Graphics Second Nvidea card for PhysX

Hi all, hope you all can help.

Have just bought myself a XFX HD570 to replace my GTX XFX260.

I hear you can have a separate card to do all your physics calculation, ie Physx, correct me if i'm wrong there is a good chance of this.Is it possible to insert my old GTX260 and use it for PhysX, and if possible what issue will i face(knowing that Nvidia and Ati do not like it each other).

I have a motherboard that has 2 PCI-e slots, however when the second is used then both are reduced down to 8 lanes, instead of the usual 16. Will this cause problems or in turn will this make my graphics experience less.

Still would love to know as i am gearing up for a major upgrade, MOB, CPU and Memory.

Let me know if you need to know anything at all, ill assume that you need to now my OS, and this is Windows 7 64bit.

cheers for the help in advance!

PS sorry about the spelling of the title!

 

this guy took the time to compile some numbers on pcie 8x and 16x.. has pcie 1 and 2 numbers in there- course most reviews looking to sell hardware will make up their own magic numbers and try to get you to believe otherwise

if your running pcie 2 @8x there's no bottleneck

http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/16x-pci-e-vs-8x-pci-e-crossfire-sli-answer-33367/

 

Read this which links to this

 

Cheers guys, looks like i will give it a go.

Do you think it will be worth it?

 

Is it true that the card would only be used as some sort of key and not even be used?

Also thehippoz that link does not work.

 

ah they must have took it down =E pcie 1 @16x == pcie 2 @8x

the bandwidth numbers showed current cards weren't struggling on either one.. pcie 2@16x will probably be fine for awhile

 

You may want to get the latest driver patch from ngohq here (v1.04ff).
This allows you to use more up to date physx and the currently latest nvidia drivers.
Using the above patch on my own pc, works just fine with my 5870 + 9600gt

 

what PSU do you have?, remember you will need more power to get both cards to work properly

 

Running in x8 instead of x16 has proven to show only a small performance hindrance(if at all). That should not be a big issue. Using the GTX260 for physx is a good idea for you since you already have the 260 at hand. I personally use a 9600GSO 768MB for physx along side my 5870 and it does fine, and your 260 will be able to handle any physx calculations thrown its way. IMO it is worth it for you. The only bad part is it is kind of a pain to initially set up, since you have to get special drivers that allow the use of an Nvidia GPU when an ATI GPU is present. Current Nvidia Drivers do not allow this.