Joshua - I can't see any real improvement in FS9 either. I guess my X850XT Platinum was a pretty good card.Bruce

Bruce,Thanks for checking that out. That helps seal my decision to wait and upgrade my entire machine with the lastest hardware in a few months. I'd like to thank everyone for their constructive comments. It's been great having all this feedback. Thanks,Joshua

Hi Joshua, Well I finally got my machine assembled, OS installed and ported over FS9 and at first I wasn't too impressed with FS9. I was having some issues with the onboard sound and made a few mistakes transfering my FS9 folders over, and initally had some performance issues, particularily on the ground. But, now that I've straightened things out, I can safely say that I've gained between 5-15 solid FPS, while still using my x800xt. For comparison, I am now able to max out all sliders, but still had some issues with heavy cumulis during climbout (DXT3 clouds from Chris Willis), so I might back off the cloud setting to high. 100% traffic with WOAI, UGA and personal packages. I don't like sunglare/lensflare so those are still off. I still get some microstutters the ground when textures are loading at complex airports, but the are much, much better than before.One thing that is very noticable with the xtra frames is how much better everything looks on my 24" monitor. Before I maxed out the AA/AF to try and bring things into focus some, but now I can back off on that stuff and everything is still very sharp - a whole different 3d ambiance, really.All in all, I am still a bit disappointed but, maybe I was expecting too much (a common occurance for us flight simmers with hardware/software upgrades ;-)). I haven't overclocked yet so that may yield some better results. I will be looking for a DX10 card once the next gen arrives and that should be the final nail as far as FS9 is concerned (geez one would hope so running 4 yr old software on 2007-2008 hardware.....). If you're still thinking of upgrading - go for it - but I'd suggest going after the CPU first because it will make more of a difference than the GPU. JMHO Also, glad to hear you got things corrected out with your drivers. If you not using it yet, look for Driver Cleaner Pro (freeware) as it can help avoid corrupted driver installs etc.Hope this helps.Regards, Kendall#1: E6750 2.66 - Coolermaster Hyper TX2 - Gigabyte P35-DS3L - 2GB Crucial Ballistix PC6400 - Seagate 250GB 7200.10 SATA2 - X800XT - CH Yoke/Pedals - Saitek Throttle - Dual Monitor: Dell 2405/1905 #2: Dell 8400 3.2 H.T. - 3GB 533 DDR2 - Diamond Xtreme/Logitech X- 530's

Kendall,Glad to hear your new rig is up and running. I'm sorry though it didn't pan out as well as you had hoped. But you said it was a transitory upgrade until you build a more powerful machine in the next year; so, enjoy it while you can.Yeah, the drivers really did make quite a difference. I still get low fps in the vacinity of complex addons (even KPDX by Flight Scenery), but I think I can live with it now that a vast majority of the stutters have been smoothed out. As for upgrading, I'm saving my money for a top of the line rig next year. I'll wait until someone reports they have FSX pretty much maxed out and then upgrade. Of course, the really funny part to all of this is that my current rig now runs FSX with framerates in the 20s (except of course near any really large city where it is in the 15 to 16 range). The other thing is that I don't use complex airliners in FSX. Anyway, good luck and enjoy your new rig. I look forward to chatting with everyone again soon.Thanks,Joshua