HD 6970 + Dedicated GT 430 Hybrid Physx Mini Review

MoondanceR said:
N1GHTRA1N
can I ask you what model of the 430 did you use? It just there are so many models out there and I get confused easily. I have an HD 6950 but I recently upgraded it to HD 6970.
Please answer me asap, Batman: Arkham City is due next week.
Click to expand...

I used this card for testing. It is a low profile card that I bought for a build and uses two slots. Since I had the card on hand I decided to play around with this to see if it was worth investing in card at all. If I was buying one myself I'd use a single slot solution.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500177
 
Unknown-One said:
I switched from a 9800GT as a dedicated PhysX card all the way up to a GTX260. HD 5850 as the primary graphics card in both cases.

The faster PhysX card caused my peak framerates to increase (which artificially inflated the average), but the extra power did not improve my minimum framerates at all. Batman AA was dropping to 36 FPS minimum with the 9800GT, and it still dropped to 36 FPS minimum with the GTX260. Gameplay remained exactly the same since the game was still chugging in exactly the same places.

Replacing the HD 5850 with an HD 6970 is what finally improved my minimum framerates. Performance went up across the board WITHOUT upgrading the PhysX card again. Moral of the story? Installing an overkill PhysX card wont do jack unless you remove all other bottlenecks from the system first. A lot of people wont see ANY useful gain from buying a GTX460 instead of a GT430 as a dedicated PhysX card.

The 9800GT was considered a good baseline PhysX card when Batman Arkham Asylum launched; it was a decent bang-for-buck offering that performed decently. The part of the GT430 that gets utilized while processing PhysX is faster than that of the 9800GT, so it should still hold its own.
Click to expand...

Correct. The GT430 seems like a good solution for AMD users that want Physx. That being said I have done some of the tests with the GTX 460 again and noticed about a 3-5% increase in performance. This could be attributed to the fact I am now using AMD 11.10 drivers with Nvidia 285.62 drivers, which a complete driver clean before installing. So the GTX 460 looks a little more appealing performance wise but to be honest the price difference is still a bit much. The difference might also be something else and as you can see the increases wouldn't make a noticable difference at all.

Here are the previous numbers using AMD 11.10 Preview 2 and NVIDIA 280.26

BATMAN: AA - min 61, avg 119, max 178
Mafia II - 39.1ps
Alice Madness Returns - 77FPS
Mirror's Edge - 132fps

Cyrostatis Benchmark – High settings 1920x1200 DX10
Total Time 143.754s
Total Frame count 9821
Average fps 68.3
Minimum fps 44.2
Maximum fps 161.1

Here is an updated set of numbers using 11.10 and 285.62 drivers.


BATMAN: AA - min 65, avg 121, max 174
Mafia II - 41.3ps
Alice Madness Returns - 81FPS
Mirror's Edge - 141fps

Cyrostatis Benchmark – High settings 1920x1200 DX10
Total Time 139.122s
Total Frame count 9821
Average fps 70.6
Minimum fps 44.8
Maximum fps 159.7
 
N1GHTRA1N said:
I used this card for testing. It is a low profile card that I bought for a build and uses two slots. Since I had the card on hand I decided to play around with this to see if it was worth investing in card at all. If I was buying one myself I'd use a single slot solution.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500177
Click to expand...
How loud is the cooler on that?

Going to try one of these in my PC as a PhysX card. If the loss in performance is noticeable, I'll simply toss it in my low-profile media center PC and use it with CoreAVC instead. The card needs to be close to silent if I'm going to do that with it, though...
 
Unknown-One said:
How loud is the cooler on that?

Going to try one of these in my PC as a PhysX card. If the loss in performance is noticeable, I'll simply toss it in my low-profile media center PC and use it with CoreAVC instead. The card needs to be close to silent if I'm going to do that with it, though...
Click to expand...

It was nearly inaudible when idle and very quite under load.
 
thanks for sharing with us , i was wondering if i should ever get a nvidia card to use for physx in my system with my HD radeon 6950 [6970 flashed bios] :D its really good to see the numbers on it.
 
FYI, Hybrid Physix and Batman: Arkham City do not seem to be working, even with latest Physix update and the latest patch.

Anyone able to get it to work?
 
N1GHTRA1N said:
They should all perform pretty much the same. There are some 430's that use 64-bit memory bus but I don't even think that would effect performance but I can't say for sure without testing.
Click to expand...

