Hello I had a short nap but I am wide awake now. I will make a few replies even though some of them are open based questions.
Computer on right is data server. Data server still has a gtx580 in it and a mid range i5, so if not put off by small screen or want to play in the sun room I use data server. But it streams data to the gaming computer which is also the media room. I know that sounds fancy but media room is also my gaming room / office / computer stockpile.
Which brings me to my second reply can you has my stuff? I do have a few spare i5's, gtx 570, gtx 580 a few sdd's and some older quad setup stuff if you live near Melbourne. (lol most of those parts in that pic are now my stockpile of spare parts)
Ok third reply, the MSI 580 3GB LE is big black card with blue fans, I remember this because I think it is using what MSI call twin frozor cooling which has inbuilt vapor chamber and delta fans that will explode your hand.
Oh yeah to my point. the 3gb version is one of those area's where you have to sorta go ehhh was that the right choice. It is actualy a slower memory then 1.5gb versions so in order to see performance gains you need huge resolutions and massive texture cache investments. The honest truth is not many people see use past 1.5gb making this card perhaps futureproof yet slower then its cheaper counterpart.
Oh yeah.. physx. Purchased by nvidia back when that company kinda didn't go so well ^^*. Phyics calculations are what they sound, math. If you have ever researched the differences between a gpu vs cpu you should know the two are very different and very good at different kind of things. It is a bit strange that people don't really realise how advanced the GPU is. In the multi core mutli thread department overall computational capability the GPU is a technological marvel it more then wipes the floor of the cpu with sheer computing power. Therefore the GPU is one hell of a calculater making it preferable that you designate it to handle Physx and not your CPU.
Why arn't cpu's gpu's if they are so amazing? It has been a while since I thought about this but I believe it is because CPU's arn't really amazing due to the hardware capabilities but due to the instruction sets that control them. This instruction set allows them to handle a very very wide arrange of jobs and do it with fantastic efficiency without skipping a beat due to something similar to the principle of IRQ priority instruction calls.
Where as the GPU is very niche specific in what they are designed to do. The gpu doesn't have this well developed instruction set as it is more like open source calculator able to be utilised by anything that wants too. But the instruction set of the GPU is limited making it difficult to get it to do anything more exotic then what 1+1=. But I believe in future they will merge to be one and the same, I mean the cpu's instruction set and super effecient single thread capability makes it amazing for things such as video compiling. In the future they will have more synergy in the role they share ^^*
Sorry I ramble, so yeah nvidia has allowed us thanks to the old physx company to send these calculations to the gpu's. Do it, they are better at it. If you have sli or tri sli it will send the job to the second / third card. You will need cpu overhead for not bottlenecking the rest of the computer :)
Final reply, a game that is more CPU intensive is a game with a "game engine" that has been optimised for post rendering calculation. Basically the game engine is taxing the CPU because statistically it has been proven people on average have a higher quality CPU then they do GPU, most "off shelf computer" will have average cpu but rather lacking gpu. This is done under the basis that cpu's performance range is more narrow then a video card's from a buying perspective.
You have to choose to have a nice video card where as the average pc you buy now will have some low range I5 that will be perfectly fine. but a low range video card is..... hmmm how to put this. Its a quality / value thing. Cpu is more bang for current buck because it has evolved less often then the GPU driven by gaming market.
Crappy/average gpu = noticeably crappy :D
Crappy/average cpu = ehhh not really all that bad these days ;)
Also to further back this decision It may not seem so, but a game that taxes CPU for post gpu rendering calcs will often yield higher FPS for lower spec systems. Average gpu will likely still recieve a fair bit of load, but the reduced depency on gpu yields better results for older system ^^*
Here are some example situations:
Game = Cpu taxing
System = average cpu + average gpu
Result = better fps then if it was a gpu taxing game.
Another game that is known for high cpu usage is world of warcraft, and I think pre lich king you could run that on a 486.
swtor hero engine is a poorly optimised for cpu, works gpu's for poor fps results.
Again ty for letting me ramble ^^* It has kept me distracted that it is so close to Beta :)
Have a nice time.
Edited by:
Jemila
about 1 year ago