Hello, My video cards is beginning to act up so it's time to think about replacing it. I currently have an ATI Raydeon 9500 Pro (AGP). The CPU is a Pentium 4 3.2Gh, 1 Gig of Ram.My motherboard has an AGP slot but is not PCI express compatable. My budget is about $150 max. Any sugesstions on what card will give me the most bang for my buck?

Hi, display adapter questions would ideally have a mention of the display or resolution in use... If your 9500 was satisfactory for your needs, its sister is the 9600pro or 9600XT. Very cheap and sub 100$ stuff right now. Good luck and kind regards Jaap

Jaap, I'm running it at 1024X768.

Hi Mike, thanks for the indication. If you won't be upping your resolution any time soon and FS is the main concern, a 9600pro or 9600XT will do a great job. :-) FWIW, I once compared a 9600pro/128MB and 9800pro/128MB at various resolutions on 2 absolutely identical FlyTendos: @ 1024x they were 100% on par. Even @ 1280x the 9600 was almost on par with the 9800. However, only 'without weather.' :-) IMHO, upping resolutions often goes paired with getting better hardware and at least in terms of playing games, resolution is key. Hope this adds to thoughts, Mike, and pls feel free if you have further queries. Good luck and kind regards Jaap

Jaap, I really appreciate your insight. What are your feelings about this card? PNY GeForce 6800 GS / 256MB GDDR3 / AGP 8x

Hi Mike, the simple answer: It depends a bit on the CPU and what your goals are. :-) The - hopefully - more differentiated answer: At 1024x and provided you're not into particular FS addons like 3D-Glasses, or don't need Pixelshader3 support for games like Doom3, a 6800 almost certainly is overkill. Besides, @ 1024x a 6600-series should do fine too. HST, I doubt a 6600 will outperform a 9600pro in MSFS at that resolution (incl 'with weather'). Certes, it's good to have an adequate display adapter, but IMHO it's one of those components which often gets heavily overrated for CPU savvy apps like FS. FWIW, I've got a 256MB 6800GT and to be frank, I'm not too impressed @ 1280x. If you want to get a Geforce which doesn't get bogged down with FS' clouds too much (at relatively high settings and > 1024x), it would likely have to be one of the 7800-series. BTW, another reasonably priced replacement which supports PS3 and is available in an AGP-version, is the Radeon X1600-pro. I tested the pro's big brother - a PCI-e 256MB/DDR3 X1600XT - and was positively surprised. Even at 1280x. Since FS scales with multiple components plus multiple 'modes d'usage' it's hard to tell without knowing details. And I guess that even the most demanding bushflyer out there will not be able to make use of an AMD64-FX60... :-) Sorry for rambling on, Mike, nevertheless hope this adds to thoughts. Keep on shootin' if you have further questions! :-) Kind regards Jaap