Since it would only be used as a PhysX card I'm interested in finding out more if this will matter for an nVidia single or SLI setup. The 64 bit GT430 is on sale right now for $25 AR but if it's worth it I'll wait for a 128 bit card to go on sale again.
 
samuelmorris said:
Is there any likelihood of the Hybrid PhysX mod being banhammered any time soon? :p
Click to expand...

If you have been watching the messages through the various iterations of the hack it is clear that GenL and the nVidia devs are in an active game of cat and mouse.

The longest they have thwarted him for is a couple weeks if I am not mistaken.

For the record, the day nVidia comes to their senses on this I will go out and buy a brand new 580...until then, no cake for them.
 
N1GHTRA1N
which card do you recommend for physx, gts240 gddr5 or gt430 gddr3? I have hd6950 modded into hd6970.
 
dook43
thank you for the feedback. Can you tell me what nvidia card you use for physx? I'm torned between gt430 and gts240. It would have been great if someone has the gts 240 and did a little bit of benchmarking to enrich N1GHTRA1N results, so one can really decide between the two.
 
MoondanceR said:
dook43
thank you for the feedback. Can you tell me what nvidia card you use for physx? I'm torned between gt430 and gts240. It would have been great if someone has the gts 240 and did a little bit of benchmarking to enrich N1GHTRA1N results, so one can really decide between the two.
Click to expand...

The GT240 and GT430 are essentially the same card. Same number of cores and similar performance. The GT430 will run cooler and use less power.

I installed a GT 240 in a friends PC a few weeks ago and it ran very similar to the GT 430. I don't have the numbers but there was almost no difference overall. It was paired with a HD 6950 so the FPS would be a little lower but Physx games all worked fine.
 
MoondanceR said:
dook43
thank you for the feedback. Can you tell me what nvidia card you use for physx? I'm torned between gt430 and gts240. It would have been great if someone has the gts 240 and did a little bit of benchmarking to enrich N1GHTRA1N results, so one can really decide between the two.
Click to expand...


Gigabyte 9800 GT. It really runs fine.
 
dook43,
yeah, the 9800 gt is a strong card. I had one on my previous setup. But my current PSU can't run it along my HD 6950.
However, if you could benchmark Mafia II or Batman: Arkham Asylum or even Batman AC that would be great.
 
I'd love to see some numbers form Crossfire users. I have 6970s in crossfire and yet still love the physx on my 470 in my htpc lol. I just got a hold of a GT 440 card and am leaning toward getting the MSI P67A-GD80 to get the three PCIe slots (I have the GD65 now) I could sell the GD65 off to go toward the GD80

And did anyone confirm if Batman Arkham City was working with AMD and an nvidia card for Physx?
 
nice to see some activity on this subject, I was breaking on a config a couple months ago and it was like a tomb in here.
 
um, to be fair, the arkham games are probably the only games that anyone cares about that use PhysX, and the game wasn't released until 11/22. I personally have only pursued running the hybrid config in order to play them.
 
dook43: sorry have had the flu :) brain not working right only processing half of what I see. Alice Maddness Returns is another noteworthy game for PhysX to me there was a big difference between my nvidia setup and my AMD setup. Metro 2033 I don;t know... I havent played it much on either setup I bought it cause it seemed like a decent game and it was $5 on steam one day lmao.... steam is breaking me with all thier little sales and specials I am a sucker for cheap good games.

looking at ordering the P67A-GD80 now to replace my GD65 so I can get the extra PCIe slot to try this with 6970 crossfire and GT 440 setup :) Got the GT 440 @ tigerdirect for $49.99 refurb though....
 
Also I do have a GTX 470 I can test with too.... but not sure on power lmao I have a corsair 850W PSU
 
ooooohhh... something I didnt think about. I was so caught up in having it all I didnt think about this....

I am running a 6970 crossfire setup on a s23a750d and quite often game in 3D. BUT... what effect will adding in the GT440 have to the tridef ignition software possibly? I don;t want to gimp my 3D experience and only be able to run side by side...god knows it took AMD forever to finally be able to allow for frame sequential with crossfire setups (Cat Preview deriver 12.1)

By chance is anyone here using a 3D monitor and glasses with an AMD card and a nvidia card for physx?
 
I am using a Phenom II 955 along with a 6970, running at 1920 x 1080.

Using a 9800GT for Phyxx, I got these numbers:
Mafia II: 32.1 fps
Batman AA: 41fps min, 78 fps avg

Switching to a GTX 450 for Physx:
Mafia II: 33.6 fps
Batman AA: 45fps min, 97fps avg

Both games were max in game settings for these test runs.
 
