The PhysX Card

Looking at the pictures it is hard to differentiate it from a low or middle end graphics card. The PPU (Physics processing unit) is a 130nm part measuring 182mm2 and containing 125million transistors.

As well as the onboard PPU, the card also has 128MB of DDR3 memory (Samsung k4j55323qg-bc12) which is connected to a 128bit bus. As the PhysX card requires more power than the PCI slot can provide (30W) there is a female Molex connector located on the board. The heat generated during operation is taken care of by the heatsink and fan; thankfully the fan is near silent and so should not add additional noise to most systems. Finally, the front side of the card has no outputs just a solid PCI bracket cover as the only connection the card needs is to the motherboard.

Here are the calculation specifications direct from AGEIA:
Sphere collision tests: 530 million per second (maximum capability)
Convex collision tests: 530,000 per second (maximum capability)
Peak Instruction Bandwidth: 20 billion per second

NOTE: Our sample was not a retail model and so did not arrive with any bundled components. When buying a branded card you can expect to receive a Molex splitter cable, driver CD, demo CD and in some cases a free copy of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. Additionally AGEIA have a free game available on their website called Cell Factor which is designed to show off some of the effects possible on the PhysX.