New GPU and if PhysX worth it?

Deklore

Deklore

Bright Spark
Hi Guys,

Ive just upgraded my pc (self-build) with everything except a new graphics card which i plan to get within the next 2-3 months. Was looking at my options and the 2 that i cant decide between are -
- nvidia GTX 770
- Radeon R9 280X
The 770 is currently around £50 more expensive but has PhysX and seems to be only slightly faster than the Radeon card. The R9 280X is just an HD 7970 Ghz Edition relabeled so can hold its own against the 770 - especially at a cheaper price.

I was just wondering what you guys though about PhysX and its worth getting an nvidia card for this feature? I know it depends on how much i value that feature in games but i was just wondering what you guys would get in this situation.

Personally, i was leaning towards the R9 280X due to its cheaper price, almost similar performance to 770 and the fact that games like BF4 are optimised for it (or will be with Mantle).

Ohh and incase anyone is interested my current system specs are below -
Corsair Carbide 300R case
Intel i5 4570
Gigabyte H87-hd3 Motherboard
8GB Corsair DDR3 1600Mhz RAM
CXM750W PSU
1TB HDD
Radeon HD 5850 GPU (soon to be replaced)

Thanks!
 
steaky360

steaky360

Moderator
Moderator
I've only ever had a Nvidia card so have not played a game 'without' physx and the physx effects are very cool in games that use them well (borderlands 2 for example uses them a lot). But saying that, if its not something that you will notice then save yourself the £50 and go for the radeon :)

Interesting argument against going for a card with physx here http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/329116-33-physx-worth Can't speak for its authenticity, I've not read it fully.

EDIT: Apparently the difference is whether the game supports GPU related physx or not. Apparently most games only use CPU supported physx (so a radeon would do fine!)
 
keynes

keynes

Multiverse Poster
If you are buying in 2-3 months it is likely that prices from both manufacturers may decrease due to new releases. The R9-280x is definitely good value for money.
 
Deklore

Deklore

Bright Spark
@Steaky - interesting point. My problem is that i dont know if PhysX is a feature i would miss. But then again, if i dont have it in the first place would i notice it not being there? lol
EDIT - i heard that if you had an AMD card that the CPU would do the Physx, but was nowhere near as good as the onboard PhysX of nvidia cards, but i'll have to look into that. Also, after some investigating, alot of people turn PhysX down to medium or low, due to the huge amount of particle affects slowing things down and also due to visibility.

@keynes - im kinda hoping the new range of Radeon cards - especially the R9 290 & 290X will force a price drop of the GTX 780. But i doubt that card will be cheap enough for me to afford :( Heres hoping!
 
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baron75mk2

baron75mk2

Banned
Physx does add some cool effects , BUT its not worth the hassel , i have about 7 physx games & all but one suffers from huge performance hits with physx enabled (& this is on 2 x GTX 780s)

So i would not worry about physx , its not a good reason to rule out a good ATI card in my opinion - most game developers dont bother programming for it due to these performance hits - most opt instead for a lower load CPU physx instead & you dont need a nvidia card for this.

The only time i would say not to buy ATI/Radeon is if you were thinking of doing a dual card setup down the line - Single radeon solutions are just fine & very competetive indeed

but they are not for me as im an dual card man :D

Also ATI are doing some really good things with Direct compute at the moment,
(this will replace physx in the future as its not restricted to one manufacturer of chips)

Check out tomb raider 2013 & tress effects hair , awsome stuff & nowhere near as problematic as physx .:p
 
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Grimezy

Grimezy

Prolific Poster
I don't think Physx is a debate on as large of a scale as something like 60hz v 120hz so I wouldn't worry too much. I have a 670 and very rarely notice if Physx is on, like literally I wouldn't even know what to look for because I've never paid much attention to the ins and outs of it. I do get very engrossed in my games though and after 5 minutes or so I forget about graphics altogether to be honest.

I do like having an nvidia card though and find the driver support to be fantastic. It's possible that an AMD card will perform better with the new consoles running on them but you have to assume that means nvidia will be massively involved in a lot of PC exclusives and will be working their socks off to carry on producing worthy cards of the premium price tag.

