Ok Kurt, thanks for the explanation. I guess I missed the *warning*. Good enough - as long as I know what you are trying to do I am satisfied.And many thanks for including the FS2004 in your benchmarks.Michael J.http://www.reality-xp.com/community/nr/rsc/rxp-higher.jpg

Par is bang, as usual. The only reason I'm going for the lower-speed processor is because I have been offered a nice new watercooling system which the present owner doesn't want (water+electronics = doesn't mix, he say. I say: wash keyboard in sink with warm soapy water and hang on line to dry. Works every time!) I want to save a few bucks on the lower clocked processor so that if I do fry it I can at least persuade the Significant Other that things could have been worse... ;-)Allcott

Mmmm 16 pipes @ 520 MHz....Looks like ATI's approach of using raw power rather than lots of features works once again.Seriously, how many really needed the "DirectX 9+ (sic)" features of the NV3x series? My 9700 Pro did fine even with 25 million transistors less than NV30/35.There was never a game that didn't work or even looked worse than on the NV3x. In fact, they often looked better because Nvidia had to switch to 16-bit precision to keep up...Temporal AA is probably quite useless for FS because of the low framerates you typically see. It needs 60+ FPS to look decent. Also, it's not an X800-specific feature at all. It can be enabled on the R3xx series with by editing the registry :) Still, 6X AA on the Radeons looks as good as 8X on the Geforce, but comes at a much smaller performance hit, so for image quality, the Radeons have a small advantage.The high-end models are overpriced at $499, but I don't upgrade very often nowadays so I think I'll go for the X800XT later this summer. Teamed with an Athlon64 CPU and some good RAM, FS2004 should really "fly".BTW I noticed the X800XT and the Pro version use an identical PCB, heatsink etc. Maybe if you're quick enough to grab one before ATI comes out with a specialized PCB for the Pro, you'll be able to "mod" it into an XT...much like some did with early Radeon 9500's. But, with the Pro selling for $399 that would be a bit of a gamble :)

>BTW I noticed the X800XT and the Pro version use an identical>PCB, heatsink etc. Maybe if you're quick enough to grab one>before ATI comes out with a specialized PCB for the Pro,>you'll be able to "mod" it into an XT...much like some did>with early Radeon 9500's. But, with the Pro selling for $399>that would be a bit of a gamble :)The XT and Pro editions are similar enough to be able to pull this off unfortunately. The Pro only has 12 Pixel Pipes and Texturing Units compared to the XT's 16. The DDR-3 on the Pro runs at 365Mhz, compared to the 600Mhz on the XT. You'd never pull off a 40% overclock on the RAM without mega cooling.Sorry .. but flashing Pro's to XT's ain't goin' to work any more.

Actually the memory of the Pro runs at 450MHz according to HardOCP. Getting the Pro from 475/450 to close to 520/560 should not be impossible, but it's probably not possible to activate the extra pipes. ATI has probably made sure the extra pipers really are *disabled* this time, not just deactivated like with the 9500 vs 9700.Look how small the X800XT is BTW - NVidia's latest cards are HUGE with two molex connectors even - ATI's cards still aren't much bigger than the original 9700 Pro which itself was not much bigger than the 8500.

>Actually the memory of the Pro runs at 450MHz according to>HardOCP. Getting the Pro from 475/450 to close to 520/560>should not be impossible, but it's probably not possible to>activate the extra pipes. ATI has probably made sure the extra>pipers really are *disabled* this time, not just deactivated>like with the 9500 vs 9700.>>Look how small the X800XT is BTW - NVidia's latest cards are>HUGE with two molex connectors even - ATI's cards still aren't>much bigger than the original 9700 Pro which itself was not>much bigger than the 8500.Hmm .. Looking up and down, it seems you're right about the memory speeds. Sorry. One of my sources is giving the same as the current 9800XT, must be a typo.Time will tell about those pipelines.

"Temporal AA is probably quite useless for FS because of the low framerates you typically see. It needs 60+ FPS to look decent. Also, it's not an X800-specific feature at all. It can be enabled on the R3xx series with by editing the registry."The registry hack is longer needed. The new Radlinker will set Temporal AA on R3xx cards.http://www.hoverdesk.net/freeware.htmAnd yes, Temporal AA is pretty much useless in any application that can't maintain at least 60 FPS.Greg

Yes temporal aa will probably not be useful in FS 2004. I see none of these card make you able to play at 1600x1200 with 4xaa and 8x anisotrophic... I guess FS 2004 is to CPU dependent for that. Though you can run temporal aa and use a threshold where it reverts back to standard antialiasing when the fps get to low but I guess that would be most of the time so not really useful...About the X800 PRO the memory have been overclocked to 510 already so at least the memory goes up to the X800XT specs. The core didn

The four disabled Pipes (1 Quad) in the X800 Pro are disabled inside the hardware. There is no chance to enable them by software or Mod.

ATI made sure to laser cut them. Those #### :(