480 SLI and Dedicated PhysX card- Benchmarked in 3d! Metro 2033 and Batman AA results....
  1 / 2    
I finally got around to installing a dedicated physX card. I used my old 295 (which uses only one of the gpu's for physX). I tested Batman AA and metro 2033. I used the system in my signature below. Here is the results:

Batman AA- 1080p, 16xq AA, all settings max, vsync off and motion blur off:
Dedicated physx card: min- 34, max 92, average 68
NO dedicated card: min 28, max 70, average 48

Metro 2033- 1080p, all settings max quality levels, ADOF off, physX on max (vsync is always off in this game)
Dedicated: Min 19, max 56, average 42
no dedicated: min 21, max 45, average 36

Well there you have it- there is defiantly a performance advantage with running a dedicated PhysX card with the 480 SLI in 3d. I noticed a similar trend when running these games in 2d- but who cares about that flat old gaming style.

It was hard to get accurate results in Metro- there is no in game benchmark- so i just started a new game and tried to be consistent with my game play style. I played the game from the beginning- past the first encounter with the monsters- then stopped the benchmark after the flying monster snatches you away. i ran the test many times- and while i could not replicate the same numbers every time- i did notice that the dedicated physX card was always faster (although sometimes by a very small margin- like 2 FPS). I also noticed very little GPU usage in metro for the physX card on the intro level (5 percent). I am speculating that the drivers are not fully mature yet with this combination or the game was not using much physX on the intro level. Also keep in mind that the opening scene in metro has no explosions- this would be where physX is used the most.

Batman was a pleasant surprise! 20 FPS difference- and i checked it more that once- its not a fluke. I also saw much more GPU physX usage on this game (around 30-40 percent).

The bad news: the 480 sli is now much louder and hotter. adding a third card bumped up temps from 91c to 96c. this is with the auto fan profile. i am planning on adding more cooling fans directly on the side of the cards to aid in cooling- todays test was just an open case. I dont mind the extra noise- i just turn up the surround sound and the bass- but the cards went from being the same noise level as my old quad sli rig to much louder than the quad sli.

System:
Intel I7 920 overclocked to 4ghz
Asus Rampage Extreme II
2 Ge-force 480 in SLI
12gb ddr3 2000mhz ram
Intel SSD in RAID 0
BR RW
1000w Sony surround sound
Mitsubishi 65" DLP 3d HDTV (wishing for a 1080p 3d projector!)
NVIDIA 3D Vision
I finally got around to installing a dedicated physX card. I used my old 295 (which uses only one of the gpu's for physX). I tested Batman AA and metro 2033. I used the system in my signature below. Here is the results:



Batman AA- 1080p, 16xq AA, all settings max, vsync off and motion blur off:

Dedicated physx card: min- 34, max 92, average 68

NO dedicated card: min 28, max 70, average 48



Metro 2033- 1080p, all settings max quality levels, ADOF off, physX on max (vsync is always off in this game)

Dedicated: Min 19, max 56, average 42

no dedicated: min 21, max 45, average 36



Well there you have it- there is defiantly a performance advantage with running a dedicated PhysX card with the 480 SLI in 3d. I noticed a similar trend when running these games in 2d- but who cares about that flat old gaming style.



It was hard to get accurate results in Metro- there is no in game benchmark- so i just started a new game and tried to be consistent with my game play style. I played the game from the beginning- past the first encounter with the monsters- then stopped the benchmark after the flying monster snatches you away. i ran the test many times- and while i could not replicate the same numbers every time- i did notice that the dedicated physX card was always faster (although sometimes by a very small margin- like 2 FPS). I also noticed very little GPU usage in metro for the physX card on the intro level (5 percent). I am speculating that the drivers are not fully mature yet with this combination or the game was not using much physX on the intro level. Also keep in mind that the opening scene in metro has no explosions- this would be where physX is used the most.



Batman was a pleasant surprise! 20 FPS difference- and i checked it more that once- its not a fluke. I also saw much more GPU physX usage on this game (around 30-40 percent).



The bad news: the 480 sli is now much louder and hotter. adding a third card bumped up temps from 91c to 96c. this is with the auto fan profile. i am planning on adding more cooling fans directly on the side of the cards to aid in cooling- todays test was just an open case. I dont mind the extra noise- i just turn up the surround sound and the bass- but the cards went from being the same noise level as my old quad sli rig to much louder than the quad sli.



