument? How could you argue back with what I've said, while claiming not to know what you're talking about?

The fact that I own AMD has absolutely nothing to do with anything. Why does a criticism of nVidia equate to anything AMD related?
 
Last edited:
Not worth side grading as someone said, but if you feel compelled to go nvidia, i would go 670 min from a 7870. If budget is tight, i would take my chances with the 7870 over the 660.
 
Think Physx is fine when its free, but not something you would side grade for, or on a loss as in his case. Definitely OK when upgrading etc.
 
gregster said:
Yep sorry Physx is a joke and not worth paying for.
Click to expand...

Oh come on, put a bit of effort in. You asked me why, implied "why" had something to do with AMD and now sarcastic remarks?

It's not like I've said something uninformed about how nVidia is "teh suxx" and "AMD 4 LYF".
 
You could have at least put "IMO" to your blanket statement that physx is a joke spoffle.

The ifs and buts are irrelevant, the fact is some games look different when played on a nvidia GPU than it does a AMD GPU, and to some people that is an extra feature that you might pay a bit for.

To me, some effects are a bit rubbish and some look like they have been stuck on for the sake of it, but some physx effects look good. I like the flags movement in borderlands 2 for example.

I'm an AMD user this generation but would be happy if AMD cards supported physx. I wouldnt pay extra for it but if it was for free whats not to like?
 
Because what I've said is objective. It IS a joke because nVidia are wasting it.

They could do so much with it, so much. But they won't as long as they can continue using it as the gimmick they've got it working as.

It's a massive shame that they've ran PhysX in to the ground. It would do better being owned by a third party that had no interest in making it run on their own hardware. Proprietary stuff often gets used like this.
 
I know plenty of people who have added NV card as a Physx slave with AMD cards (yes you can still do it with mods) and then pulled them out again because a little bit of extra mist and the like here and there was hardly noticeable and not worth anything.

When Physx was the new thing it probably needed the software bridge to use the compute core for Physics but the thing is Physx is not needed and has not been for a while, BF3 has a mass of Physx type effects and no Physx, but a few like to use it so they can say "our game has Physx" as if its something special, sorry, it is a bit of a gimmick today.

You have a 7870, moving to a GTX 660ti is a sideways step in performance for more money, if you want Physix it has it and some games have it because that's how they want it, but don't expect anything that your not already getting in other games that don't use it, and don't expect Physx vs no Physx to be anything marvelous either, it isn't all that.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom