Hello. I plan on purchasing 2 780ti GPUs. If I purchased a 3rd card would I be able to dedicate one card to 3D while the other two work on games? I would be using this across 3 "Asus VG278HE 144Hz 27.0"" monitors in surround.
I have also heard of people dedicating old cards to physX. Would an old gtx 650 or 660 provide a performance increase or would it just be a waste of money?
Hello. I plan on purchasing 2 780ti GPUs. If I purchased a 3rd card would I be able to dedicate one card to 3D while the other two work on games? I would be using this across 3 "Asus VG278HE 144Hz 27.0"" monitors in surround.
I have also heard of people dedicating old cards to physX. Would an old gtx 650 or 660 provide a performance increase or would it just be a waste of money?
Two cards is perfect. Three gets you no benefit whatsoever in 3d, and is a waste of money.
As for a pyhysx card, it can provide benefits in physx heavy games, but it's not really necessary unless you have money to burn. Physx works fine without one, 90% of the time.
Two cards is perfect. Three gets you no benefit whatsoever in 3d, and is a waste of money.
As for a pyhysx card, it can provide benefits in physx heavy games, but it's not really necessary unless you have money to burn. Physx works fine without one, 90% of the time.
[quote="TheLawlessMan"]Thanks. "Three gets you no benefit whatsoever in 3d" So I can't completely dedicate the 3rd card to 3D like you can with PhysX? [/quote]No, the '3D' isn't separate from the 'graphics' like PhysX is, it's part of it. And in fact what PirateGuybrush meant by "Three gets you no benefit whatsoever in 3d" is that even though 3 card SLI improves performance when gaming in 2D, [s]it doesn't at all in stereoscopic 3D, 3D Vision(atm) is limited to only using 2 cards in SLI[/s].
TheLawlessMan said:Thanks. "Three gets you no benefit whatsoever in 3d" So I can't completely dedicate the 3rd card to 3D like you can with PhysX?
No, the '3D' isn't separate from the 'graphics' like PhysX is, it's part of it. And in fact what PirateGuybrush meant by "Three gets you no benefit whatsoever in 3d" is that even though 3 card SLI improves performance when gaming in 2D, it doesn't at all in stereoscopic 3D, 3D Vision(atm) is limited to only using 2 cards in SLI.
It's slightly more nuanced than that. We haven't previously seen any scaling with a Tri-SLI setup in 3D gaming, but the problem is that it is game dependent.
Here's a good thread, with a link that gives some hard data. The short story is that yes Tri-SLI helps, but not always.
[url]https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/631537/3d-vision/trouble-with-nvidia-3d-vision-surround-and-4th-accessory-monitor/post/4044309/#4044309[/url]
It's slightly more nuanced than that. We haven't previously seen any scaling with a Tri-SLI setup in 3D gaming, but the problem is that it is game dependent.
Here's a good thread, with a link that gives some hard data. The short story is that yes Tri-SLI helps, but not always.
[quote="Pirateguybrush"]As for a pyhysx card, it can provide benefits in physx heavy games, but it's not really necessary unless you have money to burn. Physx works fine without one, 90% of the time.[/quote]Sorry, but this is a myth that a lot of people repeat without really having tested it themselves. I've tested a number of PhysX-card configurations, and I've found a PhysX card to be an incredibly worthwhile upgrade.
You can see detailed results and charts at the link in my sig (the same link chtiblue linked to). But in a nutshell, I recommend a physX card because:
-PhysX is frequently one of the most taxing effects there is. Things like SSAA, ambient occlusion or tesselation will merely lower your framerate. But PhysX can (and often will) give you large fps dips, or even downright 2-second freezes or stuttering. People often don't seem to realise just how many of their slowdowns come from PhysX.
-A PhysX card will address this bottleneck very effectively, to the point where it almost disappears entirely. Example: Installing one a couple of years ago took me from frequent hangs and freezes in Alice: Madness returns on PhysX LOW, to flawless 60fps in PhysX HIGH
-You don't need an expensive card for PhysX. Any old crap will make a positive impact, within reason. People routinely spend 4x more on a CPU upgrade which may not even give them as much of a performance boost.
OP, I urge you to look at my link, as I have a similar system to the one you're considering. The bottom line is that getting a 650 for PhysX (though I recommend a 650ti instead, which is what I upgraded to since writing that blog post) will give you a much nicer experience in most PhysX games, despite costing literally less than 10% of the cost of your other cards.
Pirateguybrush said:As for a pyhysx card, it can provide benefits in physx heavy games, but it's not really necessary unless you have money to burn. Physx works fine without one, 90% of the time.
Sorry, but this is a myth that a lot of people repeat without really having tested it themselves. I've tested a number of PhysX-card configurations, and I've found a PhysX card to be an incredibly worthwhile upgrade.
You can see detailed results and charts at the link in my sig (the same link chtiblue linked to). But in a nutshell, I recommend a physX card because:
-PhysX is frequently one of the most taxing effects there is. Things like SSAA, ambient occlusion or tesselation will merely lower your framerate. But PhysX can (and often will) give you large fps dips, or even downright 2-second freezes or stuttering. People often don't seem to realise just how many of their slowdowns come from PhysX.
-A PhysX card will address this bottleneck very effectively, to the point where it almost disappears entirely. Example: Installing one a couple of years ago took me from frequent hangs and freezes in Alice: Madness returns on PhysX LOW, to flawless 60fps in PhysX HIGH
-You don't need an expensive card for PhysX. Any old crap will make a positive impact, within reason. People routinely spend 4x more on a CPU upgrade which may not even give them as much of a performance boost.
OP, I urge you to look at my link, as I have a similar system to the one you're considering. The bottom line is that getting a 650 for PhysX (though I recommend a 650ti instead, which is what I upgraded to since writing that blog post) will give you a much nicer experience in most PhysX games, despite costing literally less than 10% of the cost of your other cards.
(For now) Picking up two "EVGA GeForce GTX 780 Ti Dual Classified w/ EVGA Hydro Copper Coolers" and one "EVGA GeForce GTX 750Ti with G-SYNC Support 2GB." The 750Ti could change. If I can find a new 650Ti at or under $150 I will pick it up instead.
Thanks again for the help guys! Awesome forum.
(For now) Picking up two "EVGA GeForce GTX 780 Ti Dual Classified w/ EVGA Hydro Copper Coolers" and one "EVGA GeForce GTX 750Ti with G-SYNC Support 2GB." The 750Ti could change. If I can find a new 650Ti at or under $150 I will pick it up instead.
Thanks again for the help guys! Awesome forum.
I need to contradict Volnaiskra slightly based on my experience as well. Any old crap card is not going to cut it as a PhysX card. I tried a combo with SLI 580, GTX 285 as the PhysX card, and that sort of combo was not worth the extra trouble, heat, power. It slowed down some games, helped slightly in others.
Go with a lesser card for PhysX, but don't use that old junk card that is your drawer.
Also be sure your motherboard has PCI 3.0. You will need the bandwidth.
I need to contradict Volnaiskra slightly based on my experience as well. Any old crap card is not going to cut it as a PhysX card. I tried a combo with SLI 580, GTX 285 as the PhysX card, and that sort of combo was not worth the extra trouble, heat, power. It slowed down some games, helped slightly in others.
Go with a lesser card for PhysX, but don't use that old junk card that is your drawer.
Also be sure your motherboard has PCI 3.0. You will need the bandwidth.
Acer H5360 (1280x720@120Hz) - ASUS VG248QE with GSync mod - 3D Vision 1&2 - Driver 372.54
GTX 970 - i5-4670K@4.2GHz - 12GB RAM - Win7x64+evilKB2670838 - 4 Disk X25 RAID
SAGER NP9870-S - GTX 980 - i7-6700K - Win10 Pro 1607 Latest 3Dmigoto Release Bo3b's School for ShaderHackers
[quote="bo3b"]I need to contradict Volnaiskra slightly based on my experience as well. Any old crap card is not going to cut it as a PhysX card. I tried a combo with SLI 580, GTX 285 as the PhysX card, and that sort of combo was not worth the extra trouble, heat, power. It slowed down some games, helped slightly in others.[/quote]Yes, but if I recall correctly, you did that on a motherboard that didn't officially support 3 cards, and the speeds of all cards went down to x4 x4 x4 (which is below the official SLI required minimum). Also, you used 3 full-size cards, so I'm sure the heat problem was massive, as you say. That's why I've kept to a half-size card for my PhysX card - air flow and temps for my Titans has barely changed.
On a motherboard that is setup to support 3 cards, I've found a $100 GTX 650 to generally outperform a $3000 pair of Titans in PhysX. In other words, the $100 'any old crap' card did better handling the PhysX on its own than the $3000 duo of Titans did when they handled it (on top of their existing workloads). I find that pretty remarkable.
Of course, YMMV as always, but I've used several dedicated PhysX configurations over the years, and they've almost always been worth it for me. As a rule of thumb, I certainly think it's something worth trying, at any rate, especially if you have an old leftover card somewhere.
bo3b said:I need to contradict Volnaiskra slightly based on my experience as well. Any old crap card is not going to cut it as a PhysX card. I tried a combo with SLI 580, GTX 285 as the PhysX card, and that sort of combo was not worth the extra trouble, heat, power. It slowed down some games, helped slightly in others.