System:

Intel I7 920 overclocked to 4ghz

Asus Rampage Extreme II

2 Ge-force 480 in SLI

12gb ddr3 2000mhz ram

Intel SSD in RAID 0

BR RW

1000w Sony surround sound

Mitsubishi 65" DLP 3d HDTV (wishing for a 1080p 3d projector!)

NVIDIA 3D Vision

System:

Intel I7 920 overclocked to 4ghz

Asus Rampage Extreme II

2 Ge-force 480 in SLI

GTX 295 PhysX Card

12gb ddr3 2000mhz ram

Intel SSD in RAID 0

BR RW

1000w Sony surround sound

NVIDIA 3D Vision



3d displays tested:



Mitsubishi 65" DLP 3d HDTV (good old 1080p checkerboard since 2007!!!)

Panasonic VT25 (nice 2d but I returned it due to cross talk)

Acer H5360 720p on 130" screen (the best 3d)

23" Acer LCD monitor (horrible cross talk- sold it)

Samsung 65D8000

#1
Posted 05/18/2010 05:16 AM   
you got above 60fps per eye in your Batman 3d benchmark? I thought 3d vision caped everything at 60 fps per eye to match the 120hz monitor
you got above 60fps per eye in your Batman 3d benchmark? I thought 3d vision caped everything at 60 fps per eye to match the 120hz monitor

Intel Core i9-9820x @ 3.30GHZ
32 gig Ram
2 EVGA RTX 2080 ti Gaming
3 X ASUS ROG SWIFT 27 144Hz G-SYNC Gaming 3D Monitor [PG278Q]
1 X ASUS VG278HE
Nvidia 3Dvision
Oculus Rift
HTC VIVE
Windows 10

#2
Posted 05/18/2010 05:38 AM   
[quote name='msm903' post='1057541' date='May 17 2010, 10:38 PM']you got above 60fps per eye in your Batman 3d benchmark? I thought 3d vision caped everything at 60 fps per eye to match the 120hz monitor[/quote]

i have no idea if it is per eye. I used the in game benchmark. if i ran the same benchmark in 2d i would get roughly 2x the frames. the usual 40-50 percent performance hit. i do not know how the game calculates the frame rates- im more interested the the difference between a dedicated physx card and without. Wish i could answer your question.
[quote name='msm903' post='1057541' date='May 17 2010, 10:38 PM']you got above 60fps per eye in your Batman 3d benchmark? I thought 3d vision caped everything at 60 fps per eye to match the 120hz monitor



i have no idea if it is per eye. I used the in game benchmark. if i ran the same benchmark in 2d i would get roughly 2x the frames. the usual 40-50 percent performance hit. i do not know how the game calculates the frame rates- im more interested the the difference between a dedicated physx card and without. Wish i could answer your question.

System:

Intel I7 920 overclocked to 4ghz

Asus Rampage Extreme II

2 Ge-force 480 in SLI

GTX 295 PhysX Card

12gb ddr3 2000mhz ram

Intel SSD in RAID 0

BR RW

1000w Sony surround sound

NVIDIA 3D Vision



3d displays tested:



Mitsubishi 65" DLP 3d HDTV (good old 1080p checkerboard since 2007!!!)

Panasonic VT25 (nice 2d but I returned it due to cross talk)

Acer H5360 720p on 130" screen (the best 3d)

23" Acer LCD monitor (horrible cross talk- sold it)

Samsung 65D8000

#3
Posted 05/18/2010 05:49 AM   
Thanks a lot for this well researched topic. Just one question comes to mind: why don't you sell off the 295 and get a 480 instead and run in 3-sli. This would really give you performance gains as sli scales very well on Fermi. As an alternative-if heat is an is- a gtx250 would be more than sufficient for PhysX.
Thanks a lot for this well researched topic. Just one question comes to mind: why don't you sell off the 295 and get a 480 instead and run in 3-sli. This would really give you performance gains as sli scales very well on Fermi. As an alternative-if heat is an is- a gtx250 would be more than sufficient for PhysX.

#4
Posted 05/18/2010 07:40 AM   
[quote name='csaba73' post='1057583' date='May 18 2010, 09:40 AM']Thanks a lot for this well researched topic. Just one question comes to mind: why don't you sell off the 295 and get a 480 instead and run in 3-sli. This would really give you performance gains as sli scales very well on Fermi. As an alternative-if heat is an is- a gtx250 would be more than sufficient for PhysX.[/quote]

Weird, i've tried similair benchmarks with an GTX480 and a GTX285 and on batman there was no improvement. Also i tried the Physx fluid mark which gives me 300 frames on average. With the dedicated ppu i got an 10 frame per sec improvement; thats 3%. Also that was the biggest improvement while testing; just cause, metro 2033 did not show any improvement.