HisSvt76
I found the in-game benchmark for arkham city, I ran it and I got an average score of 52 on my unlocked HD6950 (DX 11, high settings, physx disabled)
 
jamesrb said:
I am using a Phenom II 955 along with a 6970, running at 1920 x 1080.

Using a 9800GT for Phyxx, I got these numbers:
Mafia II: 32.1 fps
Batman AA: 41fps min, 78 fps avg

Switching to a GTX 450 for Physx:
Mafia II: 33.6 fps
Batman AA: 45fps min, 97fps avg

Both games were max in game settings for these test runs.
Click to expand...

Looks like the 9800GT holds its own. I see no reason to get a GTX 450 in the above benchmarks, a 1 to 3 FPS increase just isn't worth it.
 
1.5+ FPS in mafia II but a nearly 20 FPS gain in Batman is nothing to skoff at for average framerates :)

I'm still tempted and have everything coming but I still dont know how this will work with my 3D monitor :D I want PhysX.... but I want my 3D more!

Either way I'll solve the only thing bugging me on this P67-GD65 by going to the GD80.... not enough damned on board USB ports. I cant hoook up the front USB and a mem card reader and more on this board. I thought about getting this USB multiplier thing I seen... but thats more junk in the case and a topic for another thread
 
I couldn't find a 430 gt
the results from using gt240:
settings:
1920 X 1080
Anti Aliasing: 8X MSAA
Detail Level: extreme
Direct X 9
V Sync: off
Everything else: yes
PhysX: High

GPUs: hd6950 + gt240
Drivers: 11.12 + 285.62
PhysX: 9.11.0621
works with v1.05ff

Batman Arkham City
minimum: 16
maximum: 59
Average: 36

What's your opinion on these results?
 
Anti Aliasing: 8X MSAA... ...why? Performance tanks and doesn't look any better than FXAA High
 
So does the hybrid physX actually work in Arkham City or no? What's the best bang/buck single slot physX card to get if so?
 
Thank you OP for doing the reviews that you did!

I just had a friend of mine ask me about this exact setup as he wanted the full experience from Batman with his system, and wanted to add a dedicated PhysX card to take advantage of it. I was actually hypothesizing that a 430 would be sufficient, with the added benefits of being available as a low-power, single-slot solution before I started researching the issue, then I found this thread and all the answers were there for me. Thank you again!
 
I've been delayed in doing this myself due to the holidays, going through a stomach virus, the flu and now a cold. Not to mention I am at a hardware stand still....

I have a Corsair 800W Gamer series PSU, typing in my system config on the power supply calculator it says I should have minimum 769W and reccomended 819W

I didnt realize I was cutting it this close! As it is occasionally I get a random BSOD supposedly related to the soundcard, and once in a while one of my SSDs will drop off and not show up in RAID BIOS, then I reset and the drive is there and array is healthy but it wont boot, then I reset again and all is well. This just started up about 3 months in to having the system. At first I thought it was my o/c so I backed it down from 4.8GHz to 4.5GHz, but still the same problem.

So with that I decided to wait to change out my p67a-gd65 with the p67a-gd80 (extra PCIe x16 slot and more USB) so I would have the slot for a dedicated physx card. I think changing the board and adding in the dedicated physx card will really set me over the limit on my PSU, so I guess I'll be looking at a 1kW PSU.... man I never thought I would be saying that or needing that...
 
tax refund submitted :) as soon as I get it I'll pick up a 1k PSU and get on this :)
 
Lord_Exodia said:
So does the hybrid physX actually work in Arkham City or no? What's the best bang/buck single slot physX card to get if so?
Click to expand...
There seem to be two camps as far as Arkham City goes... For some, hybrid PhysX works great, for others, it causes an instant BSoD.

I'm in the "instant BSoD" camp, where starting Batman: Arkham City with hardware PhysX enabled instantly dumps me to a BSoD with an Nvidia DLL listed as the cause. Software PhysX runs normally.

A few people have said they had to uninstall and reinstall Nvidia's drivers (and re-run the hybrid physX patch) after installing Arkham City, and that doing so fixed the BSoD issue. I'm going to give that a whirl now.

Recommended Nvidia driver versions for Arkham City:
Forceware: 285.62
PhysX System Software: 9.11.0621
Hybrid PhysX: 1.05ff
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top