gtx760 4Gb sli powerful enough for 3d vision surround
2 / 3
Good to know.
I'm curious because I'm looking at building a new computer too, and most tests I can find suggest that there is no difference between x8 and x16. Except for one that I generally trust. There is a MaximumPC test that started me looking at this, because they saw notable frame rate drops (10% or so) in games, not synthetics. Generally speaking I trust their reviews, so this is an anomaly. (story not linkable yet)
I'm curious because I'm looking at building a new computer too, and most tests I can find suggest that there is no difference between x8 and x16. Except for one that I generally trust. There is a MaximumPC test that started me looking at this, because they saw notable frame rate drops (10% or so) in games, not synthetics. Generally speaking I trust their reviews, so this is an anomaly. (story not linkable yet)
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
I've been considering getting a 3rd weaker card for PhysX. Though I was hesitating because I didn't know if it was worth making my Titans go down to x8. Good to know that it probably wouldn't matter much.
Helifax, you've also convinced me to invest in a top notch mobo the next time I get an upgrade. Reading your post made me start suspecting that some of the (minor) hiccups I've experienced since getting my two Titans might just be down to the mobo - especially since those hiccups seemed to happen mainly when overclocking.
Though I don't think I'll do any sort of upgrading until the new-gen dust settles, and the lay of the land becomes clearer, what with SteamOS, Mantle, 20nm GPUs, etc.
I've been considering getting a 3rd weaker card for PhysX. Though I was hesitating because I didn't know if it was worth making my Titans go down to x8. Good to know that it probably wouldn't matter much.
Helifax, you've also convinced me to invest in a top notch mobo the next time I get an upgrade. Reading your post made me start suspecting that some of the (minor) hiccups I've experienced since getting my two Titans might just be down to the mobo - especially since those hiccups seemed to happen mainly when overclocking.
Though I don't think I'll do any sort of upgrading until the new-gen dust settles, and the lay of the land becomes clearer, what with SteamOS, Mantle, 20nm GPUs, etc.
looking at passmark [url]http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html[/url] the 760 is around the same score as the 690 running a single gpu. adding a second 760 should scale the same maybe a little better because of the extra ram on the 4gb version. food for thought
looking at passmark http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html the 760 is around the same score as the 690 running a single gpu. adding a second 760 should scale the same maybe a little better because of the extra ram on the 4gb version. food for thought
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 @ 4.25GHz|MB: XFX 790i Ultra 3-way SLI|GPU: 2x XFX 9800GT|RAM: 4x 2GB Kingston DDR3|PSU: 1000w Silverstone|Storage: 2x WD 500GB in RAID 0|Storage: 3x WD 1TB in RAID 5|Monitor: Viewsonic PJD6531w 3D Projector w/ 800p 3D Fix|TV Card: 2x AVer Media Hybrid Duo|OS: Windows 8 ProWMC x64
[quote="Volnaiskra"]I've been considering getting a 3rd weaker card for PhysX. Though I was hesitating because I didn't know if it was worth making my Titans go down to x8. Good to know that it probably wouldn't matter much.[/quote]I'd recommend against doing a third card. I tried an experiment with SLI 580 plus a 285 for PhysX, and it was actually slower than the 580s by themselves. The basic conclusion was that if you have a good card lying around not being used, it might be worth it, but it's definitely not worth buying something for the third card.
In your dual Titan case, you are going to need something really good to make it faster, like a 580. If you have any headroom on your Titan's at all, it seems to work better to just use the SLI cards.
In any case, if you go this route, be sure to benchmark it to be sure it's not actually slowing you down.
Volnaiskra said:I've been considering getting a 3rd weaker card for PhysX. Though I was hesitating because I didn't know if it was worth making my Titans go down to x8. Good to know that it probably wouldn't matter much.
I'd recommend against doing a third card. I tried an experiment with SLI 580 plus a 285 for PhysX, and it was actually slower than the 580s by themselves. The basic conclusion was that if you have a good card lying around not being used, it might be worth it, but it's definitely not worth buying something for the third card.
In your dual Titan case, you are going to need something really good to make it faster, like a 580. If you have any headroom on your Titan's at all, it seems to work better to just use the SLI cards.
In any case, if you go this route, be sure to benchmark it to be sure it's not actually slowing you down.
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
Thanks for the heads up.
I've had great results with a PhysX card before (single 680 with my old 580 for PhysX).
I love PhysX, but in my experience it can create serious bottlenecks. On a 580, Alice: Madness Returns used to give me really bad freezes and stuttering during PhysX-heavy sections, while giving me a constant 60fps the rest of the time. Other PhysX games were similar. Once I added a 680 and devoted the 580 to PhysX, all such problems went away.
I've even had PhysX problems with my two Titans in Metro Last Light. Like a lot of people, I was getting a lot of stuttering. The patch cleared most of it up, but I would still get it in some places. After some testing I isolated the problem to the "Advanced PhysX" setting. The stuttering would come if I shot lots of bullets against walls and created lots of PhysX debris.
The thing is, the PhysX in Metro Last Light isn't even very impressive, and plays mainly a subtle supporting role (except maybe in one or two setpieces).
So my conclusion was that if PhysX is prone to causing bottlenecks even on two Titans, then it was just better off always keeping it separate on a dedicated PhysX card.
I'm a bit shocked by your 580+285 experience though. What game/s did you test it on? And when you say you got worse performance, are you just talking about fps, or did you notice stuttering/freezing? It's the stuttering/freezing that I'm mostly interested in eliminating.
I've had great results with a PhysX card before (single 680 with my old 580 for PhysX).
I love PhysX, but in my experience it can create serious bottlenecks. On a 580, Alice: Madness Returns used to give me really bad freezes and stuttering during PhysX-heavy sections, while giving me a constant 60fps the rest of the time. Other PhysX games were similar. Once I added a 680 and devoted the 580 to PhysX, all such problems went away.
I've even had PhysX problems with my two Titans in Metro Last Light. Like a lot of people, I was getting a lot of stuttering. The patch cleared most of it up, but I would still get it in some places. After some testing I isolated the problem to the "Advanced PhysX" setting. The stuttering would come if I shot lots of bullets against walls and created lots of PhysX debris.
The thing is, the PhysX in Metro Last Light isn't even very impressive, and plays mainly a subtle supporting role (except maybe in one or two setpieces).
So my conclusion was that if PhysX is prone to causing bottlenecks even on two Titans, then it was just better off always keeping it separate on a dedicated PhysX card.
I'm a bit shocked by your 580+285 experience though. What game/s did you test it on? And when you say you got worse performance, are you just talking about fps, or did you notice stuttering/freezing? It's the stuttering/freezing that I'm mostly interested in eliminating.
@helifax: Took your advice and went with a Maximus Hero board. Only x8/x8 on PCI-e 3.0, but as noted should not be a problem. Was going to go with a lesser ASUS, but you convinced me to step it up. Thanks for the info.
@helifax: Took your advice and went with a Maximus Hero board. Only x8/x8 on PCI-e 3.0, but as noted should not be a problem. Was going to go with a lesser ASUS, but you convinced me to step it up. Thanks for the info.
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
@Volnaiskra: I tested Metro Last Light using the built in benchmark. I was specifically looking at their frame rate graphs, and looking at the [b]minimum [/b]frame rates I got. I don't care about average or max frame rates.
I'm presently running an older P55 motherboard, so the two primary slots are x8 PCI-e 2.0 for SLI. The third slot for the GTX 285 was thus running at x4 PCI-e 2.0, which could conceivably be a bottleneck. PhysX work is not very well specified in terms of what it takes.
In any case, the 285 in x4 did make my minimum rates lower. Given the complexity of the setup, I would personally only go with a PhysX card if I was not running SLI.
[url]https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/571270/3d-vision/-iquest-gtx-780-or-sli-gtx-760-for-3d-vision-1080p-/post/3885475/[/url]
This article shows some fairly serious stuttering in MetroLL, which is pretty clearly caused by the game, not the drivers. I saw this during benchmarking, and there is always a stutter as it pans past the incoming rail car.
[url]http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/geforce_gtx_760_asus_directcu_mini_review,22.html[/url]
This doesn't sound like what you have seen though. I really don't think you could have a better PhysX scenario than Titan, so that plus the above stutter suggests the game engine has some bug.
You could try your dedicated PhysX easily though, by disabling SLI and setting the spare card to PhysX. You should still have headroom on your single Titan at least at High settings. This would also be a better test, as the PhysX card cannot be better, and it's in the fastest slot possible.
@Volnaiskra: I tested Metro Last Light using the built in benchmark. I was specifically looking at their frame rate graphs, and looking at the minimum frame rates I got. I don't care about average or max frame rates.
I'm presently running an older P55 motherboard, so the two primary slots are x8 PCI-e 2.0 for SLI. The third slot for the GTX 285 was thus running at x4 PCI-e 2.0, which could conceivably be a bottleneck. PhysX work is not very well specified in terms of what it takes.
In any case, the 285 in x4 did make my minimum rates lower. Given the complexity of the setup, I would personally only go with a PhysX card if I was not running SLI.
This article shows some fairly serious stuttering in MetroLL, which is pretty clearly caused by the game, not the drivers. I saw this during benchmarking, and there is always a stutter as it pans past the incoming rail car.
This doesn't sound like what you have seen though. I really don't think you could have a better PhysX scenario than Titan, so that plus the above stutter suggests the game engine has some bug.
You could try your dedicated PhysX easily though, by disabling SLI and setting the spare card to PhysX. You should still have headroom on your single Titan at least at High settings. This would also be a better test, as the PhysX card cannot be better, and it's in the fastest slot possible.
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
Yes, totally agree that minimum framerate is what matters. I guess if that's what you tested for, it might have picked up stuttering.
Here's the thing though. I did do that test you suggested, a while ago. When I disabled sli and instead dedicated a titan for physx, I got LESS stuttering. I still got it, but it took longer to occur (needed to shoot more bullets to create more debris.)
That's what got me thinking that physx just really wants its own card. But you're probably right that it's the game's fault. So I probably should stay with what I have unless I notice it in other games
Yes, totally agree that minimum framerate is what matters. I guess if that's what you tested for, it might have picked up stuttering.
Here's the thing though. I did do that test you suggested, a while ago. When I disabled sli and instead dedicated a titan for physx, I got LESS stuttering. I still got it, but it took longer to occur (needed to shoot more bullets to create more debris.)
That's what got me thinking that physx just really wants its own card. But you're probably right that it's the game's fault. So I probably should stay with what I have unless I notice it in other games
[quote="bo3b"]@helifax: Took your advice and went with a Maximus Hero board. Only x8/x8 on PCI-e 3.0, but as noted should not be a problem. Was going to go with a lesser ASUS, but you convinced me to step it up. Thanks for the info.[/quote]
Awesome, Now time for some overclocking and awesome results;)) You will definitely see rock solid performance;))
As for Metro LL. I did some tests a while back, I believe you remember. What I noticed is a BIG difference on how the benchmark works and the actual game.
In the benchmark no matter what I did I had stuttering, while in the game using the same setting it was running silky smooth. For comparison I used the last battle scene in D6 ( as the one in the benchmark).
I start to believe that those patches they pushed to fix various things exist ONLY in the game and not the benchmark.
In both cases PhysX throttle the game, but in the benchmark is making it unplayable...
I am wondering if you guys see the same
bo3b said:@helifax: Took your advice and went with a Maximus Hero board. Only x8/x8 on PCI-e 3.0, but as noted should not be a problem. Was going to go with a lesser ASUS, but you convinced me to step it up. Thanks for the info.
Awesome, Now time for some overclocking and awesome results;)) You will definitely see rock solid performance;))
As for Metro LL. I did some tests a while back, I believe you remember. What I noticed is a BIG difference on how the benchmark works and the actual game.
In the benchmark no matter what I did I had stuttering, while in the game using the same setting it was running silky smooth. For comparison I used the last battle scene in D6 ( as the one in the benchmark).