Did my tests on a Core 7i clocked to 3,6 ghz. So the cpu shouldn't be the bottleneck right?
[quote name='csaba73' post='1057583' date='May 18 2010, 09:40 AM']Thanks a lot for this well researched topic. Just one question comes to mind: why don't you sell off the 295 and get a 480 instead and run in 3-sli. This would really give you performance gains as sli scales very well on Fermi. As an alternative-if heat is an is- a gtx250 would be more than sufficient for PhysX.



Weird, i've tried similair benchmarks with an GTX480 and a GTX285 and on batman there was no improvement. Also i tried the Physx fluid mark which gives me 300 frames on average. With the dedicated ppu i got an 10 frame per sec improvement; thats 3%. Also that was the biggest improvement while testing; just cause, metro 2033 did not show any improvement.



Did my tests on a Core 7i clocked to 3,6 ghz. So the cpu shouldn't be the bottleneck right?

#5
Posted 05/18/2010 07:58 AM   
[quote name='bartdesign' post='1057589' date='May 18 2010, 12:58 AM']Weird, i've tried similair benchmarks with an GTX480 and a GTX285 and on batman there was no improvement. Also i tried the Physx fluid mark which gives me 300 frames on average. With the dedicated ppu i got an 10 frame per sec improvement; thats 3%. Also that was the biggest improvement while testing; just cause, metro 2033 did not show any improvement.

Did my tests on a Core 7i clocked to 3,6 ghz. So the cpu shouldn't be the bottleneck right?[/quote]

Its always best to check the obvious stuff first- did you turn vsync off? did you enable the 285 in the control panel as your physX card? it is weird that you see no improvement! i doubt the cpu is bottle-necking a single 480...
[quote name='bartdesign' post='1057589' date='May 18 2010, 12:58 AM']Weird, i've tried similair benchmarks with an GTX480 and a GTX285 and on batman there was no improvement. Also i tried the Physx fluid mark which gives me 300 frames on average. With the dedicated ppu i got an 10 frame per sec improvement; thats 3%. Also that was the biggest improvement while testing; just cause, metro 2033 did not show any improvement.



Did my tests on a Core 7i clocked to 3,6 ghz. So the cpu shouldn't be the bottleneck right?



Its always best to check the obvious stuff first- did you turn vsync off? did you enable the 285 in the control panel as your physX card? it is weird that you see no improvement! i doubt the cpu is bottle-necking a single 480...

System:

Intel I7 920 overclocked to 4ghz

Asus Rampage Extreme II

2 Ge-force 480 in SLI

GTX 295 PhysX Card

12gb ddr3 2000mhz ram

Intel SSD in RAID 0

BR RW

1000w Sony surround sound

NVIDIA 3D Vision



3d displays tested:



Mitsubishi 65" DLP 3d HDTV (good old 1080p checkerboard since 2007!!!)

Panasonic VT25 (nice 2d but I returned it due to cross talk)

Acer H5360 720p on 130" screen (the best 3d)

23" Acer LCD monitor (horrible cross talk- sold it)

Samsung 65D8000

#6
Posted 05/18/2010 11:36 AM   
[quote name='csaba73' post='1057583' date='May 18 2010, 12:40 AM']Thanks a lot for this well researched topic. Just one question comes to mind: why don't you sell off the 295 and get a 480 instead and run in 3-sli. This would really give you performance gains as sli scales very well on Fermi. As an alternative-if heat is an is- a gtx250 would be more than sufficient for PhysX.[/quote]

i have two 295 for sale on the nvidia classified ads- but i have not put allot of effort into selling them. a few low ball offers- but im not desperate- these cards are still super nice and only six months old. Maybe ill build up another pc to install them into.

I would love to get another 480 and you are right- that will give me way more FPS- BUT- i am mainly into 3d gaming at this point- and-way SLI or quad sli has very poor 3d support. i dont see it changing anytime soon with 3d surround and the new 3d tv drivers taking higher priority most likely. i hope they get it sorted, because i dont think 3d surround will run smooth at the visual quality levels i like to game on with the SLI 480- i will really want a tri or quad SLI for the 3d surround. I might just stick with the big screen untill the 3d drivers support-way SLI or the next generation comes out with more computing power.

