Hi.Having watched with dismay as my computer ate lightning 2 weeks ago, I have just been given permission from my bank manager (wife) to replace it. My budget is not unlimited but I still want to buy the best I possibly can for, amongst others, FS9 with PMDG's 737TNG.It's going to be a 3Ghz P4, it's going to have 1Gb RAM, it's going to have a large hard disc and a good monitor. With everything else equal though, am I going to see a significant performance increase on a machine with an 800Mhz front side bus compared to a machine with a 533Mhz bus?Also, how much better than the 128MB GeForce4 FX5200 is the 128MB ATI Radeon 9800? Is it worth paying the exra money?Many thanks,Chris Kirk

>Also, how much better than the 128MB GeForce4 FX5200 is the>128MB ATI Radeon 9800? Is it worth paying the exra money?Search for "9800" or "5900" (on this and the main MSFS forum) - you will find plenty of opinions.Michael J.http://www.reality-xp.com/community/nr/rsc/rxp-higher.jpg

The 5200 is a remake of the Nvidia MX cards. Worst thing available. Only thing it has going for it is it's capable of using some of the DX9 features, but would be a terrible mismatch for the system you have in mind. The 9800 Pro card is a true DX9 card and the fastest one available on the planet. It would be a good match for that system.Copy & paste link to get it to work: http://oldsite.simhq.com/simhq3/sims/board...c;f=98;t=002887 http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.as...susv9950&page=1 The only time the 5900 Ultra beats the ATI9800 is when Nvidia has optimized framerates for particular games by forcing poorer quality graphics. The 9800 Pro walks all over the 5900 Ultra all things being equal and still has much better Image Quality.

One other aside. Make sure your big hard drive spins at 7200 rpm. Do not get one that runs at 5400.

My 40GB runs at 5400rpm. I consider that HD to be way too slow. I only got it because I got an excellent deal on it (15 bucks from the local comp shop, I could not resist LOL). Do NOT do the same mistake I did, because in the long run, you will be sorry you did.

Thanks for your help everyone.HD was going to be 7200 RPM anyway, but thanks for your comments. Anyone any opinions on the FSB speeds?Also I'm really starting to push my budget to the limits here. My old, dead, still smoking PC had 512Mb RDRAM, I was thinking of installing 1Gb DDRAM in my new. Will I suffer much of a performance hit if I reduse that to 512Mb DDRAM?As a further budget reliever, would I notice the difference between a 3.2GHz P4 with Hyper Threading and a 3.0GHz P4 with Hyper Threading?Thanks again,Chris Kirk

3.2 v 3.0?? With the same FSB speed there isn't much difference between them. If I were going to the absolute state of the art today and could afford it, I would get the 3.2/800. If I were reasonable about actual performance versus dollars spent and were upgrading from my present PIII 1Ghz chip I would probably go with the 2.8Ghz, 800Mhz FSB because the difference in price today between the 3.2/800 and the 2.8/800 is $504. That difference alone buys better RAM, a larger HDD, or a better video card, better mobo, or who knows what. In fact, looking at the prices, and the performance I am getting now, if I were to upgrade I might only go with the 2.4/800 and get a $600 savings. The next large jump in Intel chips is not more than 18 to 24 months away and that will be the time to make a major, major upgrade. Video will be more capable (512MB VRAM commonplace like 128 is now), we will have >1Ghz FSB speeds (even 2GHZ maybe?), and the next major chip level is going to be 5GHZ. Also 64bit processing will be commonplace on the desktop. I don't mean available, I mean there will be a good base of meaningful applications written that will genuinely use 64bit capability. We might even be looking at 128bit being reasonably accessible by then. Now, that would be worth upgrading to. As to RAM, only a year or so ago 256MB was plenty. RAM is one of the most important parts of a fast machine. I have 768MB up from 256MB and when I upgraded I noticed a large difference. Personally, I think you should get as much memory as you can afford because the best way to enhance machine processing speed and to limit page access. Of course all upgrade questions are contingent on whether or not you are the victim of the "mine's bigger than yours" syndrome. If you want better performance then upgrade in a meaningful way - double your processing speed, double your RAM, and so on). If you want to be bigger and faster than the other guy because he is bigger and faster than you, get out of the game. You will never win this kind of race because it is unwinnable. Even if you have unlimited money there will always be someone who will outperform you unless you upgrade every 12 hours or so...

