PPU vs GPU vs CPU

What happened when we plugged in our trusty PCI BFG PhysX PPU card? Despite its age, the PPU performs quite well in Mirror’s Edge:

Mirror’s Edge – Direct3D

Notes

The Radeon 4800 GPUs saw a nice performance boost with the PPU handling PhysX effects, but still can’t catch up to the GeForce GPUs when they’re also paired up with BFG’s PPU card. The Radeon 4870+PPU combo finished behind the GeForce GTX 260+PPU combo by 7%. Meanwhile, the Radeon 4850+PPU setup ran 13% slower than the 9800 GTX+ PPU rig. Fortunately for ATI the margins are slimmer at 1600x1200, where the PhysX effects themselves are more of a bottleneck.