This was mainly a experiment for the fun of it.

Im thinking ill purchase a 470 whenever my other cards sell. I noticed galaxy has a single slot 470 coming out very soon- this would be much easier to install in my computer.
[quote name='csaba73' post='1057583' date='May 18 2010, 12:40 AM']Thanks a lot for this well researched topic. Just one question comes to mind: why don't you sell off the 295 and get a 480 instead and run in 3-sli. This would really give you performance gains as sli scales very well on Fermi. As an alternative-if heat is an is- a gtx250 would be more than sufficient for PhysX.



i have two 295 for sale on the nvidia classified ads- but i have not put allot of effort into selling them. a few low ball offers- but im not desperate- these cards are still super nice and only six months old. Maybe ill build up another pc to install them into.



I would love to get another 480 and you are right- that will give me way more FPS- BUT- i am mainly into 3d gaming at this point- and-way SLI or quad sli has very poor 3d support. i dont see it changing anytime soon with 3d surround and the new 3d tv drivers taking higher priority most likely. i hope they get it sorted, because i dont think 3d surround will run smooth at the visual quality levels i like to game on with the SLI 480- i will really want a tri or quad SLI for the 3d surround. I might just stick with the big screen untill the 3d drivers support-way SLI or the next generation comes out with more computing power.



This was mainly a experiment for the fun of it.



Im thinking ill purchase a 470 whenever my other cards sell. I noticed galaxy has a single slot 470 coming out very soon- this would be much easier to install in my computer.

System:

Intel I7 920 overclocked to 4ghz

Asus Rampage Extreme II

2 Ge-force 480 in SLI

GTX 295 PhysX Card

12gb ddr3 2000mhz ram

Intel SSD in RAID 0

BR RW

1000w Sony surround sound

NVIDIA 3D Vision



3d displays tested:



Mitsubishi 65" DLP 3d HDTV (good old 1080p checkerboard since 2007!!!)

Panasonic VT25 (nice 2d but I returned it due to cross talk)

Acer H5360 720p on 130" screen (the best 3d)

23" Acer LCD monitor (horrible cross talk- sold it)

Samsung 65D8000

#7
Posted 05/18/2010 11:49 AM   
[quote name='bartdesign' post='1057589' date='May 18 2010, 01:58 AM']Weird, i've tried similair benchmarks with an GTX480 and a GTX285 and on batman there was no improvement. Also i tried the Physx fluid mark which gives me 300 frames on average. With the dedicated ppu i got an 10 frame per sec improvement; thats 3%. Also that was the biggest improvement while testing; just cause, metro 2033 did not show any improvement.

Did my tests on a Core 7i clocked to 3,6 ghz. So the cpu shouldn't be the bottleneck right?[/quote]
Yes your results are quite odd. It "could" be your cpu speed indeed as I am running 4.1 and clearly show an advantage of even using the gts250 but I only got one single gtx 480.


Regards


DanielJoy, thanks a lot for those results!
It seems Batman is indeed harder on physx than Metro or perhaps is the lack of a benchmark indeed.
[quote name='bartdesign' post='1057589' date='May 18 2010, 01:58 AM']Weird, i've tried similair benchmarks with an GTX480 and a GTX285 and on batman there was no improvement. Also i tried the Physx fluid mark which gives me 300 frames on average. With the dedicated ppu i got an 10 frame per sec improvement; thats 3%. Also that was the biggest improvement while testing; just cause, metro 2033 did not show any improvement.



Did my tests on a Core 7i clocked to 3,6 ghz. So the cpu shouldn't be the bottleneck right?

Yes your results are quite odd. It "could" be your cpu speed indeed as I am running 4.1 and clearly show an advantage of even using the gts250 but I only got one single gtx 480.





Regards





DanielJoy, thanks a lot for those results!

It seems Batman is indeed harder on physx than Metro or perhaps is the lack of a benchmark indeed.

