660 x2 versus 780

[Aegrus]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_hardware-accelerated_PhysX_support

 

to be honest, thats not a lot of games. a few big titles as you mention. but thats about it.

 

imo, its not reason enough to by nvidia specifically for Physx, not when you can put it on the CPU and be fine. (that doesnt mean you should buy nvidia, im just saying Physx alone isnt enough reason)

 

 

That's not a lot of games, but it's almost every high-graphics game from 2012-2014. The point is, it's getting more common, not less. I expect it to replace Havok.

 

And the OP's PC has a competent CPU; a 3.2 ghz phenom II x4. But it's not the kind of CPU that'll be able to run PhysX. I know because my CPU is identical, but 6 core instead of 4, and I take a 20 fps or larger dive when running PhysX through it. He could replace his CPU as well, but I know from other posts that he doesn't want to spend that much money.

Edited July 30, 2013 by Aegrus

[hoofhearted4]

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_hardware-accelerated_PhysX_support

 

to be honest, thats not a lot of games. a few big titles as you mention. but thats about it.

 

imo, its not reason enough to by nvidia specifically for Physx, not when you can put it on the CPU and be fine. (that doesnt mean you should buy nvidia, im just saying Physx alone isnt enough reason)

 

That's not a lot of games, but it's almost every high-graphics game from 2012-2014. The point is, it's getting more common, not less. I expect it to replace Havok.

no previous Witcher games, no Battlefield, no Skyrim, no Crysis, no Total War, no Far Cry, . i understand you said "almost every" but those are some heavy hitters in Graphics. we can include all the AAA games that arent on that list as well, games like Fallout and Dragon Age, CoD, WoW, GW2, Mass Effect, and the list goes on. as i said, Physx alone isnt a reason to grab an nvidia card. when i was buying my card, i looked into Physx. and the list of games on it or coming on it, and there wasnt enough that supported it to warrent the price increase of nvidia over AMD. any new build, thats going to grab a shiny new CPU, can handle Physx on its CPU. my argument is only that Physx is not as big of a hitter as you argue it to be.

[Thor.]

I found a interesting debate thread, at the end mentioning openCL being far superior and if they have it working properly hints ps4. Physx might die a slow and painful death.

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/334290-33-running-physx-natively-card

Edited July 30, 2013 by Thor.

[Raestloz]

I found a interesting debate thread, at the end mentioning openCL being far superior and if they have it working properly hints ps4. Physx might die a slow and painful death.

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/334290-33-running-physx-natively-card

PhysX at its core is a physics simulation software with intentional botched versions released for non-nVIDIA hardwares. I forgot where, but I read about a chart that shows how much x87 instructions CPU PhysX use, and the result was stunningly very much.

 

I don't know about PhysX dying tho. nVIDIA kept on developing PhysX and adding new features (IIRC they developed new cloth simulation technique, wall-splintering effects, stuff like that, I forgot the actual names)

[Rennn]

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_hardware-accelerated_PhysX_support

 

to be honest, thats not a lot of games. a few big titles as you mention. but thats about it.

 

imo, its not reason enough to by nvidia specifically for Physx, not when you can put it on the CPU and be fine. (that doesnt mean you should buy nvidia, im just saying Physx alone isnt enough reason)

 

That's not a lot of games, but it's almost every high-graphics game from 2012-2014. The point is, it's getting more common, not less. I expect it to replace Havok.

no previous Witcher games, no Battlefield, no Skyrim, no Crysis, no Total War, no Far Cry, . i understand you said "almost every" but those are some heavy hitters in Graphics. we can include all the AAA games that arent on that list as well, games like Fallout and Dragon Age, CoD, WoW, GW2, Mass Effect, and the list goes on. as i said, Physx alone isnt a reason to grab an nvidia card. when i was buying my card, i looked into Physx. and the list of games on it or coming on it, and there wasnt enough that supported it to warrent the price increase of nvidia over AMD. any new build, thats going to grab a shiny new CPU, can handle Physx on its CPU. my argument is only that Physx is not as big of a hitter as you argue it to be.

 

 

To be fair, Skyrim and Total War are not graphical heavy hitters by any measure, and Skyrim still uses Havok, which is a relic from the early PS360 days. It was innovative in Oblivion. Now... Not so much.

 

For me, PhysX is a big deal, and it's becoming more common rather than less. I'm very impressed by Metro's PhysX fog volumes, cloth, etc. I love Sacred 2's PhysX leaf clouds, and there's a lot of potential for physics in general to expand further. I don't personally care whether PhysX dies or not, provided something better replaces it, but at the moment, PhysX is the most advanced commonly used physics solution, and I'm personally willing to pay extra to ensure that I have every option to support dynamic physics.

 

I never said you should buy an Nvidia card, or that Nvidia cards are better because they support hardware PhysX. I said that in my case [specifically], PhysX would be too large of a loss, since a few of my favorite games use heavy PhysX and it's a technology I will support in the future. My CPU is not personally strong enough to run heavy PhysX as seen in Borderlands 2 or Metro LL, and I don't plan on replacing that as well as my video card. That is the main reason why I asked that people please not recommend AMD cards.

 

This is not a PhysX versus TressFX versus OpenCL debate thread. This is a thread debating the benefits of SLI versus a single stronger card.

[Rennn]

I found a interesting debate thread, at the end mentioning openCL being far superior and if they have it working properly hints ps4. Physx might die a slow and painful death.

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/334290-33-running-physx-natively-card

 

This is not a PhysX debate thread. -_-

If OpenCL is actually superior to PhysX, then I hope it becomes dominant. I doubt it will, without a unified development platform, but time will determine that, not you hijacking a thread about the merits of SLI versus a single stronger card.

[Thor.]

Sli would be a better idea and cheaper if you wanted performance. It also depends on the cards to, if it merits sli or not.

 

Oh and to add to the debate

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1684834/660-780.html

Edited July 30, 2013 by Thor.

[Aegrus]

Sli would be a better idea and cheaper if you wanted performance. It also depends on the cards to, if it merits sli or not.

 

Oh and to add to the debate

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1684834/660-780.html

 

I'm seconding this. Two 660 GC's (he already has one of those, of course) should be able to max anything at 1080p, for the fraction of the cost of a 700 or 800 series card of comparable power. I very much doubt you'd get a whole lot of money out of your current 660 GC, if you decided to sell it.

 

Aside from perhaps Assassin's Creed 3, because that game seems to have serious scaling issues.

[Selene69s]

I have a GTX 660 GC at the moment. The 'GC' indicates that it's the factory overlocked Galaxy version, with 4-10% improved performance over stock, according to benchmarks.

 

I'm not upgrading for a couple years, by which time the GTX 800 series will probably have released. When I do upgrade, would a new motherboard plus another GTX 660 GC in SLI be better, or would my current motherboard with a GTX 880 be a more efficient balance of cost/performance?

 

Please no AMD suggestions; I know they have some great cards, but hardware PhysX and simple downsampling would be too much to lose in my opinion.

the gtx 800 series is spose to have stacked dram chips so the bandwidth will be hitting close to 1tb per second of transfer rate so yes the answer to your question if thats the series introducing the stacked dram then buy a gtx 880 as it will be far superior to a sli 660