I am currently running an ATI Radeon 9800XT 256 video card. It was top of the line about 2 years ago. I am curious if any current AGP video card is better and worth an upgrade? I am also adding extra gig of ram and will be replacing my processor with an Athlon 64 3400+. I currently have an Athlon 64 3200+ so I suspect the difference in performance will be minimal. However I got the 3400+ chip for cheap so I figure why not. I run the beta of FSX pretty darn well as long as I don't crank the water detail or AI planes. I don't have a lot of problem with car traffic detail or airport vehicle detail.

I believe the fastest AGP card out there is a 7800 GS 256MB, which is a good two generations past what you currently have. In FS9, the performance difference will be neglible, but FSX is supposed to make much better use of the GPU so it would be worth it for this latter title.The extra gig of RAM will give FSX much more breathing space for addons and your 3400+ chip will give you a little boost over your 3200+.Gary

I believe that the very best AGP card is the Gainward Golden Sample7800GS+, 512 MB.This in effect is the 7900GT PCIe card ported to AGP.It has the DDR3 ram and 24 pixle pipelines as the 7900GT.This also is very easily over clocked!As standard it runs at 450/1250 and easily goes beyond this.David