*CPU: i7 920 DO @ 4.1Ghz 1.35v HT On*CPU Cooler: Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme*Mobo: Evga X58 SLI / RAM: 12GB Crucial Ballistix Tactical Tracer DDR3 1600 7-7-7-21 1.5v*Video Cards:Tri Sli Evga GTX 660 ti x 2 & MSI GTX 660 ti *Speakers:CBM-170 SE*PSU: Corsair HX1000W*Display: Mitusbishi 60" DLP (3D Vision ) Qnix QX2710 27" 1440P*Case: CoolerMaster HAF X (932 side) *Windows 7 64Bit on Samsung 840 256GB*Others: Roccat Kone XTD | Roccat Alumic | Logitech G15 | *Mobile: Galaxy Note 2

#8
Posted 05/18/2010 12:22 PM   
Thanks for this. Gives us a good performance overview. I am pretty sure that is per eye as I am getting those total frame rates at those settings with 3D vision on and GTX260 sli (not per eye).

My question here is...as a user running overclocked GTX260 SLI that has a mobo with 3 PCI-E slots, am I better to set up a 3 SLI GTX260 or use a GTS250 for Physx?

I assume 3 Way SLI would be better for gaming, but I heard that 3 way SLI drivers are not recommended for 3d vision.

Thoughts?
Thanks for this. Gives us a good performance overview. I am pretty sure that is per eye as I am getting those total frame rates at those settings with 3D vision on and GTX260 sli (not per eye).



My question here is...as a user running overclocked GTX260 SLI that has a mobo with 3 PCI-E slots, am I better to set up a 3 SLI GTX260 or use a GTS250 for Physx?



I assume 3 Way SLI would be better for gaming, but I heard that 3 way SLI drivers are not recommended for 3d vision.



Thoughts?

#9
Posted 05/18/2010 03:18 PM   
DanielJoy

Thanks for the excellent testing!

I think that the magnitude of improvement you see with dedicated Physx hardware in BatmanAA is at least in part because you are stressing the GTX480s by running very high antialiasing.
You would probably get less of a boost from dedicated Phyx if you set antialiasing to 4x or 8x normal. On the other hand you have shown that dedicated Physx can be used to improve image quality while maintaining framerate.


On metro 2033, I get similar fps results to you but using DX10 OR DX11 I have severe microstutter (fps not too bad but interframe times not uniform) even with Physx turned off. So much so that I find it unplayable using dx10 or dx11. Very smooth on dx9. (Even using dx9 high settings and physx off this game is amazing in 3DVision!)
Do you experience microstutter in metro 2033 using DX10 or DX11?

I suspect this is immature SLI profiles for gtx480 architecture. (or SLI + 3DVision?)
I have similar problem in JustCause2, I had better framerates and much smoother experience with 2xGTX285s than 2xGTX480s on same computer.

Thanks again.

[size=1][color="#FFCC00"]MOTHERBOARD: EVGA 780I SLI A2 P-06Bios
CPU: Intel 2 Core Quad QX9650 45nm(OC @ 3.83GHz FSB:1333 @ 1.3200V set in bios)prime95 all day
CPU Cooler: Gigabyte 3D Mercury case with integrated watercooling (cpu only at present)
RAM: 2x2GB OCZ PC8000 SLI (Timing:5-5-5-15-2T@ 2.0V, FSB:DRAM Ratio=2:3)
GRAPHICS: 2X EVGA GTX 480sc(clocks: 769c/1007mem/1538shader, stock heatsink)
HDD1: 2X Western Digital Caviar SATA II 250GB 7200 rpm Raid 0
HDD2: Western Digital Caviar SATA II 500GB 7200 rpm
SOUND: On board
OS: Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit SP2
MONITOR: Dell 3008wfp 30" Native Res: 2560X1600 @ 60Hz, Acer235Hz120Hz-3D
PSU: Thermaltake Toughpower 1000W
CASE: Gigabyte 3D Mercury
3DMARK Vantage: 29,686p Current Display Driver:197.41[/color][/size]
DanielJoy



Thanks for the excellent testing!



I think that the magnitude of improvement you see with dedicated Physx hardware in BatmanAA is at least in part because you are stressing the GTX480s by running very high antialiasing.

You would probably get less of a boost from dedicated Phyx if you set antialiasing to 4x or 8x normal. On the other hand you have shown that dedicated Physx can be used to improve image quality while maintaining framerate.





On metro 2033, I get similar fps results to you but using DX10 OR DX11 I have severe microstutter (fps not too bad but interframe times not uniform) even with Physx turned off. So much so that I find it unplayable using dx10 or dx11. Very smooth on dx9. (Even using dx9 high settings and physx off this game is amazing in 3DVision!)

Do you experience microstutter in metro 2033 using DX10 or DX11?



