Nvidia 580x2 with or without 460 as physX?

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gophernator

n00b
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Dec 7, 2010
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Hi everyone

This is my first post. I'm currently doing a build that includes 2x580's and I am wondering if anyone would have suggestions on whether or not I should keep my gigabyte 460 as dedicated physX. The issue is that if i choose to keep the 460 it means that my second 580 will be running at pci-e 8x instead of x16 as my Asus Rampage III Extreme supports 2x SLI at 16x or 1x16 and 2x8 with 3 pci slots used.

I don't intend to sell my 460 so the money issue isn't really important, might give it to a mate if it will be a disadvantage to my system. I'm running 3xBenq 2420 HD at 1920x1080, i don't intend to go with 3D as i feel its a gimmick and kinda gives me a headache so just the 5760x1080 is required.

I am just concerned about how much scaling i will lose on the second card if i choose to run it at 8x instead of 16x, I have read that the bandwidth loss is pretty minimal but am unsure of my options... The PC is mostly for gaming but I intend to do some heavy Benching and Overclocking on cooled Air and Cooled Water.

I was also unsure as to whether or not I could force 16x on the second slot and possibly run a lower pci bandwidth on the physX card as I don't see it needing full 8x speed.

Sorry for being a bit of a n00b, my research hasn't really provided any solid answers as not many people tend to have these dilemmas so it is hard to find any answers. I did a quick search and couldn't find anything that answers this for me but I apologize if this is a re-post.
 
A dedicated Physx card in an SLI setup seems kind of silly to me.
2x580's are going to produce way more FPS that you'll ever be able to see in a game, so there will be plenty of left over horsepower for them to do the measly processing required for a GPU to do Physx. A 460 just for Physx is way overkill as it is.
 
I agree with post #2 in the respect that a dedicated PhysX card is pointless IMO. I thought long and hard about doing that very recently for the build I'm collecting parts for now but I realize the best example of a dedicated PhysX card is Mafia 2 where nice things happen on a dedicated physX card. That is only one game Other games just have a nice effect here and there and will give you a very slight performance boost with a physX card say 1-5%, nothing to write home about. Don't get me wrong I like PhysX it's just with so little game support I like it much more when it's Free than when you have to pay for it.
 
Yeah I see what you mean about the limited support on physX, i was hoping that with nVidia cards being competitive again that i would see a little bit more of it in newer titles, do you know if any benching tools support it?
 
gophernator said:
Yeah I see what you mean about the limited support on physX, i was hoping that with nVidia cards being competitive again that i would see a little bit more of it in newer titles, do you know if any benching tools support it?
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There will definitely be more games that support it. However few that support it as well as Mafia 2 does. If and when there are 20 more games that support it that way then it'll be a good idea.. maybe. AFAIK 3d mark Vantage does officially, if you google physX benchmark there are alot of developed benchmarks that have had physX support added.
 
I also read somewhere that the Rampage III extreme will support 2 full 16x pci and a single lower pci card such as a sound card that runs at 4 or less... is there a way to force the physX card to run at lower pci to maintain the two 16x lanes? I've seen an analyses on pci in which people taped the video cards pins after a certain point to force it to run in 4x which would potentially see me at full tilt with the two lanes and still have 1 GB per stream for the PhysX. I would however rather do it on the firmware side of thisngs, does anyone know if that is possible?

This is probably worth a separate thread in the Mobo section but oh wells.

I understand that this is all overkill but thats kinda the point of owning a performance PC these days when most games are optimized for shitty consoles. I also haven't really seen how much bandwidth on the pci lane a physX card will actually use but i assume 4x would be sufficient, I am also doubting the significance of FPS hit on running in 8x but I have read that it will impact slightly on bench scores.

The rest of my rig is i7 980x, 2x Dominator 3 triple channel for 24gb RAM and the Rampage III. I have both a Noctua NH-14 air cooler, and a custom water cooling setup with EK blocks.

So anyone with experience in 16x vs 8x for actual performance or with knowledge about forcing components to run in 4x pci?
 
The dedicated PhysX card will make a big difference on PhysX heavy games like Batman:AA and Mafia II with Apex. But outside of a few PhysX games, having the dedicated PhysX card doesn't benefit you at all. Just google for the benchmarks. It does make a big difference but only in those select few games.
 
Lord_Exodia said:
I agree with post #2 in the respect that a dedicated PhysX card is pointless IMO. I thought long and hard about doing that very recently for the build I'm collecting parts for now but I realize the best example of a dedicated PhysX card is Mafia 2 where nice things happen on a dedicated physX card. That is only one game Other games just have a nice effect here and there and will give you a very slight performance boost with a physX card say 1-5%, nothing to write home about. Don't get me wrong I like PhysX it's just with so little game support I like it much more when it's Free than when you have to pay for it.
Click to expand...

+1. The cost, power draw, and heat relative to the increase in immersion plain sucks.
 
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