Dedicated physx card 460gtx - good enough?

[sxr7171]

So I have a 780ti for my GPU and I've kept a 460GTX for dedicated physx processing. I noticed that in AC4 enabling physx slows down the game quite a bit.

Do you think a 460GTX is enough anymore?

I have an old 680gtx that I want to sell lying around that I could try but I think it's overkill to keep it for that purpose. What is the current sweet spot for dedicated physx cards?

I don't run high frame rates I run at highest possible quality. Transparency AA maxed out etc. and I run at 1080p. In bf4 for example I ratchet up the resolution scaling because it looks unreal.

 

[gradoman]

A GTX460 is probably overkill for Physx and some games, BL2 in particular, will be sluggish no matter what you throw at them. Can't really speak about AC4, so I guess either you'll have to test both cards to see what happens or someone else might have tried it and let you know, but I doubt you'll get a major improvement with a GTX680 for Physx vs the GTX460.

 

[sxr7171]

I can't even hold 60fps in ac4 on my setup with is pretty much as fast as single card solutions get. The oc is plus 140MHz on the GPU. Stutters like crazy at 1080p.

With physx off it does 60fps but exit the animus and go to the abstergo building and it stutters there. No more tearing though.

 

[Ig]

http://forums.evga.com/tm.aspx?m=1978731
http://alienbabeltech.com/main/using-maxwells-gtx-750-ti-dedicated-physx-card/3/

Looks like you could see an improvement with 680 vs 460.

 

[Carfax83]

PhysX in AC IV is messed up, as it was integrated after the game shipped, plus it's layered over another physics engine; Havok.

Nothing can play that smoothly on the highest setting. I've got it on the lowest setting, which runs fairly well however.

As for the best PhysX card, I recommend the GTX 650 Ti or even the GTX 750 Ti. The GTX 460 is a good PhysX card but it uses too much power (needs two 6 pin), and it's slower than the 650 Ti.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

**I may be wrong** I kind of remember reading that high end cards actually perform worse with a dedicated physics card that is older. Something about the video needing to synch. I'll see if I can find a link but to me a 780ti should be able to rip thru everything including physics.

 

[sxr7171]

**I may be wrong** I kind of remember reading that high end cards actually perform worse with a dedicated physics card that is older. Something about the video needing to synch. I'll see if I can find a link but to me a 780ti should be able to rip thru everything including physics.

I heard something like that. I'll disconnect it and see.

 

[sxr7171]

PhysX in AC IV is messed up, as it was integrated after the game shipped, plus it's layered over another physics engine; Havok.

Nothing can play that smoothly on the highest setting. I've got it on the lowest setting, which runs fairly well however.

As for the best PhysX card, I recommend the GTX 650 Ti or even the GTX 750 Ti. The GTX 460 is a good PhysX card but it uses too much power (needs two 6 pin), and it's slower than the 650 Ti.

AC4 physx is a mess. You're right it slows like crazy. I'll try the low setting. Also the game is very demanding even with a OC 780ti it won't hold 60fps with TXAA 4x. I have to use 2x and even still there are drops below 60fps. The in game vsync is horrible. It defaults to 30fps. I'm using adaptive vsync on the nvidia driver and that still shows tearing.

 

[sxr7171]

http://forums.evga.com/tm.aspx?m=1978731
http://alienbabeltech.com/main/using-maxwells-gtx-750-ti-dedicated-physx-card/3/

Looks like you could see an improvement with 680 vs 460.

Great articles 750ti it is then. Off to microcenter.

 

[gun5l1ng3r]

Great articles 750ti it is then. Off to microcenter.

I had a EVGA GTX780SC paired with a 650ti and only saw about a 5fps increase in BL2 at the most...I returned the 650ti and decided that spending that $150 towards a second 780 was a much better deal than $150 for 5 fps...

I don't know how a 780ti will respond with a 750ti, but I would guess maybe 6-7fps extra w/ dedicated Physx...Save the money for a second 780ti or go 780 SLI, unless you want to avoid SLI all together.

 

[sxr7171]

I had a EVGA GTX780SC paired with a 650ti and only saw about a 5fps increase in BL2 at the most...I returned the 650ti and decided that spending that $150 towards a second 780 was a much better deal than $150 for 5 fps...

I don't know how a 780ti will respond with a 750ti, but I would guess maybe 6-7fps extra w/ dedicated Physx...Save the money for a second 780ti or go 780 SLI, unless you want to avoid SLI all together.

Yeah that's the thing I've had a bad experience with SLI. Maybe things are different now. So a 750ti is about $160 while a 780ti is $700.

Also my aim is to improve minimum frame rates. I'm not sure if anyone has tested that. I think it's more informative than average frame rates.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Hmm, strange. The GTX460 was (for its time) a monster in compute. I'm surprised to hear it struggles with PhysX duties.

 

[sxr7171]

Hmm, strange. The GTX460 was (for its time) a monster in compute. I'm surprised to hear it struggles with PhysX duties.

One would think right? Here's some data to add to the discussion:

http://forums.evga.com/tm.aspx?m=2123589

or use this link:

http://forums.evga.com/tm.aspx?m=2078139

Looks like a 460GTX will slow things down.

 

[gradoman]

The GTX460 looks to do alright vs a Titan.

Titan + 2nd Titan set as Dedicated Physx: Min 67, Max 181, Average 124.
Titan + 460: Min 60, Max 148, Average 92.

The problem I am seeing is that at 1920*1080p with every bell and whistle on, a single Titan did pretty well on its own.

 

[sxr7171]

The GTX460 looks to do alright vs a Titan.

Titan + 2nd Titan set as Dedicated Physx: Min 67, Max 181, Average 124.
Titan + 460: Min 60, Max 148, Average 92.

The problem I am seeing is that at 1920*1080p with every bell and whistle on, a single Titan did pretty well on its own.

But the graph shows points where it slows down performance relative to just running physx on Titan.

 

[FalseChristian]

I'd always recommend SLI and setting the PhysX card to 'Auto' in the NVidia control panel.

 

[sxr7171]

So I got the 750ti for physx. I played Metro Last Night and got horrible slow downs with advanced physx. So for diagnosis I enabled the physx indicator. It was using the CPU. I used display driver uninstaller and reinstalled the driver. This took out any mention of the 460 GTX. Now Metro uses the 750ti for physx and the slowdowns are gone. Generally 60fps even with 2x SSAA.

One problem with the 750ti is that AC4 will not use it for physx. I hope they patch that game but I'm not holding my breath. It's the only game that seems card dependent for enabling physx.

 

[sxr7171]

I'd always recommend SLI and setting the PhysX card to 'Auto' in the NVidia control panel.

Why is auto better than dedicating the 750ti to physx?

 

[Annisman*]

I have a GTX Titan with 560ti for physx, and I honestly think sometimes the Titan running everything alone would give better fps. I've never looked too far into it though.

 

[Saffron]

For such a high end card like the 780Ti I don't understand the need for a dedicated PhysX card. I run a GTX680 and play all games that support PhysX maxed just fine. There must be something about this that I am not privy too, because my experiences with it have always been excellent with a single hi-end GPU.