I suspect this is immature SLI profiles for gtx480 architecture. (or SLI + 3DVision?)

I have similar problem in JustCause2, I had better framerates and much smoother experience with 2xGTX285s than 2xGTX480s on same computer.



Thanks again.



MOTHERBOARD: EVGA 780I SLI A2 P-06Bios

CPU: Intel 2 Core Quad QX9650 45nm(OC @ 3.83GHz FSB:1333 @ 1.3200V set in bios)prime95 all day

CPU Cooler: Gigabyte 3D Mercury case with integrated watercooling (cpu only at present)

RAM: 2x2GB OCZ PC8000 SLI (Timing:5-5-5-15-2T@ 2.0V, FSB:DRAM Ratio=2:3)

GRAPHICS: 2X EVGA GTX 480sc(clocks: 769c/1007mem/1538shader, stock heatsink)

HDD1: 2X Western Digital Caviar SATA II 250GB 7200 rpm Raid 0

HDD2: Western Digital Caviar SATA II 500GB 7200 rpm

SOUND: On board

OS: Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit SP2

MONITOR: Dell 3008wfp 30" Native Res: 2560X1600 @ 60Hz, Acer235Hz120Hz-3D

PSU: Thermaltake Toughpower 1000W

CASE: Gigabyte 3D Mercury

3DMARK Vantage: 29,686p Current Display Driver:197.41

#10
Posted 05/18/2010 04:30 PM   
Haha, thanks for the microstutter remark. Interesting. I very much want to go for 480GTX because iz3d perfomance in 720p should be top dog.
Haha, thanks for the microstutter remark. Interesting. I very much want to go for 480GTX because iz3d perfomance in 720p should be top dog.

#11
Posted 05/18/2010 06:26 PM   
[quote name='DanielJoy' post='1057654' date='May 18 2010, 01:36 PM']Its always best to check the obvious stuff first- did you turn vsync off? did you enable the 285 in the control panel as your physX card? it is weird that you see no improvement! i doubt the cpu is bottle-necking a single 480...[/quote]

I'll have to try turning off the vsync. I selected the card as dedicated PPU in the Nvidia control panel.
[quote name='DanielJoy' post='1057654' date='May 18 2010, 01:36 PM']Its always best to check the obvious stuff first- did you turn vsync off? did you enable the 285 in the control panel as your physX card? it is weird that you see no improvement! i doubt the cpu is bottle-necking a single 480...



I'll have to try turning off the vsync. I selected the card as dedicated PPU in the Nvidia control panel.

#12
Posted 05/18/2010 06:32 PM   
[quote name='disolitude' post='1057743' date='May 18 2010, 08:18 AM']Thanks for this. Gives us a good performance overview. I am pretty sure that is per eye as I am getting those total frame rates at those settings with 3D vision on and GTX260 sli (not per eye).

My question here is...as a user running overclocked GTX260 SLI that has a mobo with 3 PCI-E slots, am I better to set up a 3 SLI GTX260 or use a GTS250 for Physx?

I assume 3 Way SLI would be better for gaming, but I heard that 3 way SLI drivers are not recommended for 3d vision.

Thoughts?[/quote]

three way and quad sli are not supported in 3d. But they do work great in 2d. Its up to you whats the best set up. If you really like 3d- go for the physX card, if mostly 2d go tri. you could swap back and forth between tri, or physX for different games.
[quote name='disolitude' post='1057743' date='May 18 2010, 08:18 AM']Thanks for this. Gives us a good performance overview. I am pretty sure that is per eye as I am getting those total frame rates at those settings with 3D vision on and GTX260 sli (not per eye).



My question here is...as a user running overclocked GTX260 SLI that has a mobo with 3 PCI-E slots, am I better to set up a 3 SLI GTX260 or use a GTS250 for Physx?



I assume 3 Way SLI would be better for gaming, but I heard that 3 way SLI drivers are not recommended for 3d vision.



Thoughts?



three way and quad sli are not supported in 3d. But they do work great in 2d. Its up to you whats the best set up. If you really like 3d- go for the physX card, if mostly 2d go tri. you could swap back and forth between tri, or physX for different games.

System:

Intel I7 920 overclocked to 4ghz

Asus Rampage Extreme II

2 Ge-force 480 in SLI

GTX 295 PhysX Card

12gb ddr3 2000mhz ram

Intel SSD in RAID 0

BR RW

1000w Sony surround sound

NVIDIA 3D Vision



3d displays tested:



Mitsubishi 65" DLP 3d HDTV (good old 1080p checkerboard since 2007!!!)

