I right now have an 8800 Ultra and was considering upgrading to the upcoming 4870 x2 when I can afford it. I was considering the GTX 280 but I changed my mind because of the upcoming 4870 x2 and I think that a single GTX 280 is just not enough of an upgrade for me based on the benchmarks I seen online. I use my PC for other games besides FSX. Will Crossfire be useful in FSX? The main problems I'm having in FSX is that some add on aircraft slow down the performance too much for example with the gyro plane I get 21 fps and then with the CLS 747-200 it drops to 11 fps in VC view while sitting on the runway.

The 8800 ultra is a very good card and it seems that it can do as well, if not much better than some of the newer cards if you believe reported benchmarks. I have had an older setup with dual 7900GTX cards, and can vouch that a single 8800 beats hands down the two 7900GTXs, and a single 7900GTX is faster that two in most cases (the one exception I found is high AA setup at 1920 x 1200). Granted, XFire seems a bit more efficient architecturally than SLI, but it boils down to driver, API (DirectX) and game support. There are very few games out there optimized for multi-GPU capabilities, and FSX does not seem to benefit as much with multiple video cards outside of a multi-monitor setup.I've seen a report that a 280 is slower than an 8800 ultra in FSX, but there are so many factors, and so many "spins" out there, it's really hard to tell. Perhaps marketing folks love it that way :)Etienne

Keep the Ultra it's the close to, if not the best for FSX.The example you gave with the 747 will not be helped by any video card, as really nothing is happening in to stress even one GPU, just sitting on the runway.More CPU is what is needed, and in that case a lot more than we will probably see for some time :)

>I've seen a report that a 280 is slower than an 8800 ultra in>FSX, I'm not sure where that info coming from but the GTX 280 is no way