I start to believe that those patches they pushed to fix various things exist ONLY in the game and not the benchmark.
In both cases PhysX throttle the game, but in the benchmark is making it unplayable...
I am wondering if you guys see the same
1x Palit RTX 2080Ti Pro Gaming OC(watercooled and overclocked to hell)
3x 3D Vision Ready Asus VG278HE monitors (5760x1080).
Intel i9 9900K (overclocked to 5.3 and watercooled ofc).
Asus Maximus XI Hero Mobo.
16 GB Team Group T-Force Dark Pro DDR4 @ 3600.
Lots of Disks:
- Raid 0 - 256GB Sandisk Extreme SSD.
- Raid 0 - WD Black - 2TB.
- SanDisk SSD PLUS 480 GB.
- Intel 760p 256GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD.
Creative Sound Blaster Z.
Windows 10 x64 Pro.
etc
Yes, I think you're right, helifax. I tried the benchmark for the first time last night, and it got very stuttery towards the end. Way more stuttering than I get in the game (I get almost none now, unless I shoot a million bullets at a wall)
Yes, I think you're right, helifax. I tried the benchmark for the first time last night, and it got very stuttery towards the end. Way more stuttering than I get in the game (I get almost none now, unless I shoot a million bullets at a wall)
[quote="bo3b"][quote="Volnaiskra"]I've been considering getting a 3rd weaker card for PhysX. Though I was hesitating because I didn't know if it was worth making my Titans go down to x8. Good to know that it probably wouldn't matter much.[/quote]I'd recommend against doing a third card. I tried an experiment with SLI 580 plus a 285 for PhysX, and it was actually slower than the 580s by themselves. The basic conclusion was that if you have a good card lying around not being used, it might be worth it, but it's definitely not worth buying something for the third card.
In your dual Titan case, you are going to need something really good to make it faster, like a 580. If you have any headroom on your Titan's at all, it seems to work better to just use the SLI cards.
In any case, if you go this route, be sure to benchmark it to be sure it's not actually slowing you down.[/quote]
Well, I risked it and bought another card for PhysX. But I took your advice and benchmarked. Extensively, actually, with 5 different games in both SLI and non-SLI configurations. I've [url="http://volnapc.com/how-much-difference-does-a-dedicated-physx-card-make"]summarised the results here[/url], with charts.
In a nutshell, the results *overwhelmingly* supported getting a dedicated PhysX card. In fact, Metro Last Light in SLI was one of the scenarios that benefitted the most.
Do you still have your Metro html charts somewhere? I'm curious about what's different about our systems to make me get good results, and you get poor ones.
Did your motherboard go down to 4x PCIe speed with 3 cards, perhaps? Did you not get the reduced variability (black area) on the graphs like I did?
Volnaiskra said:I've been considering getting a 3rd weaker card for PhysX. Though I was hesitating because I didn't know if it was worth making my Titans go down to x8. Good to know that it probably wouldn't matter much.
I'd recommend against doing a third card. I tried an experiment with SLI 580 plus a 285 for PhysX, and it was actually slower than the 580s by themselves. The basic conclusion was that if you have a good card lying around not being used, it might be worth it, but it's definitely not worth buying something for the third card.
In your dual Titan case, you are going to need something really good to make it faster, like a 580. If you have any headroom on your Titan's at all, it seems to work better to just use the SLI cards.
In any case, if you go this route, be sure to benchmark it to be sure it's not actually slowing you down.
Well, I risked it and bought another card for PhysX. But I took your advice and benchmarked. Extensively, actually, with 5 different games in both SLI and non-SLI configurations. I've summarised the results here, with charts.
In a nutshell, the results *overwhelmingly* supported getting a dedicated PhysX card. In fact, Metro Last Light in SLI was one of the scenarios that benefitted the most.
Do you still have your Metro html charts somewhere? I'm curious about what's different about our systems to make me get good results, and you get poor ones.
Did your motherboard go down to 4x PCIe speed with 3 cards, perhaps? Did you not get the reduced variability (black area) on the graphs like I did?
