The thing is, turning physx off doesn't show you the max the CPU can do, it shows you the max Nvidia allowed the game designer to run on the CPU.
A modern top end CPU can run a far better physics model than they get credit for, because nvidia seems to demand that all the "physx" type eye candy be disabled if physx is turned off, even the stuff that could run happily on the CPU.
Thank you!
I mean, a CPU could do more than that but Nvidia kinda will disable it on purpose. They are telling us that actually
as good as any PhysX is impossible on CPU, and we could get a 1 million core supercomputer and they will still say the same. People should stay tuned for future CPUs, the Ivy bridge with new transistors and what else... CPUs arnt sleeping. Its however true that on a few games the physX still may own, but its truly just a hand full and for the majority barely worth it, especially when they have no interest in such games (i am RPG gamer so i got little interest into Shooter). Aswell i am not sure how effective the PhysX programming truly is executed, but one thing im sure about: CPU can do more than what they currently do, thats why CPU have almost no impact on games anymore. Only theyr clocks truly matters, architecture is almost wasted, means that most parts of CPU isnt used. Im sure that Intel will build some true monster CPUs while AMD will build a monster Radeon i guess... it kinda looks like. Strong CPUs are currently underused for most games... a overkill to even own them. Any other program will get more gain than a game.
Im not truly a fan of whatelse but at the current condition i rather support AMDs view, because CPU/GPU was always a team in the past and Nvidia slowly is trying to break a highly efficient and powerful team in order to make theyr GPU look superior. But no matter what, they have to work together for a shared standart which can easely be implemented by the devs and which does use CPUs more effective, its not a useless part.
Performance wise in scientific manner, a current SB flagships can handle about 120 GFLOP in double precision, a 7970 will handle around 950 GFLOP in double precision (the current stongest single). However, GPUs used for PhysX arnt usualy high end, and if we try to run it on a single GPU, then the GPU will break down by ~15-30%**, because thats the load the CPU is able to take away. (**Much higher than 15% when GPU is weaker than current Radeon flagship). I get the feeling that it will increase in near future, because its Intel. As long as physics can be run on roughly 100 GFLOPs then it may run without GPU, hard logics and the GPU got more power for rendering. But even more powerful is to share the physics so the CPU is fully utilized and the rest can still be taken over by the GPU, there simply will be a slider which we can adjust how much physics load we want to hand over to CPU, 1 to 100% (in term the CPU is overused it will simply destroy performance, kinda same such as on a overused GPU). Ofc the CPU still got the advantage to be the "jack of all trades" while a GPU is always very hard to adapt to something else, so main focus have to be on how to get the 2 GPUs (Radeon/Geforce) to a shared standart on such terms. Master software is still not on this planet, its somewhere on a unknown planet.
Why a CPU isnt stronger than that? Huge amount of transistors are used for cache (billions!). But we soon come to a point where we dont need so many of it anymore and can instead increase raw computing performance with. But well, a 8 core Ivy Bridge having 3D transistors, i wonder its computing performance. Prehaps 150-200 GFLOP. Some might get dual CPU board, 300-400 GFLOP? Especially for such people a engine which can hand over dutys to CPU is critical. Who knows, but its not weak and its much more adaptive to whatelse. But they will take theyr time and slowly walk up the ladder, and why? Because they can, no competition.
Because its going to much into OT (not truly topic related because to much CPU/gaming talk) i will continue the specific terms on:
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7056694#post7056694