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clarkresponse

In Need Of Seriuos Graphic Card Opinion

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Guest D17S

The 8800GT/512 (aka 9800GT/512) is all FS can use. It's quite an upgrade from the 86. That 3xx memory buss is just marketing jabber and does not improve FS performance. Once you're at this Vcard level, FS is All about CPU horsepower. If you're after bang for the buck, spend $175 on an OEM Q6600 and just drop it into your existing socket. Then overclock it back to your existing 3.0. With those 2 upgrades, you'll be good to go all the way through this latest i7 generation.

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Hello everyone and Happy New Year to all.Flightsimming is my only hobby that I

Ark

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I9 9900K @ 5ghz / 32GB G.Skill (Samsung B) / Aorus Master Mobo / EVGA GTX 2080Ti FTW 3

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Thanks Sam and Ark for your replies. I was reading more about the 9800GT and it said that it was using the old 65nm. The 65nm was used in the old 88 series of cards and that Nvidia are now converting some of the newer 98 series of cards to the 55nm. Can either of you explain the difference between 55nm and 65nm as well as the benefit? I am totally lost to the definition of nm.I would like to run FSX at my monitors resolution which is 1280x1024, but have no problems with running higher resolutions. My monitor is a 22" CRT.Also should I be looking at the clock core and memory speeds? At the store, they are selling the PNY 9800GT 512mb. The core speed is 600 and memory is 900.

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Thanks Sam and Ark for your replies. I was reading more about the 9800GT and it said that it was using the old 65nm. The 65nm was used in the old 88 series of cards and that Nvidia are now converting some of the newer 98 series of cards to the 55nm. Can either of you explain the difference between 55nm and 65nm as well as the benefit? I am totally lost to the definition of nm.I would like to run FSX at my monitors resolution which is 1280x1024, but have no problems with running higher resolutions. My monitor is a 22" CRT.Also should I be looking at the clock core and memory speeds? At the store, they are selling the PNY 9800GT 512mb. The core speed is 600 and memory is 900.
55nm allows for less power useage, so ultimately less heat and a lower electrical bill (and in theory, better overclocking).Personally, I would not buy a 512mb videocard (but that is just my preference). The GTX 260 is at a great price point right now and you never know when that extra "oomph" might come in handy. Each type of videocard usually comes with a few variations. For instance, Evga offers the GTX 260 in Standard, Superclocked, and FTW (For The Win) variations (there's also a few others as well I think). By and large, it does not make that big of a difference in most cases. With regards to Evga, the Superclocked/SSC versions can often be found priced very closely to their "Standard" counterparts (hence the reason I own a GTX 280 SSC and not a "Standard" GTX 280). Some videocard manufacturers out there OC their cards somewhat higher like XFX and thier 260 "XXX" model though. If it were me, I would look at both of these cards: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814130433. It isn't the 55m but GTX 260's are not known for being super power-hungry or hot running anyways so it is somewhat of a moot issue. If 55nm is soemthing you prefer, here is the 55nm version: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...82E16814130434h. You can't really go wrong with either. Also, Evga has great customer service, an excellent warranty, and a Step-Up program. I have a few monitors, a 22" CRT being one of them. The CRT might be my favorite monitor out of all the ones I own and have tried. This Dell 30" inch is awesome, but having to run all games at 2560x1600 can be a little troublesome at times.Have you tried OC'ing your processor yet?

Ark

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I9 9900K @ 5ghz / 32GB G.Skill (Samsung B) / Aorus Master Mobo / EVGA GTX 2080Ti FTW 3

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I have a 8600 GT SSC on my old machine and if I were you I would spend the money on a Q6600 CPU and give it a OC. The boost upgrading the CPU compared to a GPU upgrade will make you happier. I dont know what settings you are using on your 8600 but here is what I have found to work best.180.84 driverset in the nvidia control area - let the 3d app decideAA checked in FSXAF filter in FSXI have tried every possible setting and this worked best for me. I did like using NHANCER but I get menu lock ups when I use it. I have tracked that problem down to AA. For some reason if I manually select 4x AA I get menu lock up problems, if I set it to 2x or even 8x I dont have a lock up but 2x is too low for me and 8x is to high on my old machine. This is all fine as I feel that the AA level used by selecting it in FSX is 4x.Good Luck! (get the q6600)


Jim Wenham

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Almost forgot..... dont run 2x low water use 1x high or lower. This made a big difference.