I looked at upgrading my CPU to go along with my new GPU's. Here's a few performance charts I've been looking at:
Here they test at medium quality to flesh out the differences in CPU's -
[img]http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?ct=articles&action=file&id=6301&admin=0a8fcaad6b03da6a6895d1ada2e171002a287bc1[/img]
Here's another example of medium quality with SLI780's -
[img]http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?ct=articles&action=file&id=6449[/img]
The 4770 is indeed looking pretty good in the above charts however if we add these two charts -
[img]http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?ct=articles&action=file&id=6455[/img]
(granted the above 3dmark11 tests were with no CPU overclock)
and my own results from a 2600K @ 4.5Ghz with SLI780's (19165) - [url]http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/7551151[/url]
It would appear that my overclocked 2600K is slightly better than a stock 4960X. The 1st chart shows that I might see ~14FPS improvement (or not) with a overclocked 4960X. Be reminded that the 2600K is PCIe 2.0 and my two cards are getting fed 8x.
Sadly CPU/GPU reviewers don't push 6K or even 3D resolutions so benchmarks are hard to come by. Its very difficult to see any benchmarks that show any improvement of PCIe 3.0 over 2.0 or 2x16 lanes over 2x8 lanes. However the above charts talked me out of upgrading my CPU and I'll wait to see if this time next year if we'll have "K" or "X" versions of the next gen CPU's with DDR4 to play with before upgrading.
I looked at upgrading my CPU to go along with my new GPU's. Here's a few performance charts I've been looking at:
Here they test at medium quality to flesh out the differences in CPU's -
Here's another example of medium quality with SLI780's -
The 4770 is indeed looking pretty good in the above charts however if we add these two charts -
(granted the above 3dmark11 tests were with no CPU overclock)
It would appear that my overclocked 2600K is slightly better than a stock 4960X. The 1st chart shows that I might see ~14FPS improvement (or not) with a overclocked 4960X. Be reminded that the 2600K is PCIe 2.0 and my two cards are getting fed 8x.
Sadly CPU/GPU reviewers don't push 6K or even 3D resolutions so benchmarks are hard to come by. Its very difficult to see any benchmarks that show any improvement of PCIe 3.0 over 2.0 or 2x16 lanes over 2x8 lanes. However the above charts talked me out of upgrading my CPU and I'll wait to see if this time next year if we'll have "K" or "X" versions of the next gen CPU's with DDR4 to play with before upgrading.
[quote="bo3b"]@helifax: Took your advice and went with a Maximus Hero board. Only x8/x8 on PCI-e 3.0, but as noted should not be a problem. Was going to go with a lesser ASUS, but you convinced me to step it up. Thanks for the info.[/quote]
@bo3b, I need to build a box for someone and looking at that board too, what card setup are you looking at or you just switching MB out? Just curious.
bo3b said:@helifax: Took your advice and went with a Maximus Hero board. Only x8/x8 on PCI-e 3.0, but as noted should not be a problem. Was going to go with a lesser ASUS, but you convinced me to step it up. Thanks for the info.
@bo3b, I need to build a box for someone and looking at that board too, what card setup are you looking at or you just switching MB out? Just curious.
[quote="djb"][quote="bo3b"]@helifax: Took your advice and went with a Maximus Hero board. Only x8/x8 on PCI-e 3.0, but as noted should not be a problem. Was going to go with a lesser ASUS, but you convinced me to step it up. Thanks for the info.[/quote]
@bo3b, I need to build a box for someone and looking at that board too, what card setup are you looking at or you just switching MB out? Just curious.[/quote]I kept my GTX 580 SLI for now. There are only two games that show any strain since I run at 1280x720@120.
I'm tempted by the newer cards, but wouldn't see any difference in the games I play. I'm also waiting to see what NVidia Maxwell cards look like.
If I were to make a move here though, I'd probably go with GTX 770 SLI as the best value spot. That's about $600. Next step up would be dual 780s, at $1000. I wouldn't go with 680s, unless price is an issue.
bo3b said:@helifax: Took your advice and went with a Maximus Hero board. Only x8/x8 on PCI-e 3.0, but as noted should not be a problem. Was going to go with a lesser ASUS, but you convinced me to step it up. Thanks for the info.
@bo3b, I need to build a box for someone and looking at that board too, what card setup are you looking at or you just switching MB out? Just curious.
I kept my GTX 580 SLI for now. There are only two games that show any strain since I run at 1280x720@120.
I'm tempted by the newer cards, but wouldn't see any difference in the games I play. I'm also waiting to see what NVidia Maxwell cards look like.
If I were to make a move here though, I'd probably go with GTX 770 SLI as the best value spot. That's about $600. Next step up would be dual 780s, at $1000. I wouldn't go with 680s, unless price is an issue.
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="Volnaiskra"]Well, I risked it and bought another card for PhysX. But I took your advice and benchmarked. Extensively, actually, with 5 different games in both SLI and non-SLI configurations. I've [url="http://volnapc.com/how-much-difference-does-a-dedicated-physx-card-make"]summarised the results here[/url], with charts.
In a nutshell, the results *overwhelmingly* supported getting a dedicated PhysX card. In fact, Metro Last Light in SLI was one of the scenarios that benefitted the most.
Do you still have your Metro html charts somewhere? I'm curious about what's different about our systems to make me get good results, and you get poor ones.
Did your motherboard go down to 4x PCIe speed with 3 cards, perhaps? Did you not get the reduced variability (black area) on the graphs like I did?[/quote]Awesome report, thanks for sharing that. Really interesting to see the variance from game to game.
Two things-
1) did you run in 3D? If not, can you do a couple of comparison tests in 3D? It's never quite clear to me how PhysX impacts 3D, and alternate frame rendering (AFR mode).
2) In Metro LL benchmark, the orange line you see is the Average frame rate, not just a background. The black lines go above and below as min/max. Kind of strange presentation, took me a long time to figure out what they are showing.
Here is a link to some Metro data with my setup. GTX 285 as PhysX card, 4x PCI slot. Lowish end, but I didn't really expect PhysX to be large data intensive, or need more than the fairly competent 285.
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/571270/3d-vision/-iquest-gtx-780-or-sli-gtx-760-for-3d-vision-1080p-/post/3885684/#3885684
Volnaiskra said:Well, I risked it and bought another card for PhysX. But I took your advice and benchmarked. Extensively, actually, with 5 different games in both SLI and non-SLI configurations. I've summarised the results here, with charts.
In a nutshell, the results *overwhelmingly* supported getting a dedicated PhysX card. In fact, Metro Last Light in SLI was one of the scenarios that benefitted the most.
Do you still have your Metro html charts somewhere? I'm curious about what's different about our systems to make me get good results, and you get poor ones.
Did your motherboard go down to 4x PCIe speed with 3 cards, perhaps? Did you not get the reduced variability (black area) on the graphs like I did?
Awesome report, thanks for sharing that. Really interesting to see the variance from game to game.
Two things-
1) did you run in 3D? If not, can you do a couple of comparison tests in 3D? It's never quite clear to me how PhysX impacts 3D, and alternate frame rendering (AFR mode).
2) In Metro LL benchmark, the orange line you see is the Average frame rate, not just a background. The black lines go above and below as min/max. Kind of strange presentation, took me a long time to figure out what they are showing.
Here is a link to some Metro data with my setup. GTX 285 as PhysX card, 4x PCI slot. Lowish end, but I didn't really expect PhysX to be large data intensive, or need more than the fairly competent 285.
I'm curious because I'm looking at building a new computer too, and most tests I can find suggest that there is no difference between x8 and x16. Except for one that I generally trust. There is a MaximumPC test that started me looking at this, because they saw notable frame rate drops (10% or so) in games, not synthetics. Generally speaking I trust their reviews, so this is an anomaly. (story not linkable yet)
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
Helifax, you've also convinced me to invest in a top notch mobo the next time I get an upgrade. Reading your post made me start suspecting that some of the (minor) hiccups I've experienced since getting my two Titans might just be down to the mobo - especially since those hiccups seemed to happen mainly when overclocking.
