Computer Upgrade question

Get the 2.7, very little difference in performance and $500 cheaper.
http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html Slow loading.

Use the rest of the $ to get a top card and wait a year to get the DirectX 10 card.

lydhndrxca wrote:

not sure on the motherboard, but ill prolly just get one compatible with what ill need.

This thought is much more important than many of us realise! You keep that in mind and you'll save yourself money and headaches 😀

hmmm, so what graphics card would you suggest to get FSX Wizzing at top settings? (if currently possible) if i decide to go with the the 2.7 radarman mentioned.

lydhndrxca wrote:

hmmm, so what graphics card would you suggest to get FSX Wizzing at top settings? (if currently possible) if i decide to go with the the 2.7 radarman mentioned.

Go to the drop down window and choose what you can spend and which you have a slot for on your motherboard.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/09/26/the_best_gaming_video_cards_for_the_money/

PCIe is better than AGP.

I'm getting this one.
http://graphic-cards.computers.merchanthound.com/items/16310423/Radeon-X1900-XTX-Video-Card

Thanks Radar for that follow up, I may choose to go with Radeon X1900 XT 256MB.

IS it realistic thinking that $1500 (No monitor, printer...ect) can get me a system that will run FSX full detail? Including the above mentioned gfx card?

Hmmm, also assuming i do buy the mentioned 2.7 duo core radar mentioned in an above post. with possibly a 15% - 20% overclock?

Full detail, no! There isn't a computer today that can run it at full detail.
MS always builds the sim to be ahead of the computer hardware, all major "games" do also.

You can get it running beautifully. just check some of the screenshots in the FSX screenshot forum.

You may need a better power supply also.

Well ,it is possible to run FSX on full detail... Nvidia 7950 GX2 in SLI mode with 3GB or ATI X1950XTX in crossfire ,this will probobly have at least 30FPS with everything on max.

Those videocards would cost (in crossfire or in SLI) about 950$

lydhndrxca wrote:

Thanks Radar for that follow up, I may choose to go with Radeon X1900 XT 256MB.

IS it realistic thinking that $1500 (No monitor, printer...ect) can get me a system that will run FSX full detail? Including the above mentioned gfx card?

Hmmm, also assuming i do buy the mentioned 2.7 duo core radar mentioned in an above post. with possibly a 15% - 20% overclock?

im going to be building a new PC for a friend who wants to play FSX so i can provide some hints on what to buy.

here's what i recommend:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 $220 (no need to get the extreme edition, especially if you decide to overclock)
Zalman CNPS9500 Heatsink Fan $48 (the best air cooler available)
2GB DDR2-667 RAM PQI $205 (because 2GB is what FSX wants)
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 Motherboard $143 (the best budget conroe board available)
eVGA 512MB Geforce 7900GTO $254 (underclocked 7900GTX for cheap!)

These prices can be found at www.newegg.com at the time of this post.

That's essentially what you'll need to run FSX at near max detail.. of course it wouldn't hurt to overclock the system and tweak software settings like autogen. No setup right now can run FSX at max detail with 60+ frames per second, but I'll be building that setup for my friend in the next couple weeks so if you decide to wait that long I can provide results..

I like the setup heero884 explained.

However, I wouldnt mind spending extra and getting 2 Radeon® X1600 PRO 512MB PCI Express cards so I can enable crossifre.
(Or 2 x1900 xtx 512 PCIE cards running crossfire)

Assuming I go with the setup heero884 explained, but substituted crossfire (1600 or 1900) instead of the graphics card he listed, and a motherboard that supports crossfire, do you think Id have a good system to run FSX? Also assuming I overclock ?

lydhndrxca wrote:

I like the setup heero884 explained.

However, I wouldnt mind spending extra and getting 2 Radeon® X1600 PRO 512MB PCI Express cards so I can enable crossifre.
(Or 2 x1900 xtx 512 PCIE cards running crossfire)

Assuming I go with the setup heero884 explained, but substituted crossfire (1600 or 1900) instead of the graphics card he listed, and a motherboard that supports crossfire, do you think Id have a good system to run FSX? Also assuming I overclock ?

here's a good reference site for video card comparisons: http://www.tomshardware.com/graphics.html

from what i read, flight simulator x receives minimum (if any) performance gains from using crossfire or sli. my recommendation for you is to buy 1 very good card like the 7900GTO. if you want the best single card money can buy then the x1950xtx is what you want. if you have a idea of how much you want to spend on a video card then perhaps i can make a recommendation.

i forgot to mention that the geforce 8800 series will be released in november and will supposedly debut at $400-500 and will require a 500watt power supply (hint for what PSU to get if you decide to buy one now)

well id spend up to $900 on a video card setup, but that was thinking crossifre. Would it be an advantage to set up 2 x1950xtx in crossfire mode? verses just one x1950xtx?

lydhndrxca wrote:

well id spend up to $900 on a video card setup, but that was thinking crossifre. Would it be an advantage to set up 2 x1950xtx in crossfire mode? verses just one x1950xtx?

in some games crossfire and sli do not make a difference compared to having a single card and i believe flight simulator x is currently one of those games. if you have the cash to burn then i suggest getting a single x1950xt.

now i havent not actually tried running crossfire to determine if it does or does not work, but so far i havent been able to find reports of crossfire or sli improving performance enough to justify buying such a setup.

if you want, you can get a crossfire board and get a single x1950xtx right now and if anyone can clearly show that crossfire improves performance by a good margin then you can add a second x1950xtx to your setup. just be sure to get a good quality PSU because a single x1950xtx by itself is pretty power hungry..

I would get a top brand p/s much larger that that.
With 2 power hungry cards it would have to be at least 750w, I'm buying a 1000w enermax, good for the long run.

https://forum.flyawaysimulation.com/forum/topic/21780/1000w-power-supply/
Don't forget those cards are not DirectX 10 compatible, those cards are not yet on the market.
I plan on getting one or more in a year, too soon after they come out they're too expensive and not proven.