PPU or GPU 4 physics

PPU or GPU for Physics

  • PPU

    Votes: 5 14.7%

  • GPU

    Votes: 29 85.3%
  • Total voters
    34
GPU definitely. PPU is old (fast all chips produced sept. 2005) and not near fast as modern GPUs.
There is also no guarantee that PPU will support newest GPU optimized features, like APEX, used in latest games
I will no wonder if PPU support will be omitted from newest PhysX SDKs
 
I think it really depends on your configuration.

If you already have an Nvidia GPU then I don't really think it's worth it to get an extra card at all.

If you have an ATI card, the PPU runs along side perfectly without having to install any nvidia video drivers that would cause conflicts in Vista and still seems like asking for trouble in Windows 7.

Also if you already run an SLI/Crossfire setup, you might not have any extra PCIe slots available for an extra videocard. You could get a PCI or PCIe 1x videocard but they tend to carry a price premium for those interfaces and can still be fairly power hungry as well as significantly slower.

The PPU only uses 28 watts and produces very little heat, so it is easy to integrate into just about any system. While it doesn't quite match the level of GPU Physx, it is still significantly faster than PhysX done on the CPU.
 
The original PCI and PCI-E 1x PPU card is the equivalent to a 8500GT 256MB card.

^^ I have to disagree partially if one is using XP or Win 7, as it allows two or more graphics drivers at once.

So this would allow graphics on a HD4870 and physics on a 9800GT, for example.

For Vista however, I do agree. Running a PPU along side of a ATI card is still great.
 
PPU is a way to deal with the imperfect support for GPU physics at this point, OS-wise or other. It is however not a long-term solution :)

I really hope that Win7 is as good with multiple GPU-drivers as rumoured.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top