Though I don't think I'll do any sort of upgrading until the new-gen dust settles, and the lay of the land becomes clearer, what with SteamOS, Mantle, 20nm GPUs, etc.
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 @ 4.25GHz|MB: XFX 790i Ultra 3-way SLI|GPU: 2x XFX 9800GT|RAM: 4x 2GB Kingston DDR3|PSU: 1000w Silverstone|Storage: 2x WD 500GB in RAID 0|Storage: 3x WD 1TB in RAID 5|Monitor: Viewsonic PJD6531w 3D Projector w/ 800p 3D Fix|TV Card: 2x AVer Media Hybrid Duo|OS: Windows 8 ProWMC x64
In your dual Titan case, you are going to need something really good to make it faster, like a 580. If you have any headroom on your Titan's at all, it seems to work better to just use the SLI cards.
In any case, if you go this route, be sure to benchmark it to be sure it's not actually slowing you down.
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
I've had great results with a PhysX card before (single 680 with my old 580 for PhysX).
I love PhysX, but in my experience it can create serious bottlenecks. On a 580, Alice: Madness Returns used to give me really bad freezes and stuttering during PhysX-heavy sections, while giving me a constant 60fps the rest of the time. Other PhysX games were similar. Once I added a 680 and devoted the 580 to PhysX, all such problems went away.
I've even had PhysX problems with my two Titans in Metro Last Light. Like a lot of people, I was getting a lot of stuttering. The patch cleared most of it up, but I would still get it in some places. After some testing I isolated the problem to the "Advanced PhysX" setting. The stuttering would come if I shot lots of bullets against walls and created lots of PhysX debris.
The thing is, the PhysX in Metro Last Light isn't even very impressive, and plays mainly a subtle supporting role (except maybe in one or two setpieces).
So my conclusion was that if PhysX is prone to causing bottlenecks even on two Titans, then it was just better off always keeping it separate on a dedicated PhysX card.
I'm a bit shocked by your 580+285 experience though. What game/s did you test it on? And when you say you got worse performance, are you just talking about fps, or did you notice stuttering/freezing? It's the stuttering/freezing that I'm mostly interested in eliminating.
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
I'm presently running an older P55 motherboard, so the two primary slots are x8 PCI-e 2.0 for SLI. The third slot for the GTX 285 was thus running at x4 PCI-e 2.0, which could conceivably be a bottleneck. PhysX work is not very well specified in terms of what it takes.
In any case, the 285 in x4 did make my minimum rates lower. Given the complexity of the setup, I would personally only go with a PhysX card if I was not running SLI.
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/571270/3d-vision/-iquest-gtx-780-or-sli-gtx-760-for-3d-vision-1080p-/post/3885475/
This article shows some fairly serious stuttering in MetroLL, which is pretty clearly caused by the game, not the drivers. I saw this during benchmarking, and there is always a stutter as it pans past the incoming rail car.
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/geforce_gtx_760_asus_directcu_mini_review,22.html
This doesn't sound like what you have seen though. I really don't think you could have a better PhysX scenario than Titan, so that plus the above stutter suggests the game engine has some bug.
You could try your dedicated PhysX easily though, by disabling SLI and setting the spare card to PhysX. You should still have headroom on your single Titan at least at High settings. This would also be a better test, as the PhysX card cannot be better, and it's in the fastest slot possible.
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
Here's the thing though. I did do that test you suggested, a while ago. When I disabled sli and instead dedicated a titan for physx, I got LESS stuttering. I still got it, but it took longer to occur (needed to shoot more bullets to create more debris.)
That's what got me thinking that physx just really wants its own card. But you're probably right that it's the game's fault. So I probably should stay with what I have unless I notice it in other games
Awesome, Now time for some overclocking and awesome results;)) You will definitely see rock solid performance;))
As for Metro LL. I did some tests a while back, I believe you remember. What I noticed is a BIG difference on how the benchmark works and the actual game.
In the benchmark no matter what I did I had stuttering, while in the game using the same setting it was running silky smooth. For comparison I used the last battle scene in D6 ( as the one in the benchmark).
