Disappointing Results: GTX 460 768MB + Dedicated GT 240 512MB PhysX

A

aldamon

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
May 24, 2000
Messages
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OK, so I'm a sucker for experiments. Adding a dedicated PhysX card sounded like a fun project, and the GT 240 has dropped in price considerably, so I gave it a shot. Now, I understand my hardware situation is not typical. I'm still using a Q6600 @ 3.4 GHz, and the second PCI-E slot on my P35 board is rated at only 4x. I also only game at 1600 x 900, which is the native resolution of my monitor. That being said, I'm somewhat disappointed in my results with my new dedicated GT240 PhysX card @ 600/1460/1800. At least the card was very inexpensive after selling my old backup card.

Positives:

  • Bump in minimum framerate in Metro, but I wouldn't consider either minimum playable. I think the minimums bounce around depending on the random physics.
  • Slightly higher performance in Mafia II demo, but nothing noticeable. Does the real game bench differently?
  • The Cryostasis Tech Demo showed the best results and hopefully the difference has increased in the real game.
  • The GT 240 sips power and is a better backup card than a 7300LE?

Numbers:

===================================================

Metro 2033 Benchmark

Options: Resolution: 1600 x 900; DirectX: DirectX 11; Quality: High; Antialiasing: AAA; Texture filtering: AF 16X; Advanced PhysX: Enabled; Tesselation: Enabled; DOF: Enabled

GTX 460
Min: 6.70 Max: 56.67 Avg: 30.33

GTX 460 + GT 240 @ 600/1460/1800
Min: 10.63 Max: 52.08 Avg: 31.67

--------------------
Options: Resolution: 1600 x 900; DirectX: DirectX 11; Quality: High; Antialiasing: AAA; Texture filtering: AF 16X; Advanced PhysX: Enabled; Tesselation: Enabled; DOF: Disabled

GTX 460
Min: 11.54 Max: 105.78 Avg: 44.00

GTX 460 + GT 240 @ 600/1460/1800
Min: 3.95 Max: 102.39 Avg: 44.67


===================================================

Mafia II Demo

Options: Resolution: 1600 x 900; AA: On; AF: 16x; AO: On; Shadows: High; Geometry: High; PhysX: Apex

GTX 460
Min: 2.8 Max: 76.9 Avg: 25.9

GTX 460 + GT 240 @ 600/1460/1800
Min: 2.8 Max: 71.4 Avg: 27.7

===================================================


Cryostasis Tech Demo

Options: Resolution: 1600 x 900; Quality Preset: High;

GTX 460
Min: 27.6 Max: 122.6 Avg: 51.6

GTX 460 + GT 240 @ 600/1460/1800
Min: 33.0 Max: 122.2 Avg: 60.4
 
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did you notice the setting in the [H] review of metro?

how about this. run the metro bench again with the same setting but with physx off. post those results.
 
tricky0502 said:
did you notice the setting in the [H] review of metro?

how about this. run the metro bench again with the same setting but with physx off. post those results.
Click to expand...

Thanks but I want to be GPU limited in the benches so the help of the Physx card becomes apparent. Anyway, I'll humor you:

Options: Resolution: 1600 x 900; DirectX: DirectX 11; Quality: High; Antialiasing: AAA; Texture filtering: AF 16X; Advanced PhysX: Enabled; Tesselation: Enabled; DOF: Disabled

GTX 460
Min: 11.54 Max: 105.78 Avg: 44.00

GTX 460 + GT 240 @ 600/1460/1800
Min: 3.95 Max: 102.39 Avg: 44.67



.
 
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That card is too slow for PhysX, especially in newer games.

Your frame rates are basically a wash in Mafia 2, and in Metro they are much worse (11.54 min versus 3.95 min? Ouch.)

I wouldn't bother with anything less than a GTX260 or GTX 460 as a dedicated PhysX card. I'm sure I'm going to get flamed or argued with for saying that, but the GT-series boards just don't have the shader power to make it worthwhile on a modern game.
 
Rizen said:
That card is too slow for PhysX, especially in newer games.

