8800 320, 640 or 768

[vgbaron 3,484]

Putting together a new system and looking at the 8800 video card. See that it comes in 3 flavors 320M - 640M and 768M with increasing prices all around.My puzzlement is because with my current card, 7600GS/512M and using Memstatus I have never gon above 300m usage no matter where I put my sliders.The 320 seems a bit small but wouldn't the 768 be overkill?Does anyone know if DX10 will have an effect on this?Thanx,VicVisit the Virtual Pilot's Centerwww.flightadventures.comhttp://www.hifisim.com/Active Sky V6 Proud SupporterRadar Contact Supporter: http://www.jdtllc.com/

[Reset XPDR 1,271]

320M would do the job but, as you suggest, only just. The 768M card is more than just extra memory, it is also around 20% higher performance. How that extra video card performance translates to FSX performance is yet to be quantified in this forum (well, that I have seen anyway), but I'm planning on doing a dynamic head-to-head comparison of my current 7900 GTO 512M against the 8800 GTS 640M I have just purchased, which I am hoping will OC to 8800 GTX speeds for a full comparison. Stay tuned for results!Gary

[Guest unitedpilot36]

The 320 would perform great at resolutions below 1600x1200, anything higher and the 640 version becomes a necessity.

[mjrhealth 820]

Id go for 640, the 768 is ceratinly an overkill, i have the 320 and i have seeing FSx just creep over the 302 meg which is all that is avaliable on the 320, so i assume on the 640 there will proably be just a little less to. Must be to do with card operations.

[vgbaron 3,484]

Sounds good Gary - I'll be watching for the results.Visit the Virtual Pilot's Centerwww.flightadventures.comhttp://www.hifisim.com/Active Sky V6 Proud SupporterRadar Contact Supporter: http://www.jdtllc.com/

[Reset XPDR 1,271]

Put the new 8800GTS 640M card in today and have preliminary results. I wasn't expecting a great improvement, given the charts I've seen at Tom's Hardware, but I thought that I'd see a greater benefit at 3360x1050 than a measly 1 FPS faster :-(The attached chart shows the first test I did - five minutes flying over Seattle and KSEA on a pre-programmed course, default global high settings and in-game AA-AF on, 3360x1050 resolution, CRJ700 VC (still have to work out what is causing those FPS dips every minute or so):http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/175453.jpgEdit: forgot to add - the max video memory used during this particular test was 331MB. The max video memory I have ever recorded being used was at JFK with even higher settings (and lower FPS of course) with 398MB being the peak.There is more testing to come over the next week, including what difference a sound card versus onboard sound makes, CPU speed differences (and I can tell you now this does make a SUBSTANTIAL difference), and maybe even whether having 1, 2 or 3G RAM makes if I can get the sticks of RAM in and out without threatening the life expectancy of my motherboard.Gary

[tony32 0]

Hi,I am wondering if you are experiencing any graphic stutters when when there is speaking,ever since i got my gts the stutters are constant,does not matter where the sliders are or what drivers i am using,i am less than thrilled with my first nvidia card.thanks,TonyC2D E6600 @ 3.38Evga 680i Rev A1 Board P30 BiosCorsair Dominator 8500c5d 2gbOcz 700W Power SupplyBFG 8800GTS 640MBRaptor 74gb 8 cache--Win xp 64bitRaptor 74gb 8 cache--Fs9+ScenerySeagate Barracuda 250gb 16 cache--Page File/StorageCreative Audigy 2 ZSAntec Nine Hundred Case

[Reset XPDR 1,271]

Just installed an X-Fi XtremeGamer sound card to replace my onboard sound. As the updated chart shows ....http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/175476.jpgno gain in FPS (surprise, surprise), but NO MORE STUTTERS, even at full sound acceleration :-jumpy :-jumpy :-jumpy At least one of the two upgrades was worth it ;-)Gary

[Scott434 12]

>Just installed an X-Fi XtremeGamer sound card to replace my>onboard sound. As the updated chart shows ....>>http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/175476.jpg>>no gain in FPS (surprise, surprise), but NO MORE STUTTERS,>even at full sound acceleration :-jumpy :-jumpy :-jumpy >>At least one of the two upgrades was worth it ;-)>>GaryGary,Thanks for sharing your experiments and data. I understand that it takes a good chunk of your time and I for one very much appreciate your contributions.Thanks again.Scott

[Guest Alkit]

Hi Chris,I am going to use the 8800 for multi-display. Is that mean 640 will have advantage over 320 at this point? Talking about output for 2 x 24" (1920 x 1200).Alkit

[Reset XPDR 1,271]

I'm not Chris, but yes 640MB would be better than 320MB for such a combined resolution (I assume you will be running in spanned mode). eg. right now I am flying spanned mode on 2 x 1680x1050 = 3360x1050 and even out over the ocean coming in to NTAA from the East, MemStatus reports that I peaked at 377MB video memory after cycling through the views and back at 330MB in the VC. Your memory consumption will be even higher. ie. Get 640MB at least.Gary

[Reset XPDR 1,271]

No worries. I was wondering whether anyone was actually following my benchmarking antics :-lol So far I have proven to myself:1. upgrade from 7900 512M to 8800 640MB - less than 5% FPS improvement, even a very high resolutions and graphics settings, but can run higher AA / AF level the new card offers that the old one doesn't2. onboard sound versus dedicated card - no measurable performance difference other than that there are a lot more occasional stutters and pauses with the onboard sound. However my son's system, which uses a later rev of my motherboard with onboard sound, suffers no such stutters / pauses :-hmmm 3. different CPU speeds makes a SIGNIFICANT impact on resultant FSX performance, nearly a direct proportional change. More to come on this one.Gary

[Reset XPDR 1,271]

Update: I kept MemStatus running for the next leg of my flights and the peak video memory use is now 479MB!Gary

[slashed2 53]

I'd like to say thank you as well, I'm going to upgrade from on-board sound to see if that eliminates the problem with pauses while a new sound is played. Not major, but somewhat distracting.Excellent benchmarking by the way.Ian.

[Vulcan 14]

Many thanks for these tests Gary, they are a great help to those of us still to upgrade on a tight budget.Point 3 bears out my gut feeling.