PhysX moving to PCI-E

[Syn.]

http://www.hardocp.com/news.html?new...xobmV3cywsLDE=

For all those folks that said if it was PCI-E that they would buy it

However it seems OEM's first before it really goes retail, but hey its going on PCI-E.



EDIT: Article was removed fron hOCP, it was basically an update containing latest slides that Ageia sent them, it would seem they where published too soon. The slides didnt contain that much exciting info except the fact that under Future Updates it says that PCI-E will provide a much easier upgrade path and better performance meaning PhysX is coming to PCI-E.

[[XC] Lead Head]

Weird, in a magazine I have, they were talking about the physx card before its first release, the prototype PCB they showed had both PCI-Ex1 and PCI interface, one on the bottom and one on the top...Dunno why they didnt just go with that

[nn_step]

About ing time. As soon as it hits retail, I'll buy one. no more of that PCI bull

[3NZ0]

i smell faster hardware....
this might actually kick off..will wait for the big physics fight.

[BeyondSciFi]

This can only mean good news for the consumer. Even if AGEIA loses the battle, hardware physics are here to stay (I hope).

[Kunaak]

if they move to PCI-EX and 256 bit, so as to not bottleneck a SLI and Crossfire set up, they may have a shot at lasting awhile... since both ATI and Nvidia seem to be teaming up to kill the Ageia company.

[AzraelDarkangel]

Plus more and more mobos showing up with 3 PCI-E slots including the Bad Axes.

[Shpoon]

Hear that creative? HEAR THAT?

[XSAlliN]

Single slot of PCI-E is near end whit this news.

[Syn.]

ok the article on the HardOCP has vanished. I checked my temp files and i cant find the 1160503340Q8turlbD2P_1_7_l.jpg

[mesyn191]

How many PCIe lanes did the card have? If its just x1 I wouldn't go expecting any significant improvement in performance over the PCI version...

Did they update the PPU itself at all (faster clockspeed? more/faster RAM? etc.) or is it the same as the version that is currently selling just with a PCIe bus?

[Revv23]

who cares.

I mean ive been hearing about this card for two years and still not one game supports it.

sure UT3 and sutff, but we havent even seen a demo of that yet.

sorry for my rant, im just bored with it.

[Syn.]

who cares.

I mean ive been hearing about this card for two years and still not one game supports it.

sure UT3 and sutff, but we havent even seen a demo of that yet.

sorry for my rant, im just bored with it.

your right so far no game really supports it, GRAW is just marketing thing that they really should not have done. But that dosnt mean that its not worth the wait.

[perkam]

<$100 and PCI-E...and I'd consider one.

Perkam

[Mikesta]

What really disappoints me is that apparently the physics processing this card does isn't true physics.

Quoting F@H's Vijay Pande;

We've checked it out and it doesn't look like it will be useful for us (at least in the current incarnation). Also, even if they did support our types of calculations,
what they mean by "physics" is fairly different than what we'd call. It's probably
closer to "physics inspired." For games, it's perfect, for simulations, it might need
to be more realistic (at least for our needs).

If it was more 'realistic' and could do other things like F@H or even accelerate/help out with Physics simulations/calc's in CAD like a programs (as well as more advanced) then it would be super-sweet.

To get this it really has to be PCI-e and also under $120. More games need to use it also otherwise

[crodan85]

Now have they redesigned the chip or are they going to use a pci-pcie bridge.

[Syn.]

Now have they redesigned the chip or are they going to use a pci-pcie bridge.

good question

[Fr3ak]

I still dont think Ageia physics will be on the market long enough, no matter if the card is PCI or PCI-E.
Why?
Ati and Nvidia are developing great solutions for physics calculations.
Being able to use an "old" sm3 card for physics calculations is a much better attempt in my eyes. So you finally have decent use of your "old" gfx card when buying a new one. There is not much information out yet, but I have read and assume its true that you will be able to use a SLi setup for graphics and physics. If a scence has to calculate lots of physics, 1 card will do graphics the other one physics.
That sounds much better than a 250$ physics card, that consumes a lot of power even while being in idle (and it will idle a lot ).

Furthermore we have dual cores and soon quadcores. Sure, it needs highly parallel calculations for physics. And thats exactly what video cards are made for.
I would rather spend 250$ in a vid card, that can be used as video card and physics card than spending the same amount on a dedicated physics card, that is only supported by a couple of games.

[XSAlliN]

<$100 and PCI-E...and I'd consider one.

Me 2

I still dont think Ageia physics will be on the market long enough, no matter if the card is PCI or PCI-E.
Why?
Ati and Nvidia are developing great solutions for physics calculations.
Being able to use an "old" sm3 card for physics calculations is a much better attempt in my eyes. So you finally have decent use of your "old" gfx card when buying a new one. There is not much information out yet, but I have read and assume its true that you will be able to use a SLi setup for graphics and physics. If a scence has to calculate lots of physics, 1 card will do graphics the other one physics.
That sounds much better than a 250$ physics card, that consumes a lot of power even while being in idle (and it will idle a lot ).

Furthermore we have dual cores and soon quadcores. Sure, it needs highly parallel calculations for physics. And thats exactly what video cards are made for.
I would rather spend 250$ in a vid card, that can be used as video card and physics card than spending the same amount on a dedicated physics card, that is only supported by a couple of games.

Not sure about that, let me give you an example: "Sound Cards" - most of us have pretty good onboard cards but an extra card whit it's own chipset makes some diference, the story might be the same whit Ageia.

[ocmyface]

but thats becuase we can remove the burden of sound processing from the cpu which is generally the bottle neck of the system before the gfx card is. so making the cpu do all its cpu stuff AND sound just bottle necks your FPS even more.

GPUs are incredibly powerful and by allowing them to do the heavy physics calculations then the card supposedly wont be needed. besides, the GPU physics does actual physics calculations as opposed to ageia's ohh aah shiny physics. affect versus effect

[Revv23]

Now have they redesigned the chip or are they going to use a pci-pcie bridge.

the original cards had PCI-E slots on them, so i assume this is just a new PCB.

[grimREEFER]

any comment from asus or bfg?

[Nanometer]

who cares.

I mean ive been hearing about this card for two years and still not one game supports it.

sure UT3 and sutff, but we havent even seen a demo of that yet.

sorry for my rant, im just bored with it.

Which is why I could care less that it is coming to PCI-E. Until I see 1/3 of games seeing a big benefit, this piece of hardware is still a pile of crap in my book.

[eXceeded]

KillerNIC IMO has much more potential since it has its own onboard OS (which can run AV, Firewall from what I've read )

[grimREEFER]

$195 for the bfg ppu at newegg(pci)
not bad, comes with lifetime warranty too