Jim Wenham

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Guest Nick_N
Hello everyone and Happy New Year to all.Flightsimming is my only hobby that I

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That last post was very interesting. My system is only 6months old. Intel Pentium D core 2 duo. Still has 4years warranty.My current graphic card is Geforce 8600 512mb. I would like to experiment for a moment with this buffer pool assigning just to see what happens."You can assign 10, 25, 80, 128,256,512MB of memory in the FSX.cfg to bufferpools"I am very interested in this subject. Must I add the bufferpool to the configuration myself or is it already there where I just need to change the figures?My slots are PCIe compliant according to my manual. I can only use PCIe cards.Ark also provided links to different choices of the GTX 280 and the latter choice being the cheapest. The price is great but I do need to mention that I live in Germany. If the company would ship outside the U.S. then that would have been a great bargain for me. I

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Guest Nick_N
That last post was very interesting. My system is only 6months old. Intel Pentium D core 2 duo. Still has 4years warranty.My current graphic card is Geforce 8600 512mb. I would like to experiment for a moment with this buffer pool assigning just to see what happens."You can assign 10, 25, 80, 128,256,512MB of memory in the FSX.cfg to bufferpools"I am very interested in this subject. Must I add the bufferpool to the configuration myself or is it already there where I just need to change the figures?My slots are PCIe compliant according to my manual. I can only use PCIe cards.Ark also provided links to different choices of the GTX 280 and the latter choice being the cheapest. The price is great but I do need to mention that I live in Germany. If the company would ship outside the U.S. then that would have been a great bargain for me. I

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There is no way you have a Pentium D Core 2 Duo, there is no such animal. It is either Pentium D (1st generation dual core) or Core 2 duo (2nd generation dual core) both are dual core the D series were the 1st dual cores released. If you want to try the bufferpool tweek you will need to add this to you FSX.cfg:[bUFFERPOOLS]PoolSize=5000000 < this is what I set on my 256mb cardYou have a 512 mb card and can probably get away with a PoolSize=8000000 or 10000000


Jim Wenham

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Guest Nick_N
OK. you are not going anywhere fast on a 260/280 GTX cardYou are running a slow Pentium D processor. The fastest card I would suggest for you is a 8800GT 512 and even that will be more card than your processor will handleI also suspect the power supply in this computer may not be able to handle a 8800GT. I would make sure you have at absolute minimum a 550-600watt PSU with 18-24A 12v PCIe plugsThe board manufacture does not say this motherboard will support a Quad so I can not advise in that area.. If you did upgrade using this board I would say you will need a PSU, the fastest "Core2" dual core you can find, a 8800GT and memory designed to run higher speed with lower timing. However you can forget a 260/280 in that systemThis does not appear to be a 'clocking' board either so I would have to dive into its manual to see if its possible to get any more CPU speed out of it than default.. in that a board change would probably do you some good. If you were going to go the route of a complete upgrade I would suggest a i7 system and then you could take advantage of that 260/280If clocking is not possible on that board and assuming the board BIOS will indeed support the newer Core2 dual slugs this would be my sugggestion for an upgrade for you using that motherboardhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819115054http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820231120and make sure the memory is running the correct 4-4-4 timing in the BIOS @ DDR2 667 (333MHz)That board may not support the newer Core2 slugs though.. it might but I would have to research it to be sureEven the 8800GT is getting hard to find now however with the parts above you could move to the 9800 modelIf that board will clock then I would suggest these parts (memory speed depends on what the board will allow) for 800MHz memory speed: 4-4-4 timing http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820146726for 1066HMz memory speed: 5-5-5 timing http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820146785CPU can be the one above or this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819115036

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According to the manual in which I have in front of me, it says:Motherboard FeaturesLGA 775Intel Core2Duo/ Pentium 4/ Pentium D/ Celeron D Processor up to 3.8 GHzSupports Hyper Threading/ Execute Disable Bit / Enhance Intel SpeedStep/ Intel Extended Memory 64 technology*It

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Guest D17S

If you are thinking about a CPU upgrade, you to need to do some serious research to see how that board will do with a quad core2. Via is not the mainstream chipset and may not overclock as well as the Intel P35s. That said, your 667 ram will limit an O/C to a FSB of 333 (DDR drives ram at 2x the FSB). Generally O/Cs can run the FSB to 400Mhz (The Intel P35 chip rated speed). You are in a bit of an upgrade box. The 88 > 260 > 98(55nm) drill was all done at 1920x1080 and provided No benefit with a Core2 Quad at 3.6. That CPU's horsepower is within 10% of anything available, even today. The GPUs were free to show their stuff, and did. No change. Crysis, COD, etc will benefit cards with more horsepower than the 88/9800GT/260/etc, but not FS.There's no magic to be had in the .cfg file tweaks. They will provide (only) a subjective benefit in a direct ratio to the time spent tweaking! If you want something to just drop in, go for the 9800GT. 65 v 55 nm is meaningless at a 600Mhz core speed and increased core speed does not FS. You really need to do some research on that board if you are thinking about dropping in a core2 quad. No need to spend more on ram though. At 333, that'd take the quad to 333x9= 3.0Ghz. It's likely your current CPU cooler will run it there. Increasing ram speed provides no benefit beyond allowing an increased FSB. Getting from 3.0 to 3.6 would require DDR2-800 ram and a replacement CPU cooler. That begins to get in to a whole new build.If it looks iffy about the quad (and the boards ability to Overclock at all), go with a nice 9800GT. It's a good card that will Always be the most FSX can use . . . in this box And the next.

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