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second card for physx??

P4Clock

P4Clock

P4Clock

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I see ppl running two unmatched GPU's and some times ever unmatched brands so they can run physx on the second GPU.

How dose this work? is there any real world gain from this and would it be useful for a gaming rig to run a second low end card just for physx.
also if you have 3 x16 pcie slots but only the first two support SLI/CF could the physx card be run in the 3rd slot as its not used for displaying an image?
 
Whether it's a performance upgrade or not seems to swing heavily depending on the game. Some benefit from it (though really not enough to cover the cost, unless you already have the spare card), whilst it offers no or even negative scaling in other titles. Another thing to consider is that just not that many games use "PhysX" any more. There have only been a handful in each of the last few years. Nvidia are moving everything to more specialised GameWorks effects, and I don't believe a dedicated PhysX card does anything for those.
 
P4Clock said:
I see ppl running two unmatched GPU's and some times ever unmatched brands so they can run physx on the second GPU.

How dose this work? is there any real world gain from this and would it be useful for a gaming rig to run a second low end card just for physx.
also if you have 3 x16 pcie slots but only the first two support SLI/CF could the physx card be run in the 3rd slot as its not used for displaying an image?
Click to expand...

Cannot see the point having a PhysX card.
Not about scaling etc, but because there are no games. Up to last year were only ~50 games since 2005!!!!!! that supported PhysX out of a gazillion of games. And last year they were 3 games. Life is Strange, Killing Floor 2, Hatred. Arkam Knight, didn't support PhysX.
 
Don't bother. There are too many green and red technologies that game devs dont bother writing for. And now that we are getting console ports to PC we'll see less and less of these "PC only technologies"
 
so that will be a no then lads.
i was only asking for a have seen a lot of ppl doing it lately, there was good gain i would dropped a card in
 
P4Clock said:
so that will be a no then lads.
i was only asking for a have seen a lot of ppl doing it lately, there was good gain i would dropped a card in
Click to expand...

If you do have spare card then use it but I wouldnt purchase one specifically for that. Makes more sense to upgrade or go SLI.

On single 780 I get 44 fps average with Metro 2033 benchmark at my (fairly high) setting and resolution. If i activate SLI i get 72. If I deactivate SLI but put my 2nd 780 in dedicated PhysX mode I get around 61fps. So with the right games benefit is there and when I upgrade I will still keep one 780 for a little longer for PhysX duties.

Games like Metro, Borderlands and Batman seem to really take advantage of it but not many others so it really depends on what you play.
 
If considering a secondary card as dedicated physx you have to remember a few things. First newer games uses PhysX Flex and that is only supported from the 600 series and upwards meaning that you cannot play batman AK and get GPU accellerated physx effects on a 500 series card. Also you dont want the physx card to be to much behind your main renderer in terms of power as that usually will have a negative effect on performance. Basicly its just a pain that in my own honest opinion its not worth it.

The only scenario where i see this working is if you have a title where SLI doesnt work right and your second card is sitting there doing nothing anyway. Then it makes sense imho.
 
Phixsator said:
The only scenario where i see this working is if you have a title where SLI doesnt work right and your second card is sitting there doing nothing anyway. Then it makes sense imho.
Click to expand...

yes that dose sound like the right route. i have a second 780ti due here tomorrow so will play around.
 
I happened to have a GTX 970 which I wasn't using, so in my new build I added it in to complement my Titan X, at the moment its set to "Dedicated to PhysX" - But I've not seen any difference (Surprise, surprise!) - however I can still use it as GPU power as well without using SLI.
 
OracIe said:
I happened to have a GTX 970 which I wasn't using, so in my new build I added it in to complement my Titan X, at the moment its set to "Dedicated to PhysX" - But I've not seen any difference (Surprise, surprise!) - however I can still use it as GPU power as well without using SLI.
Click to expand...

:confused:
 
OracIe said:
Nvidia control panel recognises 2 GPU's installed and is will use both to deliver grunt, whether you're using PhysX or not. At least that's how I read it.
Click to expand...

Nah doesn't work like that mate.

"You can connect additional monitors to another graphics card to reduce the load on your main GPU while gaming, or you can use the extra GPU for PhysX, but you can't directly share their rendering power the way you could in an SLI configuration."

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/776423/sli/using-two-or-more-graphics-cards-in-same-pc-without-connected-sli/post/4320806/#4320806
 
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