PCIe 2.0 4x vs PCIe 1.1a 16x 8800GTS 320

[ViRuS2k]

My question is my board has 3 pcie express ports

the top 2 are pcie 2.0 16x slots
the 3rd is a pcie 2.0 4x slot

Now this card is a 1.1a 16x max card

i have 2x 5870s in both top slots so when i put this card in that i will be getting tommorw for physX ati cards doing the rendering and the nvidia doing the calculations ect

will the 2.0 PCI express slot bottle neck the Nvidia 8800GTS card.

i read somewhere that a PCI express 2.0 slot at 4x is the equivelent to a pci express port 1.1a 16x

ir i could be wrong lol

i just want to know if everything will be compatible dont want any bottle necks anywhere.

also 910w 75a single rail should be powerfull enough for 2 5870s and 1 8800gts right with a i7 at 4.2

 

[craig3000]

Mate have you not heard they disabled the feature, you cannot mix ATi cards with nvidia for physx, sorry bud

 

[ViRuS2k]

Mate have you not heard they disabled the feature, you cannot mix ATi cards with nvidia for physx, sorry bud

I think you need to read about a little more in this very forum lol

 

[craig3000]

I think you need to read about a little more in this very forum lol

Ahh you hacking/patching it to make it work or something? Otherwise I'm confused + I don't think it would be a bottleneck and your PSU would take the load

 

[ejr22]

Why the hell do you need another card? 2 x 5870's is one of the fastest set-ups you can have? Not much point in having much more when your monitor can only show 60FPS.

Save your money up for a new mobo which supports 3 x Crossfire and buy another 5870.

 

[craig3000]

Why the hell do you need another card? 2 x 5870's is one of the fastest set-ups you can have? Not much point in having much more when your monitor can only show 60FPS.

Save your money up for a new mobo which supports 3 x Crossfire and buy another 5870.

The only thing is physx would be very effective on a 3rd Nvidia card and the 8800GTS 320mb is old (but capable of physx) and therefore very cheap, so he probably think it is worth it

 

[ViRuS2k]

even though my system is powerfull.

the 5870 cards are crap in physx games.

my cards get brought to there knee`s with arkham on max physx
and nfs shift gets these wierd slowdowns im hopeing there all solved when i get this card tommorow

 

[craig3000]

As long as you get it too work it should perform flawlessly

 

[hohum]

If you do try it then let me know how you get on. I personally have a 8800GTS 640MB as my sole graphics card, and can't get hardware Physx to work on it anyway (googling suggests I'm not the only one either, with 320MB and 8800GTX users also commenting on the problem). The suspected reason is due to the G80 chip lacking some features needed by later Physx versions, which would explain why users with G92 chips (8800GTS 512MB, for example) don't experience the issue.

 

[Pendu]

I think it's the cpu being brought to it's knees, which in turn can't feed the graphics cards.

 

[wolvers]

I reckon it would be OK in the 4x slot. I read something recently, a techpowerup test I think, where they tested the 5870 at 1x, 4x, 8x and 16x. There was little difference between 8x and 16x (about 2%) and even 4x was only about 15% slower which surprised me.

If it's only doing the physx stuff then I'm sure it'll be OK.

 

[Rroff]

AFAIK x4 pci-e 2.0 is equiv. to an x8 pci-e 1.x slot - so 2,000MB/s bandwidth - which will be fine of physics processing.

 

[hohum]

The card itself doesn't support the newer 2.0 standard though, so the bandwidth will be limited to 1.x speeds on that slot.

 

[Rroff]

ooops good point

Thats still twice the bandwidth as the original PPU interface tho - and the original PPU was around the same performance as the lower mid-range 8 series cards for physics.

 

[DavyBoy]

and nfs shift gets these wierd slowdowns im hopeing there all solved when i get this card tommorow

I am getting slow down issues with NFS Shift on my rig as well mate, and I am using a GTX280..

The main problem for me is annoying microstutter when cornering, it only really happens when there are several other cars around, but it is distracting.

There are a few other glitches with this game as well that need to be fixed..

Someone on the EA forum told me that the PyhsX in Shift is all done on the CPU, regardless of whether you have an Nvidia card in your system, I don't know whether this is the case or not though.

It seems like there are loads of people having serious issues with this game though.

Batman AA on the other hands runs beautifully on my system with PhysX on high, the lowest I have seen my FPS go down to was about 42, and that is with everything maxed out @ 1680x1050, so I imagine if you have the 8800 as a dedicated physx card your system should fly with the 2 x 5870's.

::edit::

I was wondering, does anyone know whether an 8500GT would be good enough to use as a dedicated PhysX card?