A Closer Look

The card utilizes a blue PCB and all solid state capacitors. There are four memory ICs on the front and none on the back. BFG has opted to put most of the resistors on the back of the device, leaving the front free for the larger capacitors among other things. The solder spots of the PPU itself can clearly be seen on the back of the PCB.


A PhysX card does not require any external connectors, so you will not find anything on the PCI bracket. Anyone looking at a closed system would never know such a card is installed. Maybe adding a single LED and cutout on the PCI bracket with the word "Ageia PhysX" or so, would raise awareness a bit at special events, like a LAN party. Even though the card is roughly as big as a Radeon X800, it does require an external power source in form of a Molex connector. The PCI bus simply cannot deliver enough juice for such cards.


The Ageia PhysX chip does not have a metal heatspreader and thus is susceptible to cracking of the core, when installing the heatsink. This problem is solved by four pads placed around the die itself. The GDDR3 memory used on the BFG card is made by Samsung and runs at 1000 MHz.