Just checking to see how this is going. I haven't pulled the trigger on which way to go, so thank you in advance if you have new opinion on your 4800 series cards, primarily 4870 & x2.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

Hi Noel,Maybe not as fresh as you'd like, but I tried a 4870 and found AA and AF to be less than optimum. It's as if the drivers were determining the amount of AA/AF to apply no matter where you set the options. I tried full screen and 2-D with the same results.Someone on another forum mentioned that ATI/AMD utilize the settings from the individual application. Selecting AA/AF in FSX was the recommended way of doing things. I had no luck no matter what I tried and returned the card.Hopefully when newer drivers are released, they'll benefit FSX. At this point I'm not sure if that's the case or not. nVidia isn't much better with driver releases but at least with nHancer, you have more control over the settings.In all fairness, ATI Tray Tools was in the process of being made compatible with the 4800 cards when I bought the card so maybe Ray has made some inroads in AA/AF. Regards,Jim Karn

Thank you Jim

Sorry for the late answer, but I bought the 4870 OC from MSI in the hopes of gaining another frame or two.After 3 driver revisions (8.7/8.8/8.9) I've returned to my initial 8800 GTS 640 which gives me better performance in FSX (and Armed Assault)I was initially thinking that the CPU would hold me back (was c2d E6600, is now c2d E8500, both at stock speeds), but it wasn't.8800 outperformed the 4870 by about 10 Frames in my setup.

Thank you for your reply. I have pretty much decided to go with a GTX 260 or 280, once I get a case that will accomodate it!Noel

280 NoelDont waste your money on a 260if you are going to do it.. . spend the money and do it rightyou already know that drillThe only card that might beat the 280 is the x2 but not unless they get the driver working both cards in FSX and even then it may only match the 280. Right now its not looking good for that.From strictly a cost standpoint if the system is FSX only then a 8800GTX Ultra is also an option being they can be had for 199.00 and you could upgrade again later if something else may come along... however if the system is used for more than FSX then the 280 is a better choice from the perspective of having more for shader driven games.. the X2 is the best card for Crysis in high AA and sceneryand will beat the 280 in that game

>280 Noel>>Dont waste your money on a 260>>if you are going to do it.. . spend the money and do it right>>you already know that drillThank you Nick, yes indeed I do know that drill. I am finally selling my old P5E to me bro who will get the DDR2-800 as well, plus a new 8800GT. I will put my current 8800GT into a box for my wife since her P4 just passed away of a dead mobo. I will probably have to switch out my WONDERFUL lian li case to her since the dang thing will not accommodate a 10.5" card. That really irks me. I will end up with her $49 coolermaster centaurian case which is decent for a cheap case. Bummer!

I purchased a PowerColor 4870 1GB. No problems so far in my games or FSX. When setting FSX to use heavy clouds I notice no difference. Currently using the 8.9 driver release. I returned a 260 Maxcore for this and I couldn't be any happier. I use 1920 x 1200 resolution in all games and FSX.I used auto-tune in the CCC and it runs at 780/980. I also changed the bios to adjust the fan slope. Idles at around 40C and I don't think it rises higher that around 60C. It's very quiet too and the auto-fan feature actually works.I noticed that when playing some games like cod4 and crysis wars that the fog and smoke effects don't seem to affect the card's performance. The frame rate varies of course but there is no noticable lag.