I have a GTX 470, and a few other spare cards. And I came to know that Mafia II comes with game benchmark and uses Physx – so I thought I’d give it a spin to see whether my GTX 470 could benefit from having a dedicated Physx card working along with it.
Test Setup
The computer setup used.
| Processor | AMD Athlon II X3 425 @ 3.4ghz |
| RAM | Kingston 1600mhz 4GB Dual-Channel Kit |
| Motherboard | MSI 790FX-GD670 |
| Cooler | Stock heatsink |
| Graphic Card | Galaxy GTX470 GC Galaxy GT240 512MB GDDR5 Galaxy GT220 1GB DDR3 |
| Monitor | 20″ Dell Ultra-sharp Wide-screen LCD |
| Power Supply | OCZ 600w StealthxStream |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Professional 32bit |
| Driver Version | nVidia GeForce Driver 258.96 |
Here’s the setup I’m using.
The benchmark will compare the framerate of various Physx configuration, basically the choice of Physx processor. The cards run at x16 for the main card and x8 for the secondary card. I doubt x8 / x8 would make any difference.
Benchmark
| Physx | Physx Processor | Average FPS |
| OFF | NA | 51.0 |
| ON | GTX470 (main card) | 27.4 |
| ON | GT 240 | 29.4 |
| ON | GT 220 | 26.6 |
| ON | CPU | 12 |
Forum member gkl83 on lowyat.net tested his GTX460 1GB DDR5 with a GT240 1GB DDR5. The table below is a summary of his results, on 1600×1200 resolution.
| Physx | Physx Processor | Average FPS |
| ON | GTX460 (main card) | 22.8 |
| ON | GT 240 | 29.0 |
Conclusion
My thought is that acquiring an extra card just for Physx isn’t exactly a good idea if you consider the cost and hassle. Plus, you need a board with a secondary PCI-E slot.
Cards like the GTX460 do benefit from the dedicated Physx card but do consider also the cost and power consumption. A GTX 460 1GB DDR5 is about RM 850. A GT 240 1GB DDR3 is about RM 340. Combine both and it comes to about RM 1.2k with the total power consumption of about 230w (160w + 70w). Now compare that to a GTX 470 is about RM 1.2k – RM 1.3k range.
If you have a GTX 460 and also a spare card around, it’s a good idea. To buy another card just for Physx, maybe not. If you insist on buying, I think a used 9600GT / 9800GT should be your candidate. Keep in mind that you’ll only have the advantage when the game you play utilizes Physx.
If you already have a GTX 470 , then I think there’s no reason to buy a Physx card just to gain a few frames. If you need the frames, sell off your card and get a faster card. Either that or lower the graphic detail of the game you play, I doubt you’ll miss anything. 🙂
Bear in mind that this test isn’t conclusive of the usefulness of a dedicated Physx card but it serves as to highlight that not all is golden when it comes to having a dedicated Physx card. How much you gain out of it is entirely dependent on the game, your main card and the card you assign for Physx handling. In fact, people who played Arkham Asylum with such configuration did find the gaming experience to be better.
Perhaps the next test should be on ATI cards. 🙂
Hope u will post a test on an ATI + Nvidia (Physx) soon..
Wanna see what kind of FPS u can get on maybe a HD5770+physx or maybe HD5850+physx 🙂