Passive cooled 9400 as PhysX

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MorgothPl

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Got a question... when I put a PhysX card for my machine, can it be passive-cooled card? (I've decided for some cheapo 9400, as I don't believe I need a monster for physx :p)I don't believe if I don't use it for graphics, it will get hot, and I just don't want to add another noise maker into my case.

Or is it a bad idea, for it will get too hot even on idle/physx operations?
 
Good question. I would like to see the outcome as well. Have an EVGA GTX260 216 coming tomorrow and was considering a passive cheap GPU for PhysX.

As for your sig...

"I rather be conservative nut job, then liberal with no nuts and no job"

I say good man! I totally concur being a conservative myself. :)

Being a conservative nut job does have it's advantages as we well know ;) hehe
 
MorgothPl said:
Got a question... when I put a PhysX card for my machine, can it be passive-cooled card? (I've decided for some cheapo 9400, as I don't believe I need a monster for physx :p)I don't believe if I don't use it for graphics, it will get hot, and I just don't want to add another noise maker into my case.

Or is it a bad idea, for it will get too hot even on idle/physx operations?
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The card will get hot no doubt. PhysX through your GeForce will be effectively using the card's processing units to run physics simulations/calculations, so I'm not sure that's a good idea. What I've seen in the demos and games I've tried in my setup, PhysX computed on the GPU, will not heat up the card as much as running shader intensive games for example, but it will probably be too much for a passively cooled solution, though there are good passive coolers that actually keep the card cool. As an example, running the fluids demo on my 8800 GT, the cards heats up from the usual 55ºC idle temp to something around 65-70ºC. Running Crysis, I get up to 80ºC. My fan is running at 50% btw.
 
Umm, I might put thing wrongly - I'm using 280gtx for standard gaming, and the passive cooled will be just for PhysX
 
Not totally sure what Silus is talking about. If the card is designed fanless then it will for sure run as your Physx card without issue, unless its broken. Obviously you'll have higher temps and airflow is preferable but it should run fine regardless.
 
For what it's worth, I used to run a 8500 GT with active cooling for my PhysX card and it would go north of 80C when playing GRAW2.
 
yea i tried my 8500GT for PhysX and the performance was abysmal at best, plus the heat went really high (mine was passively cooled)

IMO the 8500GT (and i woudl guess the 9400 also) is just not anywhere near useful enough to be used as a physX..

in my testing the 8800GT was about the bottom limit..
 
kencheeto said:
Not totally sure what Silus is talking about. If the card is designed fanless then it will for sure run as your Physx card without issue, unless its broken. Obviously you'll have higher temps and airflow is preferable but it should run fine regardless.
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Uh? Where did I say it wouldn't work ?

I just said that by running PhysX on the GeForce it will indeed run hot, just not as hot as running a game. Passive cooling may be enough, but if the OP is worried about temps (which he specifically said he was), then it may not be a good idea.
 
H-street said:
in my testing the 8800GT was about the bottom limit..
Click to expand...

Pretty acurate.I had a 8400GS laying around and it was barely better than running PhysX on my CPU.I replaced it with a 9800GT..Huge jump!.
 
Well, the better the GPU you use for physics the more the capacity for physics calculations... I wish there were some nice benchmarks I could point at now :)
 
8800 GT / 9600 GT is about the least you can get away with as a dedicated PhysX card, as others have already said. Forget the 9400.
 
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