Panasonic VT25 (nice 2d but I returned it due to cross talk)

Acer H5360 720p on 130" screen (the best 3d)

23" Acer LCD monitor (horrible cross talk- sold it)

Samsung 65D8000

#13
Posted 05/19/2010 06:27 AM   
[quote name='baragon' date='May 18 2010, 09:30 AM' post='1057774']
DanielJoy

Thanks for the excellent testing!

I think that the magnitude of improvement you see with dedicated Physx hardware in BatmanAA is at least in part because you are stressing the GTX480s by running very high antialiasing.
You would probably get less of a boost from dedicated Phyx if you set antialiasing to 4x or 8x normal. On the other hand you have shown that dedicated Physx can be used to improve image quality while maintaining framerate.


On metro 2033, I get similar fps results to you but using DX10 OR DX11 I have severe microstutter (fps not too bad but interframe times not uniform) even with Physx turned off. So much so that I find it unplayable using dx10 or dx11. Very smooth on dx9. (Even using dx9 high settings and physx off this game is amazing in 3DVision!)
Do you experience microstutter in metro 2033 using DX10 or DX11?



[i]Thats really interesting. I do not experience micro-stuttering at all. I used to see this with the quad sli allot- but not on the 480 sli. its probably the early adopter bug.[/i]
[quote name='baragon' date='May 18 2010, 09:30 AM' post='1057774']

DanielJoy



Thanks for the excellent testing!



I think that the magnitude of improvement you see with dedicated Physx hardware in BatmanAA is at least in part because you are stressing the GTX480s by running very high antialiasing.

You would probably get less of a boost from dedicated Phyx if you set antialiasing to 4x or 8x normal. On the other hand you have shown that dedicated Physx can be used to improve image quality while maintaining framerate.





On metro 2033, I get similar fps results to you but using DX10 OR DX11 I have severe microstutter (fps not too bad but interframe times not uniform) even with Physx turned off. So much so that I find it unplayable using dx10 or dx11. Very smooth on dx9. (Even using dx9 high settings and physx off this game is amazing in 3DVision!)

Do you experience microstutter in metro 2033 using DX10 or DX11?







Thats really interesting. I do not experience micro-stuttering at all. I used to see this with the quad sli allot- but not on the 480 sli. its probably the early adopter bug.

System:

Intel I7 920 overclocked to 4ghz

Asus Rampage Extreme II

2 Ge-force 480 in SLI

GTX 295 PhysX Card

12gb ddr3 2000mhz ram

Intel SSD in RAID 0

BR RW

1000w Sony surround sound

NVIDIA 3D Vision



3d displays tested:



Mitsubishi 65" DLP 3d HDTV (good old 1080p checkerboard since 2007!!!)

Panasonic VT25 (nice 2d but I returned it due to cross talk)

Acer H5360 720p on 130" screen (the best 3d)

23" Acer LCD monitor (horrible cross talk- sold it)

Samsung 65D8000

#14
Posted 05/19/2010 06:31 AM   
[quote name='DanielJoy' post='1058078' date='May 18 2010, 11:27 PM']three way and quad sli are not supported in 3d. But they do work great in 2d. Its up to you whats the best set up. If you really like 3d- go for the physX card, if mostly 2d go tri. you could swap back and forth between tri, or physX for different games.[/quote]

How do you know the 256 drivers won't fix the 3D Vision + 3-way/4-way performance? They're supposed to add SLI improvements and extra options. I guess we'll know in a few days, but I really do feel the 197 drivers do not exploit the full capabilities of the GTX 480's and there's more goodies (improvements) around the corner... and I'm not just talking about 3DVS.
[quote name='DanielJoy' post='1058078' date='May 18 2010, 11:27 PM']three way and quad sli are not supported in 3d. But they do work great in 2d. Its up to you whats the best set up. If you really like 3d- go for the physX card, if mostly 2d go tri. you could swap back and forth between tri, or physX for different games.



How do you know the 256 drivers won't fix the 3D Vision + 3-way/4-way performance? They're supposed to add SLI improvements and extra options. I guess we'll know in a few days, but I really do feel the 197 drivers do not exploit the full capabilities of the GTX 480's and there's more goodies (improvements) around the corner... and I'm not just talking about 3DVS.

#15
Posted 05/19/2010 07:39 AM   
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