how nice of a PHYSX card should I buy

Honestly you will lose performance with a PhysX card. There was a thread posted here on OCN showing a dedicated card for physX and no dedicated card. You lose about 5fps with a dedicated card.

I wouldn't buy a PhysX card. If you have an old NVIDIA lying around, great. Otherwise, actually spending money on it for the two to three PhysX games you'll probably play won't be worth it.

To answer your question though, I would get at least a 9800GT.

You can lose performance with a slow PhysX card- Such as an 8600GT/8500/8400/9400 or anything under 100~ shaders.

With that budget, you may be able to get an 8800GT/X or something similar. I would personally save my money and just get another 460.

PhysX cards only reduce performance when they're not powerful enough to keep up. You might notice smoother gameplay with something like a GTS 450/550 Ti. But getting a dedicated card for just that is a waste IMO, if anything, fold on it while not gaming.

Forgot to add this to my original post:

With a fast enough dedicated PhysX card, and with the PhysX setting high enough, you can *le gasp*

GAIN PERFORMANCE?!?!?!

As opposed to a single card.

8800/9800/250

Anything above that is overkill.

250 or above..anything below is a just a waste of time and money...

FYI: The better the physx card the better performance overall..
Mafia 2 gets best FPS boost when you use a 260 as physx.. I use my 460 as physx with my 480's.

the higher end the card, the better card you need for physx or you end up losing performance.. eg...you just dont use a 8600GT or a 9800GT for dedicated physx with a 580 SLi setup ...

Quote:

Originally Posted by munaim1;13016006
would an 8800gts (atm collecting dusts) as physx card be worth it or would it be a bad idea??

EDIT: sorry didn't mean to hijack, but this thread just reminded me that I have a 8800gts laying about somewhere.

Click to expand...

It would be good.

Quote:

Originally Posted by munaim1;13016006
would an 8800gts (atm collecting dusts) as physx card be worth it or would it be a bad idea??

EDIT: sorry didn't mean to hijack, but this thread just reminded me that I have a 8800gts laying about somewhere.

Click to expand...

Yes, your 8800GTS will help as a dedicated Physx card to your main GTX460, regardless whether yours is the 512MB version (with 128 shaders) or the 320/640 MB version (with 96 shaders).

See the chart below showing a framerate gain when a GTX480 is assisted by a GT240 (with 96 shaders) doing Mafia II at your resolution of 1920x1080.

Quote:

Originally Posted by (mirror)52-D.S.L.;13001922
seriously? that is a bold claim with no:gotproof:

Click to expand...

Proof sir:

http://www.overclock.net/nvidia/914370-physx-benchmarking-thread.html

And also:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbww3dhzK0M[/ame]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrwalker;13015976
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbww3dhzK0M

Click to expand...

simply fantastic. perfectly explained.

thank you very much

I'd rather SLI that 460 instead of buying a dedicated PhysX card so it helps both ways incase the game doesn't support PhysX, this or simply just upgrade your card. But SLI is always the cheaper/more performance route.