My old Dell is 5 years old and is having problems. The bright side of this situation is that my wife is warming to the idea that I need a new system. Way back I used to use ATI Radeon cards and I liked them a lot. For one thing they were great with FU2/FU3. That really isn't an issue for me these days. For the last couple of years I have been using a overclocked nVidia GeForce 7600GS and I like it a lot.I run a lot of driving sims but FSX is probably the most demanding video application I'm likely to run at least until the advent of FSXI.The systems I'm looking at use either the ATI Radeon 2900XT (512mb or 1GB) or the GeForce 8800XG# (where # = S or X... some are upgradable to the Ultra). The ATI equiped systems seem to be more cost effective on a MB per dollar basis... which doesn't say anything about how either card will function with FSX.Please keep in mind that I do not want to start a battle here between advocates of the 2 companies. What I would like is some good advice as to which card is better for FSX (and maybe the new ACC pack although that is secondary).And if that isn't enough I'd also like to know if pairing 2 cards (Crossfire on ATI or SLI on nVidia) is helpful with FSX.Thank you for any and all help!

I don't know which 8800 card you mean as there are 4 family models:GTSGTGTXUltraThe GT is the newest and was released yesterday. It offers performance inbetween the GTS and GTX at a fraction of the cost (~$250) As for which is best, see the graph below compiled by Toms Hardware.In FSX, ATi takes a hammering from Nvidia. (This may have changed with ATi's newest drivers, but I cannot confirm)Glennhttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/179638.jpg

"I don't know which 8800 card you mean..."Neither do I. :-lol Seriously I haven't finalized anything with the configuration yet so I don't know which. But this chart will be very helpful in figuring that out.Thanks! :)

Hi Tom,No problem.Don't forget that the chart does not show the new 8800GT, but from benchmarks posted yesterday you can expect it to perform in between the GTS and the GTX.There is a review of the 8800GT on anandtech if you are interested.I would also like to see how the ATi cards perform in that chart with the new CAT 7.10 drivers as they are giving me the best performance (in any game) I have seen from an ATi driver release.Having said that, I ordered an 8800GT 512mb (EVGA superclocked version) yesterday!Happy GPU hunting.Glenn

Thanks again Glenn,I see now that I goofed... when I meant to say 8800GT# meaning either the GTS or GTX I put 8800XT#. No wonder I confused you.Sorry about that sir! :-shyAnd I'll be sure to check out the new GT model. It does sound like a good deal on a very good card. :)The GPU isn't the only thing I have to decide on but it is an important part of it.Thanks again! :-jumpy