Using another GPU just for PhysX?

[betaomega04]

Hey guys! Long-time LTT Subscriber, first-time poster.

 

So I've been one of those SLI guys for well over a decade. I was putting together a HTPC and wanted to use a couple of old Strix 1080 Ti's that I had. Realizing that the SLI really wasn't that productive, I instead opted to use one of the cards as a dedicated PhysX card, and my results were quite a bit better than just a single card. I was wondering if any of you have had similar success? Not saying that you have to have dual 3090 Ti's, but was wondering if any of you may have tried a 4090 with a 3080 for PhysX? From what I've gathered, not a lot of people do this, so I'm interested to know if anyone else in the LTT community has given it a go. Thanks!

 

-Travis

[dnld]

Woah, is PhysX still a thing? Thought the whole concept of using extra cards for that flopped. 

[RONOTHAN##]

Not many games actually use PhysX cards anymore, so it falls into the same category as SLI of not really worth the effort a lot of the time. There's a reason no one bothers, especially with high end cards like 4090s and 3090s. 

[Eigenvektor]

10 minutes ago, betaomega04 said:

but was wondering if any of you may have tried a 4090 with a 3080 for PhysX? From what I've gathered, not a lot of people do this, ...

Probably because most people don't like the idea of spending $1000 on a second card for somethings that's barely used in any game.

 

You'd also need a dual GPU board and have more noise and heat for virtually no benefit.

[dnld]

7 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

Probably because most people don't like the idea of spending $1000 on a second card for somethings that's barely used in any game.

 

You'd also need a dual GPU board and have more noise and heat for virtually no benefit.

Hmm, interesting. Are there any cards specifically made for it? I remember seeing something many years back, and then hearing a few years later that it’s dead. 

[thrasher_565]

6 minutes ago, dnld said:

Hmm, interesting. Are there any cards specifically made for it? I remember seeing something many years back, and then hearing a few years later that it’s dead. 

ya there is but its old...

no one really knows what it did. i think i was sapos to off load some of what to gpu had to do to it making the gpu able to do more? but people that wanted that just did sli instead. maybe it was more for cad or something?

Edited April 17, 2023 by thrasher_565

[dnld]

4 minutes ago, thrasher_565 said:

ya there is but its old...

no one really knows what it did. i think i was sapos to off load some of what to gpu had to do to it making the gpu able to do more? but people that wanted that just did sli instead. maybe it was more for cad or something?

I really am not into game development, nor understand graphic rendering frameworks. It just improved ‘something’ in games, and needed specific hardware to process like rtx needs specific cores. 

[thrasher_565]

Just now, dnld said:

I really am not into game development, nor understand graphic rendering frameworks. It just improved ‘something’ in games, and needed specific hardware to process like rtx needs specific cores. 

ya got it. its an animation / texture tied to the card. but they added it so 8 series cards can do it with out the card. but only was in a few games and programs.

[dnld]

5 minutes ago, thrasher_565 said:

ya got it. its an animation / texture tied to the card. but they added it so 8 series cards can do it with out the card. but only was in a few games and programs.

So in conclusion, after also reading about it, if you don’t know if you need it then you don’t. Unless you play one of the few games that support it, or are planning to develop something with it consider it dead. 

[BetteBalterZen]

Waste of power

[starsmine]

2 hours ago, thrasher_565 said:

ya there is but its old...

no one really knows what it did. i think i was sapos to off load some of what to gpu had to do to it making the gpu able to do more? but people that wanted that just did sli instead. maybe it was more for cad or something?

I mean I did it for a while. I would not say "no one really knows what it did". We knew exactly what it did.
SLI required very matching cards. PhysX card didnt. 

So I ran my 660ti as the main GPU and the 460 as a PhysX card. 

For games that used PhysX, I got a solid boost in frame rate, which was Mirrors Edge and Borderlands 2 off the top of my head. But yea if a game doesnt use it, it dont do much. 

I have not heard of people doing it for modern games, it might be interesting to look in to. Keep in mind, just like back then, the card doing the physX calculations needs to be fast enough to do them faster then the main GPU can do both Rendering and PhysX or you hurt performance (so the people that tried to use a GTX 210 back in the day hit their FPS rather then gain any)

There seems to be a lot of support for PhysX still. https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_games_that_support_Nvidia_PhysX

I would not spend my own money to mess with it, but yea perhaps LTT could try it for a video. 

[AI_Must_Di3]

Physx was relegated to single card driver/physx sandwich by the Nvidia 7xx series gpu's. Why? Cause Physx needed its own cuda cores, which topped out at about 300 cuda cores to be awesome and the cards werent really up to it till the 7xx series, where the 780 has 2600 cuda cores and up to 6gb of ram. So why not still split them then? Well, you can BUT like with sli you need two cards that are pretty much the same cause you dont want the second physx driver card being slower etc... and making your main driver card wait, which two mated, comparable cards wouldnt do. So, both to one card, def no lag or wait and 300 cores max taken from the driver on a 2600 total isnt going to be missed. ALSO, make sure in the nvidia control center you put the physx control on auto cause there are physx that only run on cpu's like Havoc etc... so let it default as needed to either or. OK, thats the lesson for today, have a fragged day!

[QuantumSingularity]

Wait... PhysX is alive? Still ??? I thought it was dead for the last decade. Certainly haven't seen a game since 2015 coming out with it. The last i remember was Project Cars 2, maybe and needles to say have no clue where it is using it.

[thrasher_565]

7 hours ago, starsmine said:

I mean I did it for a while. I would not say "no one really knows what it did". We knew exactly what it did.
SLI required very matching cards. PhysX card didnt. 

So I ran my 660ti as the main GPU and the 460 as a PhysX card. 