>The 5200 is a remake of the Nvidia MX cards. Worst thing>available. Only thing it has going for it is it's capable of>using some of the DX9 features, but would be a terrible>mismatch for the system you have in mind. >>The 9800 Pro card is a true DX9 card and the fastest one>available on the planet. It would be a good match for that>system.>>Copy & paste link to get it to work:> http://oldsite.simhq.com/simhq3/sims/board...c;f=98;t=002887>>> http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.as...susv9950&page=1>>>The only time the 5900 Ultra beats the ATI9800 is when Nvidia>has optimized framerates for particular games by forcing>poorer quality graphics. The 9800 Pro walks all over the 5900>Ultra all things being equal and still has much better Image>Quality.That is pure crap, you might as well say the FX5900 walks all over the 9800P-256mb card!http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/200307...d_guide-16.htmlDont forget to look at all the benchmarks for D3D games while your there. :)The fact is Both cards are very good and very fast, there are plenty of games and benchmarks that show either of these great cards out on top, to say what you have said has labeled yourself as an NVidiot type and I wouldn't consider it any help to anyone to post such nonsense for others to make a purchasing decision on!It would be better help for you to post what you DO know about your card, its good as well as its bad if you are really trying to help someone here rather than try to make yourself feel good or what ever it is that drives you to give a low rating to hardware that you niether have and no doubt have never seen perform.If you need info on quality issues of both of these cards go here:http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...g_id=6141&page=

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NTAz Also; from one of the posts in the link I posted above:(who's observations are right on the money)________________________________________________________________""In any of the tests where the 'popular' games are benchmarked ie. UT2003, Quake3 etc the FX5900 beats the ATI 9800 by quite a large margin. When less popular games are used the ATI wins every test, draw your own conlusions to these results but it is simply not possible for a card to have a 20-25% speed advantage over a rival card in some games but fall to 10% behind in others. If a card is faster it should logically be faster across the board, IMHO Nvidia are optimizing their cards for 'popular' games by forcing the card to use less IQ even when you specify otherwise,I have seen how the Nvidia FX FSAA looks at its highest settings and it is not as good as the ATI 9700pro at 2x FSAA, I am talking from experience not going by biased opinions from a really excited user.I know the FX5900 and the ATI 9800 pro are very fast cards and I would love to own either one but they are not worth $500, I own a 9700pro 128Mb and I can run any game at a good reolution at full detail without any slow down whatsoever. IMHO if you own a fast graphics card and you can get full detail at good FPS then save your money.""__________________________________________________________________

Well, there it is! :-lol"I have seen how the Nvidia FX FSAA looks at its highest settings and it is not as good as the ATI 9700pro at 2x FSAA, I am talking from experience not going by biased opinions from a really excited user."Though the ATI card uses suppior AA, That is just very silly. :-lolAny time you want to compare results of NV's 4xs to ATI2xAA or 4xAA I would be happy too even with my GF4TI card, I have the same testing tools that Mr. (Rant) Bennet uses but it would be preferred to use FS:http://www.frontiernet.net/~pleatzaw/images/Corel525.jpgKeeping in mind that ATI use of AA is in fact superior to NV's, keep also in mind when viewing those and all benchmarks that the NV is actually using AA for the whole scene that

tgabriel,Thanks for your informative comments. I'll certainly take them on board when making my final purchase decision, bearing in mind that this is not a system upgrade but a whole new system! Would love to wait 12/24 months, but since I dont currently have a machine much more capable than for forum browsing that is not an option.Thanks also to everyone else who posted their help,Chris Kirk

>Sorry, that I am not interested in UT results,Neither am I.Lets do the ATI/NV comparison side by side with high-res images of identical scenes. Otherwise it is all meaningless mambo-jambo talk to many of us. Michael J.

>>Sorry, that I am not interested in UT results,>>Neither am I.>Lets do the ATI/NV comparison side by side with high-res>images of identical scenes. Otherwise it is all meaningless>mambo-jambo talk to many of us. >>Michael J.Good suggestion Michael.This would work for any question as to how "poor" the NVs use of AA is as compared to superior AA settings.One thing that a screen shot cant demonstrate is the fully stable fully AA filtered scene that the NV5900-Ultra can put out at 4xAA compared to the limmited use but of higher quality AA being employed by the ATI card when viewed side by side in game play, same for AF but not nearly as noticable. These two issues are all that has kept me from purchasing the 9800P, I came very close just a few weeks ago while I was debaiting this very topic as I had the chance to get a slightly used Saphire 9800P-128mb for $200, even at $300 it is hard not to want one, but for me it just keeps coming back to the image quality issue, I feel that the ATI would be a compromise though it sure is a bargain in light of NV's outrageous price on the NV. Prices are however dropping and the 5900-refresh is already tapped out and we should see testing in a month or so, I just don't know how much longer I will wait.