After some extensive testing of the 3870X2 vs. the 8800GTX in FSX. I have returned to utilizing my 8800GTX within FSX.The 3870X2 in FSX seems to have the edge in graphical quality compared to the 8800GTX. However, when it comes to raw performace the 8800GTX whips the card hands down. ESPECIALLY if you are flying within heavy clouds and in a very dramatic fashion. For example in an identical scenario, with identical weather with heavy clouds the 3870x2 will drop to a crippling 8-10 FPS (even when reducing cloud textures to 256x256) and the 8800GTX will maintain 24-30FPS (with textures set 1024x1024).It's very evident to me that the Radeon struggles with cloud textures. One of the things I enjoy most with my installation of FSX is flying in varying weather scenarios utlizing ASX and FEX. The performance loss associated with 3870X2 within a heavily clouded environment makes FSX flatout unenjoyable for me. Hence my return to the 8800GTX.If your the type of person who enjoys fair weather flights the 3870X2 will perform quite well. If you enjoy flying in diverse weather environments, you are going to be very disappointed with the 3870X2.Maybe the next interation of ATI cards will handle this better, maybe a future driver update will help the 3870X2 with clouds who knows.In the meantime, I definitely know I will be sticking with the Nvidia card for FSX.

hi sargeski,unfortunately, i'm getting the same results in FS9 with the X2. i got the X2 about a month ago because i thought my X1950XTX (w/DDR4 Memory) had bit the dust. the X2 as you mentioned performs quite well in FS9 without heavy cloud coverage. but throw some heavy clouds in the mix and the X2 takes a beating compared to the X1950XTX. i think the weak link with the X2 is it's lacking in Memory Bandwith. and, it's using DDR3 instead of DDR4. according to some of the reviews that i've seen on the X2, it's stated that the total Memory Bandwith is 115GB's. my guess is that 115GB's of Memory Bandwith is when the card is running in Crossfire mode. in non-Crossfire mode my guess is the Memory Bandwith is 1/2 of that 115GB. if so, the ole X1950XTX (at 64GB's) has 6-7GB's more Memory Bandwith than the X2. hopefully, the HD4000 series will be much better than the HD3000 series. it's time for AMD/ATI to get back in the game. happy flyin, FM

I'm bumping this up before it gets buried. I'd like to hear from more 3870/3870x2 users on this clouds issue...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

Here's my 2 cents. I ran the 8800GT for about 3 weeks and returned it to NewEgg because I thought the card fried on me. The amount of tweeking needed on the 8800GT was enourmous IMHO. I went to th 3870 and am totally pleased so far. I do have a few issuse with FSX now after defragging with O&O. ( Another post ) I plan on SLIing the 3870 pretty soon but with this in mind, I know that FSX will not be effected much by it. It will kick some major bootie in Crysis tho. In COD4, this card smokes when everything is maxed out. The 880 has better architecture etc but with the increased pipelines etc, the 3870 keeps up just fine. My GPU temp runs at about 40C also. In a nutshell with the CPU being the major player in FSX, if you buy a 8800 or a 3870, you can't help but be happy.

>if you buy a 8800 or a 3870, you can't help but be happy.I have to disagree with that statement. The ONLY advantage the 3870 has over the 8800 is that the image quality is better. I think I also need to qualify the image quality being better. IMHO the ATI has the edge in image quality in FSX but it is subtle. To a graphics affecianado the image quality difference may seem to be quite apparent.If you are purchasing your video card in hopes of getting the most graphical advantage out of FSX (more autogen, higher detail levels, without a huge performance decrease) then the 8800 would be the way to go.Even in an identical situation without the heavy clouds the 8800 will out perform the 3870X2. I had drop traffic sliders, autogen sliders and mesh complexity to get comparable performance out of the 3870X2.....throw in heavy weather with the 3870X2 and FSX is unplayable (unless a slide show is acceptable for you).The 3870 is a nice bang for the buck card and I do like the prettier (at least in my eyes) graphics but it simply does not perform to the level of the 8800.

