dedicated physics card

[Ch3m1c4L]

most people say a 8600, i think a 8800gt with 256mb (cheap ones) would be the best since the 8600's seem to limit it, imo. In Vantage your scors will go down because its done using "spare" power of your GPU, since the image is so graphically poor, most of the power is "spare.

Put it in a game where the majority of cycles are being used by graphcis rendering and there will be less for physics, meaning maybe a drop in FPS in heavy physics and graphics intensive areas. Although without a lot of people doing real world testing on something I dont know what will be best for sure, but id guess it depends on how much the game itself is taxing your gpu and how much physx it has going on.

none of this is based on fact, just my figuring of what other people ahve told me/information i have garnared from the internets

 

[Pottsey]

I found with 1 GPU doing both PhysX and graphics that using the GPU for PhysX provide a FPS boost. I don't see any need for a 2nd GPU doing only Physics and if I did have Sli I would have both GPUs doing both PhysX and graphics.

 

[siege2]

I have successfully used a gtx280 as main gpu and a second bfg8800 gts 640 mb ram
to use Physx, main webby for setting up is ;

http://evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=498021

also Games list is from nvidia webby ;

http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_physxgames_home.html

note get the latest drivers from nvidia first , and important that a spanning off desktop takes place to get it working, alongside a second cable to VDU ie monitor,

if further info is required search in GPU forum on here for setting up physx..

search for nVIDIA PhysX Pack is out also from August..

 

[Cyber-Mav]

Whilst Vantage tests to show you the performance level of doing PhysX on the GPU, what you haven't taken into account is how different it is in games. Any PhysX benchmark like said section in Vantage shows the performance level from the selected device, waht you have to remember is PhysX is done on any non-used SP in a single GPU machine (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

So whilst Vantage puts your 9800GTX at being the clear choice, you may find games such as UT3 may indeed run better doing the PhysX work on a dedicated GPU. If you have UT3 and the PhysX mod pack from nvidia, fire the game up doing PhysX on the 9800 and play CTF-Tornado for a good 5-10 mins, then try with the 8600GT doing the work. I found playing this map for about 10 mins does some really intence work. Framerates dropped from 45-60 down to 25-30 on my M1730 when so many objects started flying about.

this guy is correct, vantage is a benchmark, the gpu is set to run the physics code with no/hardly any gfx code, thats why the 9800 beats the 8600gt. but in real life games the 9800 will also have to cope with gfx and having dedicated 8600 card to do the physx will be faster. i believe firingsquad has done some benchmarks on this and warmonger was one of the games that saw a large performance increase.