For the sake of £50, if it was me personally on a build of that price, I would be leaning towards the nvidia card. Even though it goes against all my beliefs of paying more for something that potentially is no better than a cheaper alternative on paper (cough iphones), I would still feel more satisfied having an Nvidia card in knowing that I had the highest quality. I have a 670 and I haven't suffered any issues at all in my year of ownership. However, I have nothing against AMD cards and know plenty of people who happily own them. I just think Nvidia has better driver support and more subtle features (I probably do notice physx without realising it, it's just because I haven't experienced gameplay without it!).
 
Deklore

Deklore

Bright Spark
Thanks for your comments baron and grimezy. Given me a few more points to consider.

I'll be waiting till the full range of Radeon R9 to come out and see if nvidia respond by dropping the prices of their GTX 7 series cards. If i was getting a card now i would probably opt for the R9 280X due to price/performance value. But in a couple of months the GTX 770 may have come down in price to compete directly with the R9 280X and in which case, i will probably go with the 770.

Going by your comments and my own research, although PhysX is nice, it isnt an absolute necessity as non nvidia card setups can still run PhysX via CPU if required, so it all comes down to raw power vs price.
I'll be eagerly watching the prices of these cards and get either an AMD or Nvida card from santa this year :)
 
baron75mk2

baron75mk2

Banned
with cpu phsx you dont really get a full physx experiance certain graphics will be switched off , for example in batman arkham asylum
(the only decent phisx game i have) , with physx enable to the high setting there are whole flags moving etc & smoke as well , but with cpu phusx they are not there at all - so you do lose a fair bit of effects - but the issues it causes & the lack of support for it combined with direct compute tech means for me at leased it wouldnt be a factor in deciding what gpu to go for - personally i reccomend Nvidia as the driver support is better & i find them more compatible in general - but its up to you , just dont let physx sway you either way.
 
Kalisnoir

Kalisnoir

Super Star
I do believe it is possible to run an AMD card and use a NVIDIA for PhsyX only if I recall correctly. You would need to investigate further however as I'm pulling that from the depth of my memory and could very well just be lying to you! Never looked into it properly as I've always lived by NVIDIA.
 
Deklore

Deklore

Bright Spark
@baron, yeah that's why I was interested in PhysX int he first place, stuff looks nice with it on!

@Kalisnoir - I do believe you are right. Don't know the logistics of how to get it to work, but its not something im after. It was just a case of if I was to upgrade to an NVidia card I would have the gpu PhysX available.

Still, im sure AMD has something similar (although only seen in Tomb Raider afaik) is TressFX. Don't know if these physics systems are just fads and/or they will settle for an industry standard both types of cards can use...
 
baron75mk2

baron75mk2

Banned
Yes you can use an ATI for your main card & a Nvidia for your physx , but its all very complicated , i had a setup like this in my alienware aroura years back , but you really wouldnt want to get in to it to be honest , firstly you have to run both ati & nvidia drivers simultaniously & this requires unofficial hacks to be possible & can be very unstable , then as soon as you download a new driver the process of hacking it has to be repeated all over again
(i only did it at the time because i had a radeon based system & a spare gtx 480 kicking around)

Then you face the heat , power requirement & cooling issues of an sli setup as well & not everyone wants all that hassel & prefer a single card solution , plus you need a board & bios capable of booting both an ati & nividia card at the same time as well.

Best advice i can give is if you want physx support would be to buy a good nvidia gpu (GTX780s are nice) & then have a GTX 580 as a dedicated physx card , this worked real well in my system but it was messing with my sli setupp due to the 580 just being to close to the the second 780 & i did not like the temperature rise in the second card , so i removed the 580 & now just turn physx off in most of the games that support it apart from the very few ones that dont have huge performance hits (batman AA & mirrors edge).

Or just go with the Radeon card you can most afford , hope this helps :)
 
steaky360

steaky360

Moderator
Moderator
Kalisnoir said:
I do believe it is possible to run an AMD card and use a NVIDIA for PhsyX only if I recall correctly. You would need to investigate further however as I'm pulling that from the depth of my memory and could very well just be lying to you! Never looked into it properly as I've always lived by NVIDIA.
Click to expand...

Kalisnoir is correct you can definitely do it (at least with Nvidia cards) https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?178-Dedicating-a-GPU-to-Physics&highlight=physx I appreciate Gorman was using older Nvidia cards with 'newer' Nvidia cards but I would imagine the principle is the same for AMD cards too. Not sure of how easy it is to set up and how buggy it might be though.
 
Deklore

Deklore

Bright Spark
Well after a bit of research ive finally decided on a graphics card i'll be getting. Its the Sapphire R9 280X Toxic.

I was swayed several times between a GTX 770 and the R9 280x. The thing that did it for me is the Toxic card itself. Its currently the fastest R9 280X out with GPU 1100/Boost:1150 MHz Core Clock. Im not into overclocking myself, so it would make sense to get a factory oc card.

On gaming benckmarks this card is overall faster than a stock GTX 770 and nips at the heels of the GTX 780 which are both more expensive at the time of writing as the Toxic comes in at £255-£270 (£300 for stock GTX 770 and £500 GTX 780). Gaming benckmarks can be found here.

Seriously i was going to pay that little extra to get a GTX 770 for the more stable drivers, physx and reported reliability. But looking at the price/performance comparisons i would think it stupid to pass this up. Unless anyone here has got a strong argument for the 770 (or the price drops considerably), i'll be waiting for uk stores to stock this card.
 
baron75mk2

baron75mk2

Banned
Sounds like a good choice you have made , im a nvidia fanboy , but i have had AMD cards & i lkie them very much they overclock well & the drivers are not as bad as some folks make out , the only thing is you cant force v-sync with them , sure the option is there but its never worked - a single radeon gpu is great , just decide if later on you are going to do a dual gpu setup, if you are then crossfire can be very problematic as opposed to SLI.

just watched a reveiw of this card http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7uH2YdUcrI

Looks very nice , if it wasnt for crossfire issues i might have considered it myself !! :yes:
 
Deklore

Deklore

Bright Spark
I thought adaptive vsync was a regular feature on video cards nowadays or am i misreading your comment and its one of those features that is available but a bit flakey? Or am i on the wrong track and you are just referring to normal vsync?

I doubt i will get a second gpu in the future as i am not one to crossfire or sli. But out of curiosity, how would that work (if it does) with 2 cards with different speed gpus or even differently manfactured cards of the same type? would that affect how crossfire works? (e.g. MSI R9 280X with gpu running at 950 Mhz paired up with a Sapphire R9 280X with 1100 Mhz gpu)

Still, although i have no intention of crossfiring, youve peaked my interest about the possibility, but not sure if my 750w psu can handle another 280x. Will have to look into that...
 
Grimezy

Grimezy

Prolific Poster
If you're single monitor gaming then crossfire probably won't be worth it for you unless you're trying to run GPU killers like Crysis 3 on Ultra at 144fps, which realistically just isn't worth it.

If you're sticking with a single 1080p monitor then I'm a firm believer that when your GPU starts to slow down a bit, it makes more sense to replace it with a newer single card than crossfire it with your dated card. Just my opinion though :)

Crossfire/SLI only really come into their own when playing at higher refresh rates or resolutions though.
 
baron75mk2

baron75mk2

Banned
I mean regular v-sync , if you have a game for example with no option for v-synch , then on amd it can be an issue as you cant force through the driver , its silly really as the option is there to force , but it wont force it on , it will only force it off , its been this way for years , so to force you have to use direct3d overrider (3rd party software) or something similar . but unless its older games your playing i wouldnt worry about this as most have the option in the games these days.

on the subject of crossfire with different clock speeds , all that the AMD drivers will do is take the clock speed of the lower powered card & apply it to the higher powered card (effectively down-clocking it) to match them up - i would advise to make sure they have the same amount & speed of ram on both cards though , as i have read that radeon is more flexible than nvidia in this department but to have two different amounts & speeds of v-ram wouldnt really appeal to me , could be problematic.

Manufacturers of the cards doesnt matter at all.

on the whole subject of crossfire i would steer you away from it , its the area where AMD still hasnt got it together , i have had 3 crossfire setups & a dual chip HD6990 (effectively a crossfire setup in one card) & i had nothing but trouble with it every time

If its a single card setup the radeons can be just as good (& sometimes better in some ways) than nvidia , but for dual card setups (SLI) then always Nvidia is my advice :yes:
 
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