Basic System ComponentsAMD Phenom 9950 Black EditionASUS Crosshair II FormulaOCZ Reaper DDR2 1066Mhz PC2 8500Now I am only considering nVidia chipsets. FS2004 exclusively, running XP Pro-64bit, DirectX 9C (Obviously since DX10 aint working and then only on Vista...not happening here.)So 8800, 9800 or 280?I dont think the 8800 will be worth it unless a EVGA 8800 Ultra can be had.I need to know if a 9800 GX2/GTX 260/280 is overkill or not. I may even get to play my FSX if this works!Will FSX run well on one higher end card?Or are all of these overkill? I dont play shooters anymore, but I do play Civ4 and The Movies in addition to FS9...

After checking the cards on Toms Hardware article and not wanting to put out much I did some checking with the techs at EVGA based on my own processor etc. 8800 GT, it seems to be very decent processor based on benchmarks and their tech support impressed me they all speak english and you get people in California and evn on a Sunday afternoon. I ordered a Superclocked 8800GT 512mb which they had at Newegg,Buy, Zipzoomfly and Amazon at decent price of 120ish after rebate cost about 158ish. In the old days 10 yrs ago you didn't want to get a card that outran the processor. I wont upgrade a thing anymore till the next version of windows is out and running decent. Then I'll build a new system. Check out the wattage on your system too I think you need 425 just for the card. After the article posted it seems alot of the companies have been selling the 8800GT with some sold out.

OK that one for the 8800GT.