TweakTown takes a look at AGEIA PhysX and Ghost Recon:

Finally we leave thinking about the performance hit that has been spoken about a lot. There is no doubt that the AGEIA card in GRAW does impact performance - the VGA card has to render more detail due to the AGEIA card. Losses as high as 20 frames per second have been spoken about but with that said, the Radeon X1900XTX at 2560 x 1600 didn't give us any major loss of FPS that affected our game play. The other thing is the PhysX in GRAW feels as it's been kind of taped on and not written from the ground up. When we get a chance to look at the card again we will try Cell Factor which is designed around the AGEIA technology to see just how it performs. This will give us a better indication of how future games will perform with this technology as it matures.

Ed.note: Wait for games like UT2007 and Quake Wars, right now it's useless unless you REALLY REALLY want one!

In other news, PCPerspective also reviewed the BFG PhysX PPU. Overall an interesting review, the PhysX actually decreased performance across the board during testing, sometimes with large performance hits that dipped frame rates into the mid-20s. There is supposed to be a new driver out that cures the frame rate issues though, due to time constraints, the card was not retested with the new drivers yet.

It's clear that the performance on the PhysX system is lower than that on the standard system. However, you are getting better visual quality and more realistic effects at the same time, without a bigger burden on your CPU. Would the CPU be able to handle these additional artifacts on its own without undue stress? At this early in the PhysX PPU stage, maybe, but that should change soon in other titles coming out this year.