My apologies to you sir - this is not personal. My frustration is aimed squarely at PR folk who spend their entire working days coming up with new and wonderful (and often very misleading) ways to push as much stock as possible. And the thing is that this is very often times done at the expense of something that would actually be useful, even if it is only a dvi to hdmi convertor in the box. My specific issue with life time warranties for such items as consumer (note not commercial) high-end graphics cards is simple in concept but a bit long winded to explain.Bear in mind we are not comparing no warranty at all to a lifetime of it, we are comparing at least a 2 year warranty to a lifetime of it. Ok?So, here's the situation then in 2/3 years time: Your 4870x2 still works which is great, now you reckon it's upgrade time so you buy whatever it is you buy and you hand down the 4870x2 to your son. Will your son actually thank you for it though? May seem a stupid question but consider this: Whatever it was that you stopped liking about the 4870x2 now becomes your son's problem - most likely it will be something like a lack of specific driver profiles for some then newly released uber game which results in poor performance. It could be any number of other reasons hard to predict today. Considering the relatively small 4870x2 user base to begin with (like all dual gpu's) ATI will have precious little incentive in 2/3 years time to make sure that the by then almost vintage 4870x2 always performs as it should with every single new hot title - it may well do so but as time goes by the delays between game release and 4870x2 driver working 100% (or even 95%) will also increase. This story has been repeated often enough in the past with other x2 cards - no reason why it would stop doing so now...What if PCIE 3.0 is the standard by then? What if the power requirements and heat output are just too much for your son? Would you buy a two or three year old x2 card today? I'll bet not.Also remember that in 2/3 years time one will most probably be able to purchase a "mid range" 200USD (or perhaps even less) gpu that will offer similar (if not better!) performance to what the 4870x2 does today. Ouch.A different scenario then: In 2 (or 3) years time your 4870x2 packs up and you want to RMA it. What do you reckon Vision Tech/ATI will replace it with? A brand new 4870x2? No chance of that - if they replace it with the exact same gpu you will get a factory refurbished 4870x2 that someone else RMA'd before you and they managed to get going again. You see where I am going with this? This sort of "subtle" stuff goes on all the time with so many things. 1GB RAM on mid range GPU's, the system requirements on the back of the FSX box are a couple of others...Having said all this, I would like to add just one final note: The 4870x2 is a fantastic brute of a card - performance in most of todays games is spectacular (driver issues aside). It does not, however, bring much to the FSX table which a single 4870 does not - unless you run a 30" monitor perhaps.Konrad

Are they? Not everybody chases the latest ..Some never upgrade..Run it till it all dies then buy new...... To each his own.....

My upgrades are totally based on my financial situation at the time. Good years, I upgrade quickly. Bad ones, only when something releases the magic blue smoke. I guess most geeks agree. As far as teh ATI vs nVidia, I have really found that either manufacturer works as advertised. I have owned both and there really seems to be no appreciable difference.

Almost meaningless test.What FSX and video card settings did they use in that test?What location did they use? (Meaning where they at an airport or where they flying at some altitude or what scenery or where they over mountains or etc ...)I have a 4870 1GB and get around 47 fps.

I am very happy for you if you are satisfied with the ATI. For my system a straight swap and comparison using identical test flights showed the ATI struggling in cloud. Picture quality was very good though. This at 3840x1024.Not sure why the settings are of particular concern. The resolution is quoted and the test is a relative test. Indeed it would be meanengless if they turned AA off for Nvidia and at maximum for ATI.

Faster in what? I

Just to add that the GTX 280 is performing terrifically in FSX with the latest video driver along DirectX November 2008. The card is performing even better. Some "old" benchmarks should be redone.

Apologies if someone has already asked this, but which of your two systems runs FSX better, and why do you think that is? krswen

I give the nod to my setup with the Q9650 overclocked and the DDR3 as the better of the two as far as FSX is concerned. The extra bandwidth with the DDR3 and the four cores do seem to do a better job with the scenery loading with FSX.

I see you are a sort of "bleeding edge first adopter" (I mean that in a nice way) like me, and I assume your next build will be a Core i7. What are your plans? I'll be rebuilding my system in about 3 months and would like to compare notes.

Usually I am an early adopter when a new platform comes out but this time with i7 I