660 Ti with a 560 Ti dedicated to PhysX?

So I currently have a PNY GeForce GTX 560 Ti Enthusiast edition and I plan on upgrading to the 660 Ti in the next year or so. I'd rather put my old card to use rather than having it sit to the side collecting dust. So I thought maybe I could use it as dedicated PhysX card? I was wondering if the 560 Ti was powerful enough to boost performance rather than degrade it.

pny gpu 560ti

asked Sep 02 '12 at 19:15

SuperZeoX
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3 Answers:

oldest newest most voted

Of course it would be, any extra power would benefit it, it would take the load of the graphics processing, the 560ti is by no means a weak card

answered Sep 02 '12 at 20:10

Tim Fontana
15.3k●135●199●368

Ik it's not a weak card but sometimes certain dedicated PhysX cards can degrade performance such as FPS

(Sep 02 '12 at 20:23) SuperZeoX

there is no need, even with a low end card, physx only uses a fraction of the GPU's power.

I recommend selling the 560TI then use the money to buy a cheap used GT240 or some other lower powered card that supports physx, then use the rest of the money to save up for your next GPU upgrade.

I tried using my GTX 460 and a GTS 250 as a physx card, and eventually just removed the GTS 250 because it was barely stressing the card and only improved FPS slightly in games that use physx.

Also not many games use physx so most of the time you will have a second card pulling extra power and doing nothing since you cant SLI it.

I may go back to a separate physx when I can find a decent card that support it but does not need a extra PCIe power connector. Don't need a separate card pulling an extra 120 watts for a few extra FPS in arkham city

answered Sep 02 '12 at 23:29

Razor512
15.6k●34●80●242

Well I kinda wanted to keep the 560 Ti just in case. For a back up I guess. And rather having it do nothing why not use it as a dedicated PhysX card? I have a 900W PSU. I'd really rather not sell it until I have absolutely no use for it.

answered Sep 03 '12 at 00:28

SuperZeoX
0●10●11●13

it will work but will be complete overkill for just physx and will increase your electric bill. I cant think of any game that uses physx that the 660TI cant max out with physx and still do 60+ FPS

there is just no benefit

so if you want to use it as a physx card then go ahead but just know that a much lowered power/ slower card can do the job just as well when it comes to physx.

(Sep 03 '12 at 01:28) Razor512

Honestly, the electric bill doesn't matter imo lol. But it will take some stress off of the 660 Ti which will make it last longer right?

(Sep 03 '12 at 01:32) SuperZeoX

the lifespan of modern GPU's are high enough that you will likely replace it with something better long before it ever fails.

(a friend of mine was using a old radeon 4850 for bitcoin mining and had it running 24/7 at 100% load for nearly 2 years, and that is after he has used the card and got tired of it for gaming. (he made enough bitcoin for it to be profitable until a few months ago when the difficulty got too high for the card to generate a bitcoin in a reasonable amount of time.

Anyway, don't be afraid of the lifespan, as long as the card is a good number of degrees below the overheat temperature, then you can run it maxed out for years with no problem.

(Sep 03 '12 at 01:49) Razor512

Ok I'll keep that info in mind. But in the end, the 560 Ti will not cripple performance. Correct me if I am wrong.

(Sep 03 '12 at 01:51) SuperZeoX

nope it wont, it is just overkill for what you want to do with it.

It will improve performance but you will also notice a slightly higher electric bill as a side effect of using it and not something slower but it will not slow you down in any way.

(Sep 05 '12 at 00:16) Razor512

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