Yes, but if I recall correctly, you did that on a motherboard that didn't officially support 3 cards, and the speeds of all cards went down to x4 x4 x4 (which is below the official SLI required minimum). Also, you used 3 full-size cards, so I'm sure the heat problem was massive, as you say. That's why I've kept to a half-size card for my PhysX card - air flow and temps for my Titans has barely changed.
On a motherboard that is setup to support 3 cards, I've found a $100 GTX 650 to generally outperform a $3000 pair of Titans in PhysX. In other words, the $100 'any old crap' card did better handling the PhysX on its own than the $3000 duo of Titans did when they handled it (on top of their existing workloads). I find that pretty remarkable.
Of course, YMMV as always, but I've used several dedicated PhysX configurations over the years, and they've almost always been worth it for me. As a rule of thumb, I certainly think it's something worth trying, at any rate, especially if you have an old leftover card somewhere.
No, my slot config was OK, but only PCIe 2.0. The cards were x8, x8, x4. The x4 was for the PhysX card, and I think that x4 PCIe 2.0 is too slow.
Could also have been the GTX 285, but I expected more from it.
Hmmm. Maybe it was a combination of pcie 2.0 x4, and heat-related throttling? It could also have been the games you tested, perhaps?
In my testing, Batman Arkham Origins gave disappointing results for a PhysX card. It definitely would have turned me off if I hadn't seen great results in the first 4 games I tested.
Also, I later discovered that taking one of the Titans off SLI duties and instead devoting it to PhysX gave a massive performance boost. So, in the case of that one game, a PhysX card can be of great use, but it can't be 'any old crap', as you warned.
I also may not have been impressed by my Metro Last Light testing, if not for the fact that I had previously (through painstaking and boring testing) identified PhysX as the culprit that was causing my 2-second freezes in that game. Those freezes are the reason I bought a PhysX card in the first place, because I'd be damned if I was going to put up with annoying freezes on my most-anticipated game in years after I'd already shelled out for a dual-Titan system.
So I was very careful of my analysis of MLL, studying the graphs, shooting hundreds of bullets into walls to create PhysX debris, and carefully looking out for stutters and freezes, etc. In the end, I can confidently say that the PhysX card cured MLL of the freezes I was experiencing, even though the actual numbers (avg, min, max) don't look that impressive on paper.
Hmmm. Maybe it was a combination of pcie 2.0 x4, and heat-related throttling? It could also have been the games you tested, perhaps?
In my testing, Batman Arkham Origins gave disappointing results for a PhysX card. It definitely would have turned me off if I hadn't seen great results in the first 4 games I tested.
Also, I later discovered that taking one of the Titans off SLI duties and instead devoting it to PhysX gave a massive performance boost. So, in the case of that one game, a PhysX card can be of great use, but it can't be 'any old crap', as you warned.
I also may not have been impressed by my Metro Last Light testing, if not for the fact that I had previously (through painstaking and boring testing) identified PhysX as the culprit that was causing my 2-second freezes in that game. Those freezes are the reason I bought a PhysX card in the first place, because I'd be damned if I was going to put up with annoying freezes on my most-anticipated game in years after I'd already shelled out for a dual-Titan system.
So I was very careful of my analysis of MLL, studying the graphs, shooting hundreds of bullets into walls to create PhysX debris, and carefully looking out for stutters and freezes, etc. In the end, I can confidently say that the PhysX card cured MLL of the freezes I was experiencing, even though the actual numbers (avg, min, max) don't look that impressive on paper.
I have also heard of people dedicating old cards to physX. Would an old gtx 650 or 660 provide a performance increase or would it just be a waste of money?
As for a pyhysx card, it can provide benefits in physx heavy games, but it's not really necessary unless you have money to burn. Physx works fine without one, 90% of the time.
http://volnapc.com/how-much-difference-does-a-dedicated-physx-card-make
http://photos.3dvisionlive.com/chtiblue/album/530b52d4cb85770d6e000049/3Dvision with 49" Philips 49PUS7100 interlieved 3D (3840x2160) overide mode, GTX 1080 GFA2 EXOC, core i5 @4.3GHz, 16Gb@2130, windows 7&10 64bit, Dolby Atmos 5.1.4 Marantz 6010 AVR
it doesn't at all in stereoscopic 3D, 3D Vision(atm) is limited to only using 2 cards in SLI.[MonitorSizeOverride][Global/Base Profile Tweaks][Depth=IPD]
Here's a good thread, with a link that gives some hard data. The short story is that yes Tri-SLI helps, but not always.
