I'm looking for opinions- the hardware sites don't bench FS generally since it is so cpu bound.What's been found to work well with FSX? All are about the $200 price point now- the 9600's conspicuously less.I'll be running with AA/AF probably at 1600x1200 or 1280x960 (LDS native res)It'll be mated to a Q8450 when they arrive hopefully in a few weeks. Initially running XP, eventually running Vista 64.ThanksTim

Out of the three... either the 8800GT or the 3870The 8800GT will have more horsepower but you will probably experience less issues with the 3780Its a toss up between those two but the single 8800GT will have more guts to it. 2 3780's in CrossfireX will definitely outdo 2 8800GT's in SLi with FSX but you also need the right motherboard for that too.

Right. I can Crossfire on my IP35 Pro, but not SLI.I was initially leaning toward the 3870. Reading about som eof the goofy transparency stuff with the nVidia stuff is making me lan that way more. Plus I could add one later to Crossfire in ultra resolutions, but that is waaaay off!

In order of fastest to slowest:8800GT38709600GTI'd go for the 8800GT, seeing as how cheap they are

Tim,Do you mean a single 3870 or the new 3870X2? This is ATI's latest card and is faster that the 8800GTX. With 2 GPUs and 1Gb of RAM it is a monster card and choice of case is important.I'm building a E8400 (3GHz Penryn 1333FSB) with a 3870X2 running at 1920*1200 and I'm hoping for great things.If you're running at 1280*960 then I'd stick with a 8800GT or GTX. It's only at very high resolutions these high-end cards can retain the high frame rates.

>2 3780's in CrossfireX will definitely>outdo 2 8800GT's in SLi with FSX but you also need the right>motherboard for that too.>You can CrossFire on *any* MB...Just get the 3870 X2: That's 2 3870's on a single card, including the Crossfire bridge to, er, bridge the 2 GPUs.You would need a CrossFire MB if you wanted to go "Quad" with 2x 3870 X2'sCheers,-jahman.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_200...=1057&chart=289Jim Harnes

Think $200 price point or so :)Rules out the X2! ($450)The drivers with nVidia make me nervous. They're always broken it seems.

The newer 8800GTS 640MB SSC with 112 SP, has a 320bit memory interface compared to the 256 bit on the 8800GT and new ATI cards.According to Phil Taylor that makes the biggest difference for FSX.See his blog for more details.

IF you are going to use TVOut for ANY purpose forget nVidia and go for the ATI X3870.I learned the hard way that current nVidia drivers have the worst TVOut options and image quality ever.George DorkofikisAthens, Hellashttp://online.vatsimindicators.net/811520/1704.png

There are far more important reasons that benchmarks generally don't include FS.The lack of popularity with the general gaming crowd is prime among those, possibly combined with payoffs by game studios to use their new releases (which provides them with cheap advertising).Another major reason will be the near endless configuration options, which will cause no two instances of FSX to have the exact same configuration, even under controlled conditions (FS configures itself for optimal performance/visuals tradeoff during installation, and not all those options are available from the menu).

I'm not so sure about that 3870 dualie.http://www.pcstats.com/NewsView.cfm?NewsID=64516With the 3870X2:"In 3DMARK06 at 2560X1600, benchmark scored 9573 ((SM2.0: 4494, SM3.0/HDR: 4476)." With the 8800GT at 710Mhz, I'm getting: In 3DMARK06 at 1920X1080, benchmark scored N/A ((SM2.0: 4950, SM3.0/HDR: 4700).That's a pretty close horse race. The GTS @ 775mhz has gotta be closer. I'm seeing 6500 SM2/3 scores @ that 1280 res. At $230, that's hard to beat. http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.ph...ts#post10370727

>There are far more important reasons that benchmarks>generally don't include FS.As in "GPU benchmarks make no sense for FSX while FSX remains CPU bound"?Cheers,-jahman.

no, because FSX is both GPU and CPU bound.It's one of the few games on the market which will tax every aspect of your system, not just one.

>http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_200...=1057&chart=289>>Jim HarnesThose benches are nice but raw speed isn't the whole story, either, in my opinion.You have to take into account things like driver stability and functionality with FS, and image quality.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian