best bang for your buck card out right now

[hoofhearted4]

what part does stuff like Physx and whatnot play? im not really sure what it is, i just hear it thrown around a lot. but does it make it worth having a 6xx card over a 7xxx card?

 

ive heard nVidia gets more support for some games then AMD and does this affect opinions on cards any?

 

i ask these in particular because im looking at the 7950s. the 670 is just too expensive compared to the 7950s. also, ive been looking at the MSI and gigabyte versions. i hear the gigabyte is really really good, cool and quiet, but ive always heard good things about MSI Twin Frozr cooling. so any opinions (or rather facts) that would lean me in one direction or the other?

Edited September 17, 2012 by hoofhearted4

[FMod]

Well, there's google to find out what it is in general. It's a proprietary interface for visual physics, such as particles (it doesn't feed back into the game for gameplay physics).

As for practical use, it's not commonly doing anything significant. I've probably played a few games using it, but nothing relying on GPU PhysX to make a substantial difference. The most infamous use I know of is in Arkham City, where elements animated via PhysX are disabled altogether without it, unlike using reduced element count animation as in other titles.

 

It remains largely stagnant, since developers aren't really interested in building games for a proprietary interface that is only supported by part of one vendor's lineup. 600 series has more framerate drop from PhysX than 500 series. But it's unknown if that will continue.