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/631537/3d-vision/trouble-with-nvidia-3d-vision-surround-and-4th-accessory-monitor/post/4044309/#4044309
Acer H5360 (1280x720@120Hz) - ASUS VG248QE with GSync mod - 3D Vision 1&2 - Driver 372.54
GTX 970 - i5-4670K@4.2GHz - 12GB RAM - Win7x64+evilKB2670838 - 4 Disk X25 RAID
SAGER NP9870-S - GTX 980 - i7-6700K - Win10 Pro 1607
Latest 3Dmigoto Release
Bo3b's School for ShaderHackers
You can see detailed results and charts at the link in my sig (the same link chtiblue linked to). But in a nutshell, I recommend a physX card because:
-PhysX is frequently one of the most taxing effects there is. Things like SSAA, ambient occlusion or tesselation will merely lower your framerate. But PhysX can (and often will) give you large fps dips, or even downright 2-second freezes or stuttering. People often don't seem to realise just how many of their slowdowns come from PhysX.
-A PhysX card will address this bottleneck very effectively, to the point where it almost disappears entirely. Example: Installing one a couple of years ago took me from frequent hangs and freezes in Alice: Madness returns on PhysX LOW, to flawless 60fps in PhysX HIGH
-You don't need an expensive card for PhysX. Any old crap will make a positive impact, within reason. People routinely spend 4x more on a CPU upgrade which may not even give them as much of a performance boost.
OP, I urge you to look at my link, as I have a similar system to the one you're considering. The bottom line is that getting a 650 for PhysX (though I recommend a 650ti instead, which is what I upgraded to since writing that blog post) will give you a much nicer experience in most PhysX games, despite costing literally less than 10% of the cost of your other cards.
Thanks again for the help guys! Awesome forum.
Go with a lesser card for PhysX, but don't use that old junk card that is your drawer.
Also be sure your motherboard has PCI 3.0. You will need the bandwidth.
Acer H5360 (1280x720@120Hz) - ASUS VG248QE with GSync mod - 3D Vision 1&2 - Driver 372.54
GTX 970 - i5-4670K@4.2GHz - 12GB RAM - Win7x64+evilKB2670838 - 4 Disk X25 RAID
SAGER NP9870-S - GTX 980 - i7-6700K - Win10 Pro 1607
Latest 3Dmigoto Release
Bo3b's School for ShaderHackers
On a motherboard that is setup to support 3 cards, I've found a $100 GTX 650 to generally outperform a $3000 pair of Titans in PhysX. In other words, the $100 'any old crap' card did better handling the PhysX on its own than the $3000 duo of Titans did when they handled it (on top of their existing workloads). I find that pretty remarkable.
Of course, YMMV as always, but I've used several dedicated PhysX configurations over the years, and they've almost always been worth it for me. As a rule of thumb, I certainly think it's something worth trying, at any rate, especially if you have an old leftover card somewhere.
Could also have been the GTX 285, but I expected more from it.
Acer H5360 (1280x720@120Hz) - ASUS VG248QE with GSync mod - 3D Vision 1&2 - Driver 372.54
GTX 970 - i5-4670K@4.2GHz - 12GB RAM - Win7x64+evilKB2670838 - 4 Disk X25 RAID
SAGER NP9870-S - GTX 980 - i7-6700K - Win10 Pro 1607
Latest 3Dmigoto Release
Bo3b's School for ShaderHackers
In my testing, Batman Arkham Origins gave disappointing results for a PhysX card. It definitely would have turned me off if I hadn't seen great results in the first 4 games I tested.
Also, I later discovered that taking one of the Titans off SLI duties and instead devoting it to PhysX gave a massive performance boost. So, in the case of that one game, a PhysX card can be of great use, but it can't be 'any old crap', as you warned.
I also may not have been impressed by my Metro Last Light testing, if not for the fact that I had previously (through painstaking and boring testing) identified PhysX as the culprit that was causing my 2-second freezes in that game. Those freezes are the reason I bought a PhysX card in the first place, because I'd be damned if I was going to put up with annoying freezes on my most-anticipated game in years after I'd already shelled out for a dual-Titan system.
So I was very careful of my analysis of MLL, studying the graphs, shooting hundreds of bullets into walls to create PhysX debris, and carefully looking out for stutters and freezes, etc. In the end, I can confidently say that the PhysX card cured MLL of the freezes I was experiencing, even though the actual numbers (avg, min, max) don't look that impressive on paper.