I've upgraded my current rig (see below) almost as far as I can, except the graphic card. Since the new line of ATI cards has come out, I see that the price of a 256 Mb 9800 Pro has dropped significantly. I'm wondering how much of a performance increase this would buy. My performance now is OK in clear weather, but complex weather bogs it down considerably. My frame rate is locked at 25, and I'm running my LCD monitor's native resolution of 1280 x 1024.I guess it depends on whether FS2004 is CPU-bound or GPU-bound. I've seen both claims made on various forums. Anybody know for sure?DanAsus A7N8XBarton XP 2800+ OC'ed to 3200+ (200 x 11.0)Radeon 9500 Pro2 x Corsair 512 Mb CMX512-2700C2 OC'ed to PC3200

Hi Dan,the GPU has more impact on performance in FS2004 than in previous versions of FS. As an example, on the weekend my 9700Pro gave up, so I had to send it back to ATI for a replacement. Until the new card arrives, I'm using an old Radeon 7200. With the 9700Pro, my fps were locked at 25, which I got more or less all the time (with high scenery complexity, highest display quality and 100% 3D clouds). With the 7200, it's now down to 8 fps with the same settings :). Having said that, the 9500Pro is a very good card, which normally can be overclocked to 9700Pro specs. So, the improvement you'll see by changing to a 9800XT or an X800Pro will be nowhere near as dramatic as the difference between the 7200 and 9700Pro. I would assess, whether the ratio of price vs. performance gain is actually good value for money, bearing in mind that the price of the top-of-the-line cards remains fairly constant (a new X800Pro costs about the same as the 9700Pro did, when it first came out). A few months down the line you should be able to pick up a much better card (maybe an X900XT or whatever they come up with) for the same price, and see much more of an improvement.In the meantime, try playing with your settings (e.g. getting rid of 2D clouds helped a lot in my case), as you should be able to get very good performance with your current card, even if you have lots of complex add-ons installed.Cheers,Gosta.http://www.hifisim.com/images/as2betateam.jpg

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OK, thanks guys. I've tried overclocking my 9500 pro a little, but I'll see if I can push it farther. I might be better off to save my money and build a new 64-bit system sometime next year.I've spent the last week overclocking my CPU and memory, and 200 MHz FSB seems to be the limit for now. I'm still running PC2700 memory, which is probably limiting me as much as the CPU. I thought I was doing well just to OC the memory to 200 FSB while maintaining the 166 MHz timings. I'll try again in a month when temperatures get cooler and I can up voltages a little more.

You know you are sitting on a goldmine with that 9500 PRO? They can be softmodded enabling the 4 extra pipelines easily and clocks about as well as the 9700 NP. So you can get very near 9700 PRO performance out of it probably.And you should run your mem sync with your FSB if you have nforce 2. You gain nothing running a sync actually. Just run tighter timings instead if your RAM would like to go higher than your FSB.

You're right, this card is a keeper. Actually, the 9500 Pro already has all 8 pipelines open. It's the 9500 non-Pro that has to be softmodded. I have the BIOS mod that unlocks the overclocking, and I'm running slightly above 9700 Pro stock speeds right now. The only difference between my card and a 9700 Pro is that I have a 128-bit memory interface and the 9700 Pro is 256.I've always kept the FSB and memory in sync with this board. I'm running my 166 MHz memory at 200 MHz, with the 166 timings, so I'm pretty satisfied with that.It's probably best to just keep this machine as is and start saving up to build a new 64-bit system next year.

Yes I would think so :)

I just built myself a very respectable 64-bit rig just a month or so ago. :) You can see my system specs in my sig.Now, the prices will differ, but on CPU, Case, 1GB RAM, GPU, MoBo and PS, I spent around $1500 - woulda spent a chunk less if I had gotten the slower shipping. :D Newegg, All-Star Shop, Xtreme Gear are the places I shopped.

Hope that

The box says VIA K8T800 Pro / 8237 Chipset.Besides, I'm not really concerned with overclocking anyway. :)

that

Well, I only have stock cooling (Aluminum Heatsink and CPU Fan - both from the Retail box). The MoBo does come with an OC utility that all I need to do is click one button and I'm @ 2.4GHz instead of the core speed of 2.2GHz.

Okay that cooler will probably not allow you to overclock much :). But it doesn