>IMO:-hah >And on my system:-hah >Had to get that out of the way to reduce the attack of the>tecno geeks.>From a bfg 8800gt to a hd4870, the difference is small other>than "imo,subjective" picture quality. The 8800gt has the edge>since you have more drivers to choose from and Nhancer to fix>problems and ,well enhance the chances of FSX running right.>Thats "if" FSX is the only game you play.>On all other games but FSX, the 4 series kicks Nvidia's ####>but remember in pc gaming time, FSX is a fossil.>My return on the 4870 was expiring but I decided to keep it>and sell the 8800gt.>I play Crysis,Bioshock and there are a few good pc titles>coming out and I do not want to be locked into a old card and>setup just to satisfy FSX.>So in conclusion, IMO,subjective,on my system :-hah , if you>have a 8800gt series except for the 300 meg one,all you play>is FSX,keep it. If you also play or want to play>current/latest games, get the 4870.Very nice JIMJAM. Thanks for the review. Did you say there are issues with AA in FSX? If AA is working ok, then it appears your experience with the 4870 has NOT been a downturn in performance in FSX. If the 4800's worked in FSX at least as well as my 8800GT, and did not have AA troubles or other artifacting, I think it will work. Yes, I think I will pick one up at BB. I am also intrigued by the X2, so need to here Djt1's review in detail if he will oblige me.Noel

>Djt1, if you would continue to be so kind, can you give me a>detailed overview of your experience with the 4870x2 in FSX? Noel,I will give you any information that I can possibly provide about the card, but I

Noel I would research very heavily the aspect of fillrate with the 4870 cards.RhettFS box: E8500 (@ 3.80 ghz), AC Freezer 7 Pro, ASUS P5E3 Premium, BFG 8800GTX 756 (nVidia 169 WHQL), 4gb DDR3 1600 Patriot Cas7 7-7-7-20 (2T), PC Power 750, WD 150gb 10000rpm Raptor, Seagate 500gb, Silverstone TJ09 case, Vista Ultimate 64ASX Client: AMD 3700+ (@ 2.6 ghz), 7800GT

>Noel I would research very heavily the aspect of fillrate>with the 4870 cards.Why, Rhett? Why is fillrate particularly relevant? I think the number one priority is subjective experience, versus hardware specs, but I guess they should go together fairly parallel. I mean, how many times have we seen hardware that *should* do better than it does? Anywill, let me know if you would why you mention this. As you may know, I have expressed interest primarily in getting back to ATI for its (IMO) superior IQ, but only as long as it will perform as good as my 8800GT.Thanks,Noel

Fillrate is reportedly the reason why the 3800 series performed so poorly in clouds in the sim.If I were going to buy a 4870, my concern would be that is that this is still an issue with the 4800 series cards. I've heard it was. I would take a look at that. There may be nothing to it, but then again there may be. ??RhettFS box: E8500 (@ 3.80 ghz), AC Freezer 7 Pro, ASUS P5E3 Premium, BFG 8800GTX 756 (nVidia 169 WHQL), 4gb DDR3 1600 Patriot Cas7 7-7-7-20 (2T), PC Power 750, WD 150gb 10000rpm Raptor, Seagate 500gb, Silverstone TJ09 case, Vista Ultimate 64ASX Client: AMD 3700+ (@ 2.6 ghz), 7800GT

Thank you Rhett. I think user experience is what I am hoping to hear. I do notice that high density clouds can impair my 8800GT on occasion, but it has to be very dense, and is kinda hard to predict exactly which situations, but I've seen it.QX9650 w/ Retail HSF|ASUS P5E3 Premium WiFi|4GB Muskin Ascent 7-6-6-18 1T DDR3-1600|EVGA 8800GT|Seagate SATA 2 x 2|Seagate Cheetah 15K.x|XP Pro SP2|Vista 64--maybe never to be installed

wrong thread

not fill ratetexture multiplier units, or TMU's but sort of like fill rate3000 series only had 12-16 as compared to 32-64 on Nvidia cards4780 fixed that problem although they still come up a bit short on them compared to nvidia ..

Noel,I bought a VisionTek HD 4870 at BestBuy and found that AA/AF was very difficult to set. Edge-Detect would not work in FSX and it looked like the best setting available was 2XMSAA. It was never looked as good as my old 8800GTS 640MB.Users were saying to try ATI Tray Tools and RivaTuner but in the end, neither application made any difference.I'm running Vista Ultimate x64 SP1, E8500 @ 3.82, 4 GB DDR-PC8500 on a P45 motherboard with a 22" LCD at 1680 X 1050. There are users who swear by the card but I found it to be lacking in driver support in FSX where AA/AF were concerned. Regards,Jim Karn

Thank you kindly Jim. I am using XP-32 now but will probably go to Vista 64 on a second drive for FSX, so that's helpful to know.QX9650 w/ Retail HSF|ASUS P5E3 Premium WiFi|4GB Muskin Ascent 7-6-6-18 1T DDR3-1600|EVGA 8800GT|Seagate SATA 2 x 2|Seagate Cheetah 15K.x|XP Pro SP2|Vista 64--maybe never to be installed

According to http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341the 4870 has 40 TMUs.So you're saying 40's still low as compared to Nvidia?Are Nvidia and Radeon TMUs of comparable power?Also do the stream processors have an impact on cloud rendering?(The count went from 320 for the 3870 to 800 for the 4870...)Sorry for all the questions... :-)Cheers,-jahman.

It depends on the card. The newer 200 series Nv cards have about 50-64The cheaper 8800GT and others of that class run a lower number of Texture Mapping Units. I would need to look them up but the lower class cards are probably somewhere around 24 for the elcheapo to around 32-56 for the better cardsIt's that TMU value in combination to the memory bus and core clock that helps with heavy weather

A good place to look for specs is:http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=564&card2=544#

That is a good source.. I usually dig for the white papersthanks for the link!I see the GT has 56.. which is very goodWhere it falls short is the memory buss speed coming in at just over 1/2 or about 55% the GTX/Ultra for getting the textures and model rendering across the bus

But tell me, are there ever demands over a Memory Bandwidth: 57.6 GB/sec on the 8800GT? I haven't done the math, but it seems like a huge amount of bandwidth. If you aren't saturating this bandwidth at 57 GB/sec then double the bandwidth doesn't appear to offer anything, no?QX9650 w/ Retail HSF|ASUS P5E3 Premium WiFi|4GB Muskin Ascent 7-6-6-18 1T DDR3-1600|EVGA 8800GT|Seagate SATA 2 x 2|Seagate Cheetah 15K.x|XP Pro SP2|Vista 64--maybe never to be installed