New to PhysX, HALP

[redivulpis]

Hey, I'm diving into experimenting with PhysX a bit. I'm planning to run a Hybrid setup, mostly because I already have a majority of the parts that will go into the project on hand. For all intents, the only thing I have left to acquire is the dedicated PhysX card. I'm leaning towards a low-profile card for various reasons (cooling, lower power consumption, low-profile fetish, etc.), coupled with an HD7850.
What I'm really wondering is where I might fight the most bottleneck between the 3 major processing parts of my project: CPU, GPU, PPU (dedicated GPU).

Parts I'll be using:
CPU: AMD Phenom 2 x3 720 BE, 4th core unlocked, modest OC
GPU: XFX HD7850
PPU: XFX GT 640
Motherboard: MSi 890GXM-G65

I'm still flexible on the PPU, and I'm considering the one above because of it's healthy number of CUDA cores, which are the real power behind PhysX rendering. I realize that that card is otherwise overkill, but I'm wondering if I even need THAT much power. I'd be running Borderlands 2, Batman: AA/AC, maybe a few others.

 

[Hagrid]

Hey, I'm diving into experimenting with PhysX a bit. I'm planning to run a Hybrid setup, mostly because I already have a majority of the parts that will go into the project on hand. For all intents, the only thing I have left to acquire is the dedicated PhysX card. I'm leaning towards a low-profile card for various reasons (cooling, lower power consumption, low-profile fetish, etc.), coupled with an HD7850.
What I'm really wondering is where I might fight the most bottleneck between the 3 major processing parts of my project: CPU, GPU, PPU (dedicated GPU).

Parts I'll be using:
CPU: AMD Phenom 2 x3 720 BE, 4th core unlocked, modest OC
GPU: XFX HD7850
PPU: XFX GT 640
Motherboard: MSi 890GXM-G65

I'm still flexible on the PPU, and I'm considering the one above because of it's healthy number of CUDA cores, which are the real power behind PhysX rendering. I realize that that card is otherwise overkill, but I'm wondering if I even need THAT much power. I'd be running Borderlands 2, Batman: AA/AC, maybe a few others.

After playing a few hours of BL2 my 8800gt got to a max of 69% gpu usage, so that gives you a somewhat baseline to go off of.

EDIT: After playing pretty much the whole day it never went above 82%. So I guess the people who said it doesnt reuire much were right. Though I would rather have a more efficient physx card. hehe

 

[ReaperTech]

the 640 is a good chip to go with but its not all about CUDA cores either ROPs come into play with PhysX a bit from what i remember, that said the GTX 400 500 600 series gpus just plain do better processing PhysX than the older 8000 9000 and 200 series gpus do.

 

[redivulpis]

Thanks for the insight!
I'm still on the fence about what PPU to opt for, but from what I'm reading here even with the above components, I shouldn't see *that* much difference between 96 CUDAs and 384?

I've narrowed my alternative to this: XFX GT620
It's about half as expensive, and I can probably get ahold of one for even less from eBay or even here.
Time isn't really a factor since this is an ongoing project.

 

[Hagrid]

Thanks for the insight!
I'm still on the fence about what PPU to opt for, but from what I'm reading here even with the above components, I shouldn't see *that* much difference between 96 CUDAs and 384?

I've narrowed my alternative to this: XFX GT620
It's about half as expensive, and I can probably get ahold of one for even less from eBay or even here.
Time isn't really a factor since this is an ongoing project.

I am not sure, though I was wrong, my 8800gt is only 512mb, not that it matters for physx.

But it does have a 256bit bus, DDR3, 16 ROPs, 112 shaders. So anything as fast or faster would be good.