Introduction

Some of my best article ideas come from forums. Talking the other day to some people, I mentioned how the GTX 480, while a great card, poses a PhysX related issue if you're using a high resolution monitor; something like a 30" with 2560 x 1600 support. The frame rate drop under games that utilize PhysX at its native resolution is so aggressive that a 30 FPS dip in performance means a game becomes unplayable.

The problem is that you want to get into the new GTX 400 series cards, but you don't want to spend $500 on a GTX 480 and then be disappointed with the performance when PhysX is turned on at really high resolutions. Or maybe a game is only just playable now, meaning future titles could well have trouble.

Going through the ol' NewEgg.com and looking at some USA based For Sale forums, I found out that for about the same price as a GTX 480 you could buy a GTX 470 and a second hand GTX 260 to use as a PhysX card.

Also, because you're going NVIDIA with NVIDIA, you don't have to worry about poor support from drivers since NVIDIA promote this kind of setup.

So, with a GTX 480, GTX 470 and GTX 260 on hand, we show you how $500 can be best spent if PhysX is something that you're really after.