I am very pleased with a recent ugprade, and thought I would share the results in case it is of any help to anyone considering the same.My system is a Dell Dimension 8200 purchased in October 2001. It was a P4 1.8 (400mhz bus), with a GeForce ti-200 (a respectable card, in its day), and 512MB of RDRAM.I did some reasearch on an upgrade that could serve as an interim solution until I buy a new system (probably in another year or so). I decided on a CPU swap-out to a P4 2.4, and a Radeon 9500 Pro in place of my GeForce. Total cost: just under $400.I recieved the video card this weekend, and I ran some before/after benchmarks to see what the impact was. I didn't expect much, because FS2k2 is very CPU-dependent, but I was surprised to see a signifigant improvement. Using 1280x960 with 2x AA, In my LAX fps test (sitting on the active) my fps went from 13-14 (with the old card) to 20-22 (with the new Radeon). On approach to Sea-Tac at dusk, the fps went from 16-18 (before) to 22-25 (after).Today, I recieved the new CPU and wasted no time in seeing the effect on FS2k2. Again, the results were dramatic, and better than I had hoped. In my LAX test, fps were now at 29-32, and on approach to Sea-Tac they were topping out at around 35-40.The end result was that I more than doubled my fps with the new CPU and video card. I went from 13 fps sitting on the ground at LAX to 30. What's more, the video quality on the Radeon is much nicer than my old GeForce, and 8x Anisotropic looks stunning.Here's hoping that this platform will continue to perform great with Century of Flight .I hope this has been helpful to anyone considering a similiar upgrade. For me, it was definately worth it.

Awww, I've just done the P4 2.4 thang, and now you're tempting me into Radeon land. Would a 9700 pro offer much more over a 9500 pro in FS with anti-aliasing and ansio all cranked up, or does the 9700 just buy useless (to me anyway) 3DMarkX scores?

I run the 2.53 with 1066 ram with the 9700 Pro. The cost of running max performance anisio is very little. It's pretty much free. I've also found through experimenting that performance aniso vs quality aniso makes little or no difference in the old FS terrain engine so I'm now running performance anisio. No airplane or panel that I have has slowed this thing down. Smooth as silk. Here's my settings with all sliders maxed out. Default AI. Running 1600x1200x32 res.http://www.x-plane.org/users/mgdbottled/Settings1.jpg Gary; if you currently have the 9500 Pro, I wouldn't jump to a 9700 Pro just for FS. Check out this article: http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/030225/tech_ati_1.html The R350 will be out in 30 days if you have to have the best and fastest. The RV350 will make a nice contribution to any laptop performance from what I understand.

Gary:My 3dmark2001 score were 6559 before the upgrade, 9179 after the new video card, and 11250 after the CPU. As with FS2k2, just about double what I had before. Unreal tournament 2003 scores are also about 2x (though the botmatch scores are still CPU-limited so it only doubles at high resolutions).The Radeon 9700 card is great, of course, but I've read that the 9500 Pro represents the best bang-for-buck right now. They are hard to find though! I spent a couple of days trying to find one online (everyone was out of stock), and then I wandered into Best Buy and they had a shelf full of them (go figure).I swore off ATI cards a few years ago after a couple of bad experiences, but I sure am glad I took the chance with this Radeon.You mileage may vary, of course. What video card do you have right now?

Yep. The CPU upgrade is something the computer companies really don't want you knowing anything about. Easilly the most cost-effective way to see a dramatic increase in performance.