For games that used PhysX, I got a solid boost in frame rate, which was Mirrors Edge and Borderlands 2 off the top of my head. But yea if a game doesnt use it, it dont do much. 

I have not heard of people doing it for modern games, it might be interesting to look in to. Keep in mind, just like back then, the card doing the physX calculations needs to be fast enough to do them faster then the main GPU can do both Rendering and PhysX or you hurt performance (so the people that tried to use a GTX 210 back in the day hit their FPS rather then gain any)

There seems to be a lot of support for PhysX still. https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_games_that_support_Nvidia_PhysX

I would not spend my own money to mess with it, but yea perhaps LTT could try it for a video. 

all ready did a video on it...

[starsmine]

1 hour ago, thrasher_565 said:

all ready did a video on it...

6 years ago

but I guess. Could be worth a revisit.


I even commented on that one 

Though all the other graph looks like this 

[thrasher_565]

2 hours ago, starsmine said:

6 years ago

but I guess. Could be worth a revisit.


I even commented on that one 

Though all the other graph looks like this 

dose not make sense to spend half the cost of a gpu for a px gpu only for a few games. the moeny better spent on 2 gpus at the time. or a better faster gpu...

 

i guess if you already have the gpu then w/e but still be better to sell it and spend it on one better gpu. unless you allready have the fasted gpu at the time. in the case you will want sli anyway.

 

but px didn't just get a few more fps it also showed texter you could not see with out it. was it wroth it no. kinda like rtx. just rtx built in to a card and not and external card.

Edited April 17, 2023 by thrasher_565

[starsmine]

49 minutes ago, thrasher_565 said:

dose not make sense to spend half the cost of a gpu for a px gpu only for a few games. the moeny better spent on 2 gpus at the time. or a better faster gpu...

 

i guess if you already have the gpu then w/e but still be better to sell it and spend it on one better gpu. unless you allready have the fasted gpu at the time. in the case you will want sli anyway.

 

but px didn't just get a few more fps it also showed texter you could not see with out it. was it wroth it no. kinda like rtx. just rtx built in to a card and not and external card.

Lets take a trip back to early - mid 2010s.
PhysX is built into the card just like RTX. Its just that you could accelerate it by adding more GPGPU (aka dedicating a card to it) 

Saying its not worth spending 150 for a PX card, better spend 400 for an SLI card doesnt really track, SLI added micro stutter, accelerating PhysX does not. Lets also look at the Batman chart, people who upgraded from a 660ti760(samish card) to a 1060 or 1070 existed.  People did do both you know SLI with a PhysX accelerator as well. People had Old GPUs lying around that were fast enough. Some people added extra GPUs to add more displays, some of us did it to fold. Some really did go out and spent 100 on a used card to slot in to do it, its not that much money. 

Look at the Batman chart again. WHAT faster GPU if you were on a 1080 system? when using a 970 PX you get close to sli 1080 anyways.

Also there is another way to look at this. You already HAVE a gpu. there is no just spend a an extra 200 to go up a tier, its buying a full out new card. Its more reasonable to just buy a 100 dollar card to slap in and accelerate a few games.

What surprises me is how many enthusiast build a PC and dont upgrade the GPU part over time, or fail to encourage others to. I can understand not upgrading the mobo/cpu, because as soon as you upgrade one, you HAVE to upgrade the rest(and then often RAM) because the parts are not compatible, but GPUs always are. A gpu upgrade requires only purchasing a GPU (sans pre builts with 260W PSUs). 

 

 

[thrasher_565]

29 minutes ago, starsmine said:

Lets take a trip back to early - mid 2010s.
PhysX is built into the card just like RTX. Its just that you could accelerate it by adding more GPGPU (aka dedicating a card to it) 

Saying its not worth spending 150 for a PX card, better spend 400 for an SLI card doesnt really track, SLI added micro stutter, accelerating PhysX does not. Lets also look at the Batman chart, people who upgraded from a 660ti760(samish card) to a 1060 or 1070 existed.  People did do both you know SLI with a PhysX accelerator as well. People had Old GPUs lying around that were fast enough. Some people added extra GPUs to add more displays, some of us did it to fold. Some really did go out and spent 100 on a used card to slot in to do it, its not that much money. 

Look at the Batman chart again. WHAT faster GPU if you were on a 1080 system? when using a 970 PX you get close to sli 1080 anyways.

Also there is another way to look at this. You already HAVE a gpu. there is no just spend a an extra 200 to go up a tier, its buying a full out new card. Its more reasonable to just buy a 100 dollar card to slap in and accelerate a few games.

What surprises me is how many enthusiast build a PC and dont upgrade the GPU part over time, or fail to encourage others to. I can understand not upgrading the mobo/cpu, because as soon as you upgrade one, you HAVE to upgrade the rest(and then often RAM) because the parts are not compatible, but GPUs always are. A gpu upgrade requires only purchasing a GPU (sans pre builts with 260W PSUs). 

 

 

i cant see why a 1080 cant do both. adding the 970 for 2-6fps is not a trade off.  the added cost, extra power, noise, heat, posably a case, and probly an psu upgrade if you had a gpu using 3 8pins. if your gpus only did 2 8pins and most psu could do that.

the 1080 stomps the 970...

sli was a thing back in the day. of cores its not worth it today. having a better faster card is way better but also the gap of gpus now is way bigger.

 

as soon as a new gpu came out you sell the 970 and 1080...

 

ied like to see the 1080ti in that list. i bet it would beat the 1080 + 970.

 

another point to make is people didnt buy hi end parts most people were cheap and got the cheapest stuff. all the extra moeny spend on gpu and cpu.

 

if you were one that did buy sli mb, big psu for sli, big case with air flow, then cost might not matter to you.

Edited April 17, 2023 by thrasher_565