Here are some FSX benchmarks from Tom's Hardware Guide...http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/4870-x2-amd,1992-4.html

Yeah I saw those its a shame so I have kinda decided to go with the 9800 GX2's though I know the lack of VRAM (Only 512mb) will probably come back and bite me in the rear.

What a dilemma when looking for a new card. Just when I think I have it sorted out along comes something else or you see benchmark results like this (FSX). I am not sure whether to go for a GTX280, a 9800Gx2 or the 4870x2 (and hope a future driver update will sort it out). I dont play games much but I dont want that to limit the card choice as I'm sure the kids will be wanting a crack at it on Crysis or something similar.The more I research goodies for my new system the more bewildered I get!

>What a dilemma when looking for a new card. Just when I think>I have it sorted out along comes something else or you see>benchmark results like this (FSX). I am not sure whether to go>for a GTX280, a 9800Gx2 or the 4870x2 (and hope a future>driver update will sort it out). What

So what does this mean?"As usual, Flight Simulator X teaches us more about the drivers than about the cards themselves. "Basically this means that FSX really isn't that hardware hungry, rather well written drivers for FSX will put it on top performance wise?

Does anyone know whether you need a water cooling system just to run this card?BFG Tech BFGEGTX2801024H2OCWE GeForce GTX 280It says its water cooled, but is it all self sustainable? I don't have a water cooled system but want a card like this

>Unless ATI releases some miracle driver the Nvidia GTX 280 is the best choice right now with CPU bound sims/games.In FSX the performance advantage of the Nvidia GTX 280 is due to the 512-bit memory bus (Phil taylor has previously stated the memory bus width is currently a performance choke point for most hardware configurations).Performance will always be limited by the weakest link in your hardware chain, be it the CPU, the GPU, the video memory bus width (or even your mains circuit breaker if present power consumption trends continue!)But as you change your hardware "chain" you can also shift the performance bottleneck to other hardware!So if you are running FSX with 1 or 2 19" 1280 x 1024 monitors without any AA, your performance bottleneck will likely be the video adapter's memory bus bandwidth, or even your CPU.Now add a Matrox TripleHead2Go Digital Edition with *three* 1680 x 1050 LCDs with 12xAA/AF (because after a firmware upgrade the MTH2G now "does" widescreens!) and watch your FPS drop to nil as the performance bottleneck shifts to the GPU(s). After all, 2.4 TeraFLOPs is 2.4 TeraFLOPs...Also the GTX 280 does DX 10 whereas the HD4870X2 does DX 10.1 (which is what DX 10 was supposed to be had they finished developing it by the time Vista was released.) This may not be important for FSX but it might be for other games.So the card you should buy, IMHO, depends on whether you fly with one low res screen or multiple larger screens. Your call!Cheers,-jahman.

Hi Sarge,Do you still have a link to the same test using the 8800 cards? I'd be interested to see how those compare to the latest.Despite their second attempt to match (or beat) nVidia ATI are still trailing with the 4870X2.I'm very happy with my 8800GTX even though the image quality is below that of the ATI 3870X2.Cheers,

Same card, same comment Ray. I had my credit card out and ready to go until I saw this thread. The image quality of my 8800GTX has never been what ATI gave me, but its acceptable across three monitors and it runs FS9 very smoothly.

Chuck,I'll be keeping the 8800GTX until it dies. I'll not be building another machine until FSXI is out and hopefully Vista morphs into the next gen OS.Keep that wallet shut! :-)

Assuming we ever SEE an FS XI! Its been 2 1/2 years since FSX and affordable hardware STILL hasn't "caught up" to Microsoft demands. Of course, they could move MSFS to the XBox platform -- which I believe would end up being cheaper for all of us in the long run. But, how would you add the FlyTampa's KaiTak to the XBox?

Trust me Chuck, there will be a PC version of FSXI. And only a PC version.<You couldn't - hence why they'll never go down that route. And a X-Box version might be cheaper but without being able to add 3rd party stuff how long would it retain its appeal? How many here run a default FS? No-one I think. ;-)

>Assuming we ever SEE an FS XI! Its been 2 1/2 years since>FSX and affordable hardware STILL hasn't "caught up" to>Microsoft demands. It's a safe bet to assume MS will release FSXI: The gains from are-write to fully milk multi-CPU, multi-GPU hardware are simply toohuge to ignore!Think 8x CPUs (Nehalem) and 8x GPUs (2x Radeon R900-powered"HD4970X2"s)!Cheers,-jahman.

If they could do that I buy in.Fer sure, fer sure.

Image quality was>very good but I wouldn