Your frame rates are basically a wash in Mafia 2, and in Metro they are much worse (11.54 min versus 3.95 min? Ouch.)

I wouldn't bother with anything less than a GTX260 or GTX 460 as a dedicated PhysX card. I'm sure I'm going to get flamed or argued with for saying that, but the GT-series boards just don't have the shader power to make it worthwhile on a modern game.
Click to expand...

I'm not going to flame you because I'm looking at the numbers. It is what it is, you know? What perplexes me is that GTX 480 coming out with a GT 240 built in for PhysX. If a GT 240 isn't really helping my 460, what's it supposed to do for the 480? At least the experiment will only cost me $30 and I've upgraded my backup card. It's actually a pretty decent card to have around.
 
aldamon said:
I'm not going to flame you because I'm looking at the numbers. It is what it is, you know? What perplexes me is that GTX 480 coming out with a GT 240 built in for PhysX. If a GT 240 isn't really helping my 460, what's it supposed to do for the 480? At least the experiment will only cost me $30 and I've upgraded my backup card. It's actually a pretty decent card to have around.
Click to expand...
Cards with integrated PhysX like that are a marketing gimmick imo. I had a dedicated 9600GT for PhysX back when I had a GTX280 in my primary machine and I ended up selling it off because it never was used. Oh well. I have yet to see a really compelling reason to have a PhysX card. Some of the effects in newer games are nice, but could be easily done on the CPU side if NVIDIA would bother optimizing the code for modern CPUs.
 
Rizen said:
Cards with integrated PhysX like that are a marketing gimmick imo. I had a dedicated 9600GT for PhysX back when I had a GTX280 in my primary machine and I ended up selling it off because it never was used. Oh well. I have yet to see a really compelling reason to have a PhysX card. Some of the effects in newer games are nice, but could be easily done on the CPU side if NVIDIA would bother optimizing the code for modern CPUs.
Click to expand...

The BETA SDK has support for SSE2 as well as other optimizations for CPU based PhysX.
 
That GT240 has somewhat slow clocks as well as only having 128-bit RAM. Both of which are going to hurt PhysX performance.

Back when I bought a secondary card for PhysX support, I did a whole lot of research and found that a minimum for decent results was a g92 based card... 8800, 9800, or GTS250 with 512MB. I also decided that a card with at least 112 shaders was the bare minimum.

I ended up getting a NIB ASUS GTS250 off of Ebay for a whopping $78 shipped. It took a few weeks before I was able to snage one for the price I was willing to pay.

That being said, it doesn't get used for PhysX that much, but I do us it to power 2 extra monitors as well as use it for F@H.
 
z3r0- said:
I thought Physx only used the shaders :confused:
Click to expand...

And some of the RAM. But if you have lower clocks, the shader clocks are going to be lower as well unless you have some freaky card where they clocked the cores down and clocked the shaders up.

The GT 240 generally has around a 1400mhz shader clock, while the gts250 has anywhere from a 1620mhz - 1836mhz shader clock for the normal and overclocked ones. The "green"... errr sucky low power ones have the clocks gimped.
 
z3r0- said:
I thought Physx only used the shaders :confused:
Click to expand...

I've been reading around and I believe ROPs affect performance as well. People seem to focus on the GT 240's 96 shaders, which should be sufficient, but it only has 8 ROPs. That's pretty pathetic and I'm embarrassed that I didn't notice it before buying.

cyclone3d said:
That GT240 has somewhat slow clocks as well as only having 128-bit RAM. Both of which are going to hurt PhysX performance.
Click to expand...

According to reviews, most GT240s overclock to the 640 clock / 1700 shader range if unlocked. I tried mine at 650 core and IIRC ~1500 shader and it did nothing for performance. I think it's really about the ROPs.

cyclone3d said:
I ended up getting a NIB ASUS GTS250 off of Ebay for a whopping $78 shipped. It took a few weeks before I was able to snage one for the price I was willing to pay.
Click to expand...

The reason I've avoided other cards is space and power consumption. I need a single-slot card and I want it to use less than 10W in 2D. The GT 240 meets both of those requirements, except it doesn't perform well.
 
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