New Build --ready for physics???

[ATIonion]

Hey guys... im needing a little bit of help...

Soon i will close a deal for my company that will result in a large paycheck for me....bad news is, i wont get this check till mid December or so....however i am planning a new build...

Im not yet ready to decide on cpu or mobo, but i am interested in "physics" for graphics cards....Now i have good knowledge with pcs, but i sure dont know everything....I keep seeing more and more articles about physics cards, but i dont know what is needed, who makes them (if the exist) or anything about them...I see that some mobos are coming with 3 pcix slots..assuming the third runs at 8x and is for "physics" of some sort.....


Anyone who can lead me the right direction or tell me more about this, it would be a huge help for me......

Anyone one else who is interested, i plan on setting aside about $2,000 out of my paycheck to go into my pc needs...this will include a large digital lcd 24"-34", so i imagine i'll have around $1,100-$1,500 left to spend on the actuall system....as i get this case constructed i will post some pics...im not gonna say much about this case but i think if i build it right, it'll be a real different approach to case building and modding.....we shall see...

 

[DaMulta]

The third for ATi is x16 and it supports a x1600 or higher for physics.

 

[ATIonion]

The third for ATi is x16 and it supports a x1600 or higher for physics.

does that have to be a physics card or just any x1600 or higher...

like 2 x1900pro in xfire with a x1650pro for physics??

 

[DaMulta]

yep, that's how it works.


They are using video cards for a physic card.

 

[ATIonion]

sweet...but it is a lot to think about...with dx10 on the brink, i guess i should just plan the most flexible system i can in hope that ati will have dx10 cards out when im ready to buy....physics would be really cool, if and when more games can use it...but i wont shell out mad $$ for dx9...

of course the end result for me is $2000 just isnt enough...my wife is gonna kill me sometime in December....lol...

 

[DaMulta]

That's the cool thing if you bought a shinny new DX9 video card its not going to waste because you can use it for DX10 ATi physics.

 

[ATIonion]

That's the cool thing if you bought a shinny new DX9 video card its not going to waste because you can use it for DX10 ATi physics.

WOW!! is it me or this year has ATI really thought of everything?? hope you aint bulllllschitttten...lol

i'll get me a x1900 series then and use if for the physics when dx10 is ready...nice....thanks for the info man...

 

[DaMulta]

LINK

By Charlie Demerjian in Taipei:

TO THE SURPRISE of absolutely no one, ATI launched some fancy physics on its GPU technology today. Now we know what that third slot they ordered mobo makers to produce is for. Marketing terminology aside, they are supporting Havok with the Havok FX physics on the GPU API. If the numbers they showed today hold up to public scrutiny, ATI may be a day late, but they don't look to be a dollar short.

Under the banner of 'Boundless Gaming' with a fiddler crab pining for Ruby as a mascot, ATI has some compelling points to make with today's launch. First, it was an Intel/ATI launch, and the focus was Conroe and X1900, but there will be an AMD version coming soon enough. With the games that utilize it 6+ months away, it is not a big deal, just PR. ATI showed off asymmetric cards running physics on both Intel and ATI chipsets.

In press briefings, you generally expect a best case to be shown by the presenter, not untruths, but selective numbers. In this case, ATI showed off numbers where the a lowly RV530 absolutely spanked a G70 and G71 for physics. When you look at the performance relative to a R520 or R580, it gets even more abusive. The numbers ranged from a worst case where RV530 was 'only' 4x faster than G70 to a best where R580 spanked the G70 by 15x. They also went on to show the X1600XT as 2x faster than Ageia, and the X1900XTX being 9x faster. Whatever the numbers, they can put up a demo with a lot of rocks rolling down a hill

Big grain of salt time, there is no game that runs across Havok and PhysX right now, so any numbers appear to be theoretical. Same with games that run physics across NV and ATI hardware. Because there are enough asterisks to fill a phone book, I will reserve judgment until I can get my hands on all three, and there are hard, real-world numbers out there. It looks good, but......

Where ATI does have a clear lead is the asymmetry. You could run a game with 3 X1900XTXs, and I am sure ATI stockholders would appreciate that, as would power companies, but you don't have to. You can plug in anything from an X1600 series GPU on up, mix and match. If you have a trust fund, go for the gold, otherwise, pick what makes sense for you. X1300 CPUs will work, but by the time the games come out, X1600 will be the bottom of the barrel, so the X1300 line is not really worth bothering with.

So, lets assume ATI does indeed thump NV on the same API. Why? The slides that ATI showed credits the branch prediction hardware. If an instruction stream has a branch, ATI can process it with no overhead. The resulting op after the branch takes whatever it takes. The 'green' architecture as they call it is shown to have a 6 clock overhead. Any instruction has it's latency plus 6, leading to a lot slower execution.

Whatever the case, ATI is in the game again, and is in it long before anything that needs GPU physics is. When the software catches up, it will be game on for real. At that point, and only then, will we see who really is the big dog, until then, it is all slideware. µ

From what I have heard it will work with a DX10 card, I will see if I can find out anything eles about it.

 

[ATIonion]

im getting more and more interested in this now...at first i was just thinking about the possibility, but now it seems that this will become a reality....

this is so unlike me but i will have the extra cash to do it...usually i buy what ever is being replaced...last year i bought an x850pro for $150 (cheap then) and recently bought a x1800gto $189 (still cheap to date) i was thinking of going towards the x19xx line but was worried about dx10...if this happens then i can buy the x19xx and be lucky in using it in the future for physics....

i just wish the mobos i have found had that 3rd slot at 16x.....only ones i find are at 8x....this promises to be fun for sure....

DaMulta thanks for your help researchen info for me....i know more in 3 posts then i did last night....

 

[Chewy]

woo so if I got a 2pci-e slot mobo, I could use my 1900gt rev1 for physics and a new r600 for grafics :O :-(.. maybe I can upgrade my mobo and get them to charge me extra if this is the case.

is this the case?

 

[ATIonion]

oh how i wish it were December already....


ya know im surprised they havent pushed the idea a little more...i know its not ready yet...but alot of people are not buying cards because they are waiting on Dx10 cards, this kind of solves that problem...you wont feel like you are throwing money away on old product....

if this works out....i will be one happy Onion

 

[Old Bear]

Was looking around to find out does this "asimetric" crossfire works, ATI have text on ... pages, so I just scrol to end & it seems that in crossfire 1 does pixels & 2nd physics, or with 3 cards you get 2 in crossfireing pixels & 3rd calculating vectors etc. So i will keep my 1800 for physics, on spring ( I hope)! If survive 3Dwife07 test.
Chewy, was hoping for something like that for me but think it's not going to work. Why? Would be TO GOOD! If runing 2 cards they have to be the same, only the 3rd can be different.
If you ppl find out fresh informations (this is from two weeks ago), pls share them with others. I hope they make it work way that we like! They wont but ...

 

[ATIonion]

( I hope)! If survive 3Dwife07 test.

lmao

 

[Slater]

Chewy, was hoping for something like that for me but think it's not going to work. Why? Would be TO GOOD! If runing 2 cards they have to be the same, only the 3rd can be different.
If you ppl find out fresh informations (this is from two weeks ago), pls share them with others. I hope they make it work way that we like! They wont but ...

From what I hear they don't have to be the same, even if using only 2 cards.

 

[tkpenalty]

I might just have to scrape out some plastic on my PCI-E 4x slot then its time for X1650 x3 ness.