<"If you are purchasing your video card in hopes of getting the most graphical advantage out of FSX (more autogen, higher detail levels, without a huge performance decrease) then the 8800 would be the way to go.">Gotta disagree with you, Sarg.. the 8900GTX is the way to go!Anyone who's ever read my posts knows that I've been an ardent ATI supporter for years - actually since the late '80's: I upgraded to the 1950XTX Oct 2006 when FSX was released here (Toronto) and went to the HD3870 two months ago, because ATI now supports the TripleHead2Go - 3840 x 1024 resolution. Well - that size brings the 3870 to it's knees. The card is/was "ok" for my old 1680 x 1050 Gateway at moderate settings: not too much road or airline traffic: lowish water: everything else max or near max - and getting GOOD frame rates around Seattle; but when I (last week) bought the TH2G - all that changed. With everything lowered or off, on the north-eastern approach to Portland 28R in CoolSky's MD80 - you're brought down to 5700'. That's just clearing the mountains.... when the terrain started tearing, disappearing, turning solid and the sim became unflyable. Along with having to degrade the settings - that was enough. I looked up Tom's hardware and "re-looked" at the comparisons on the new nVidia 8900GTX...... http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia...eview,1800.html..checked the price at Infonec...http://www.infonec.com/site/main.php?module=detail&id=352980..and now the HD3870 is sitting on my computerdesk, and it'll be going on craigslist later today at $100. It's a fine card for a stock monitor - but not for the TH2G. Yes - I've gone over to the dark side...

>Gotta disagree with you, Sarg.. the 8900GTX is the way to go!lol...OK Paul. I'm gonna agree to not disagree with your disagreement. ;)

9800 you mean? But it

Well, you can add me to the club of 3870x2 on the shelf as well. I loved the better graphics quality. Today was my first flight into weather with it and I must say performance in clouds was pitiful. Dropped below 10 fps. I put my 8800GTX back in, flew the same flight and was maintaining 20 fps locked.Kylehttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/747400.jpg

and that's what I found with the 9800GTX vs my "old" HD3870.$100... any takers? I have a 1950XTX also - $50. pm me if you wish.

I've held off adding my thoughts on the 3870X2 until I've got something positive to report.Yes, I agree that fps does drop in hevy cloud but I'd assumed that would equally apply to 8800 cards. Apparently it doesn't. However, if you have ASX I'd like you to join the discussion on this thread http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho..._id=39608&page= and if you could carry out the same test as me and report your results I'm sure many would find it very useful.I'm sure many would agree that independent tests of graphics cards are next to useless unless they include FSX because how well a card performs in Call of Duty for example bears no relation to its FSX performance.I've had a reply from ATI Support and he's only seeing a small reduction in fps in cloud with the Acceleration Pack installed. But doesn't SP2 do the same for XP/DX9 users? For those who still have a 3870X2 it's been found that performance in cloud can be improved significantly by setting AA to 2X Box. Higher settings have an adverse affect on fps. If you're running at 1920*1200 you don't really need higher AA anyway.Anyway, drop in on the Hi-Fi forum and feel free to comment.

Sargeski,Welcome back to the Nvidia club. I agree with you. A long time ago when I had FS2002, I changed video cards from a GeForce 4 MX to a Radeon 9250. Image quality was better but the FPS dropped heavily, especially in weather. It seems this hasn't changed.I can "overflow" the sky with clouds. I've even modified an FS2004 addon to work with FSX to make the clouds look real and have a volumetric feel to them, raising the texture sizes from 500 KB to 1.4 MB. My 8800 GT handles it without a hitch.Welcome back,

Hello:I don't own an ATI 3870X2, but I was reading a review article in UK's PC-Format magazine, and they were the only mag that revealed a potential issue that would be of concern to me based on all reviews read thus far:One has to have a special "Crossfire Profile" software component installed (which apparently only runs a kind of Crossfire on the video card itself but NOT the original Crossfire via a special motherboard chipset etc.), otherwise the software application one is running reportedly will only run on "1" GPU core! :-eek I had the impression from the article that these "Crossfire Profiles" are something that ATI themselves must make and distribute (no end user SDK?)!Could any of you with first hand experience comment on this?Did any of you test to see whether FS9 or FSX "Crossfire Profiles" were included with the card's software mix that would have resulted in FS running both GPU cores for an "onboard Crossfire" graphics rendering result worthy of the power ascribed to that card by other reviewers?If not, was there something of a "Crossfire Profile" that one could download?NOTE: Other reviewers were running test apps other than FS... in fact NONE of them tested with FS; (yes the 3870X2 does best on COD4... because that is reportedly one of the "Crossfire Profiles" provided with the card!)Thanks for more info you could share with us other interested prospective buyers out here! :-)GaryGB

The crossfire support you are talking of is driver related. ATI did not include support for 3870X2 crossfire until driver version 8.3 and beyond. Even with 8.3 and 8.4 drivers the card performance is not all to great in FSX. Those were the only drivers I used with FSX.