Just did the same thing last night and replaced my TI4600 with the 9700pro, and all I can say is WOW,WOW,WOW, just cant believe the diference in speed and graphics quality, just no comparison. I've been a Nvidia fan since day one, but this card just bought me,No problems during installation, installed the omega drivers, ran 3Dmark 2001se, got 11450 (9100 before), ran 3Dmark2003 got 4300 (before, did not complete)Launched FS2k2, all sliders maked out, sitting at meigs I get 25-30 with 8xAA and Ax Ansio, just amaizing. no bluries at allTested the following games with all opotions set to high (within the game)NFShp2, ran great (ocational stutter, but nothing that botherme)NR2002 could not believe the differenceUT2003, ran greatIm a very happy camper ideed.My specsAMD XP 2100+ n/oGigabyte mobo40gig Western Digital512 High performance CAS2 PC133 Mushkin mem n/o (no DDR here)9700pro n/oHercules Fortissimo II sound cardCDRWDVD romViewsonic 17" flat Franklin

oopps, here is a screen shot

Sorry, I should have been a little clearer. I have a GF3 Ti200 at the moment and am thinking of jumping to the ATI camp. I'm just not sure whether the performance difference between the 9500s and the 9700s, specifically in FS2K2 with AA and ansio cranked up high, is worth the price difference. Anyone seen the two ATI card families in action on the same machine with FS2K2 and AA ansio enabled and seen any significant difference in performance between the two?

I have a GF3 Ti200 Mackenson, and am just considering the merits of the 9700 over the 9500. My experience in the past with video cards and flight sims is that the family of video card is the most important consideration, with video card clock speed being much less a factor. eg. Going back in time - given the choice of a mega fast GF2 Ultra Wultra over a similarly priced GF3 Ti200 Plain-as-day, the GF3 is a better buy for FS. Sure a faster GF3 variant may push up 3DMark scores, but generally it is wasted money for an FS nut like me.Using the above logic, an ATI 9700 (non-pro) is the best bang for buck ATI pick for FS. Any comments?

Guys, I currently am running a Soyo Dragon Plus+ K7V AMD board running an Athlon XP 1800+ and a Radeon 8500 (which I've been flat out blown away by).However, frame rates in FS have been troublesome and this without everything not maxed. I've been thinking of upgrades and wondered about the boost in going from an 1800+ to a 2100+ which is the max this mb can handle (the 2100+ is only about $100 right now). But figured the difference between 1.53 and 1.74 GHz can't be that big. Plus, can the difference between the 8500 and the 9700 Pro be that big? Perhaps I should just wait for the R350 to come out? I really don't want to replace the mb right now (512mb Corsair DDR) as I like the way the system is running now and don't feel like re-installing the OS (XP) again and starting over.Am I pretty much stuck or would these upgrades give me significant boosts?

i heard you should format before upgrading from geforce to radeon, because all the drivers wont disappear from nvidia unless you formatTrue?

check this..just 3dmark, but there are benchs for a lot of stuff...I appears to me the $100 isn't worth it....http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1783&p=14

Yeah, I saw that on Anand when I started looking. 5.5% improvement is very minimal but $100 isn't too bad. I was wondering about that 5.5% and how it might jump in the game with the addition of the higher end video card.Using the same method, with most things pegged (but not quite all) at Meigs at 1152x864x32, I'm getting 19.5fps.

I just about bought a 2400+ to replace my 1800...I have the same mb...Dragon +...thanks for posting about the 2100+ ceiling..

Perhaps there's an update to what's on their website but Soyo specifically shows the 2100+ as the limit for our motherboard and since you own it, I guess you know why I'm not in a rush to upgrade. It works flawlessly so I really don't see the need right now.The only issue I have that I've never been able to explain is that pulldown menus in IE often are drawn incorrectly (they get duplicated one on top of another) and no one has had the same experience apparently with the Radeon which is where I would think the problem would lie. So then I got to thinking it might be the board but that makes very little sense. Aside from that, the system is virtually perfect.This new R350 board sounds like it might be the way to go though. I ran the new 3DMark2003 benchmark and got a poor 960 score but then when I saw other scores it wasn't so bad. The amazing part was that Radeon 9700 Pro owners with similar hardware were seeing scores upwards of 4,000. 4x improvement would be dramatic for FS and if the R350 is just a month away, that seems to be the way to get all the legs out of our motherboard that we need for now.