I start to believe that those patches they pushed to fix various things exist ONLY in the game and not the benchmark.
In both cases PhysX throttle the game, but in the benchmark is making it unplayable...
I am wondering if you guys see the same
1x Palit RTX 2080Ti Pro Gaming OC(watercooled and overclocked to hell)
3x 3D Vision Ready Asus VG278HE monitors (5760x1080).
Intel i9 9900K (overclocked to 5.3 and watercooled ofc).
Asus Maximus XI Hero Mobo.
16 GB Team Group T-Force Dark Pro DDR4 @ 3600.
Lots of Disks:
- Raid 0 - 256GB Sandisk Extreme SSD.
- Raid 0 - WD Black - 2TB.
- SanDisk SSD PLUS 480 GB.
- Intel 760p 256GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD.
Creative Sound Blaster Z.
Windows 10 x64 Pro.
etc
My website with my fixes and OpenGL to 3D Vision wrapper:
http://3dsurroundgaming.com
(If you like some of the stuff that I've done and want to donate something, you can do it with PayPal at tavyhome@gmail.com)
Well, I risked it and bought another card for PhysX. But I took your advice and benchmarked. Extensively, actually, with 5 different games in both SLI and non-SLI configurations. I've summarised the results here, with charts.
In a nutshell, the results *overwhelmingly* supported getting a dedicated PhysX card. In fact, Metro Last Light in SLI was one of the scenarios that benefitted the most.
Do you still have your Metro html charts somewhere? I'm curious about what's different about our systems to make me get good results, and you get poor ones.
Did your motherboard go down to 4x PCIe speed with 3 cards, perhaps? Did you not get the reduced variability (black area) on the graphs like I did?
Here they test at medium quality to flesh out the differences in CPU's -
Here's another example of medium quality with SLI780's -
The 4770 is indeed looking pretty good in the above charts however if we add these two charts -
(granted the above 3dmark11 tests were with no CPU overclock)
and my own results from a 2600K @ 4.5Ghz with SLI780's (19165) - http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/7551151
It would appear that my overclocked 2600K is slightly better than a stock 4960X. The 1st chart shows that I might see ~14FPS improvement (or not) with a overclocked 4960X. Be reminded that the 2600K is PCIe 2.0 and my two cards are getting fed 8x.
Sadly CPU/GPU reviewers don't push 6K or even 3D resolutions so benchmarks are hard to come by. Its very difficult to see any benchmarks that show any improvement of PCIe 3.0 over 2.0 or 2x16 lanes over 2x8 lanes. However the above charts talked me out of upgrading my CPU and I'll wait to see if this time next year if we'll have "K" or "X" versions of the next gen CPU's with DDR4 to play with before upgrading.
i7-2600K-4.5Ghz/Corsair H100i/8GB/GTX780SC-SLI/Win7-64/1200W-PSU/Samsung 840-500GB SSD/Coolermaster-Tower/Benq 1080ST @ 100"
@bo3b, I need to build a box for someone and looking at that board too, what card setup are you looking at or you just switching MB out? Just curious.
I'm tempted by the newer cards, but wouldn't see any difference in the games I play. I'm also waiting to see what NVidia Maxwell cards look like.
If I were to make a move here though, I'd probably go with GTX 770 SLI as the best value spot. That's about $600. Next step up would be dual 780s, at $1000. I wouldn't go with 680s, unless price is an issue.
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
Two things-
1) did you run in 3D? If not, can you do a couple of comparison tests in 3D? It's never quite clear to me how PhysX impacts 3D, and alternate frame rendering (AFR mode).
2) In Metro LL benchmark, the orange line you see is the Average frame rate, not just a background. The black lines go above and below as min/max. Kind of strange presentation, took me a long time to figure out what they are showing.
Here is a link to some Metro data with my setup. GTX 285 as PhysX card, 4x PCI slot. Lowish end, but I didn't really expect PhysX to be large data intensive, or need more than the fairly competent 285.
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/571270/3d-vision/-iquest-gtx-780-or-sli-gtx-760-for-3d-vision-1080p-/post/3885684/#3885684
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