I have a HD 3870 in my old rig and it did a decent job for me. It would be curious to see what kind of difference it would make if I put the 3870 in my new rig. Maybe I'll do that in the future just as a goof.

I don

That's why you NEVER see any video cards benchmarked to FSX. I would guess that FSX is probably the most graphic intensive mass produced simulation and that's why it is so hard to run. I'm just glad I finally have a system that I am happy can do the job with FSX. No more worrying about tweaking and tricks to make my sim faster.I will continue to look for the Sapphire Radeon HD 4890 Atomic and buy that when I can find it. The Diamond Radeon HD 4890 XOC is excellent but I notice I am having some difficulty overclocking it to my satisfaction. I was aware of this when I bought it and it runs quite well at the factory OC settings but now that I am an overclocker, I am hungry for more. LOL!Whether you use Nvidia or ATI - it's all a matter of preference.

That's why you NEVER see any video cards benchmarked to FSX. I would guess that FSX is probably the most graphic intensive mass produced simulation and that's why it is so hard to run.

Most sites don

you do realize that the Memory bus on the 4890 is TWICE what it is for the 295 and the core clock is a good 300mhz faster aswell.Next time you want to get into an argument, look up the specs and don't go based on something you heard from someone else. This would be a no brainer if you had actually done your homework.

you do realize that the Memory bus on the 4890 is TWICE what it is for the 295 and the core clock is a good 300mhz faster aswell.Next time you want to get into an argument, look up the specs and don't go based on something you heard from someone else. This would be a no brainer if you had actually done your homework.

Really? The GTX 285 just like the GTX 280 has a 512-bit memory bus. The ATI 4890 just like the 4870 has a 256-bit memory bus. The 4890 is just a die shrunk/overclocked 4870 crippled by the same narrow memory bus. The GTX 285 is just a die shrunk/overclocked 280 with the same wide memory bus. http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3501&p=1http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardw...b-review-2.htmlI forgot to add that the memory bus on the GTX 295 is 2 x 448-bit. Why you mentioned the GTX 295 I don

One word: drivers. Drivers are the reason there is a performance difference between Nvidia and ATi graphics cards WRT FSX performance. ATi does not consider FSX do be a worthy recipient of driver tuning, and their driver has traditionally had more overhead than Nvidia's. They both make excellent graphics cards so that nonsense needs to stop now.

One word: drivers. Drivers are the reason there is a performance difference between Nvidia and ATi graphics cards WRT FSX performance. ATi does not consider FSX do be a worthy recipient of driver tuning, and their driver has traditionally had more overhead than Nvidia's. They both make excellent graphics cards so that nonsense needs to stop now.

Correction, they both make excellent graphic cards with certain applications (games). FSX just happens not to be ATI

Getting back on topic, I am still loading my add-ons to FSX. taking a while as I am updating all add-ons to the latest versions. It's amazing how much stuff we put in our sims!So far, got FS Genesis mesh (US & world), ASX (SP4), X Graphics (SP4), Scenery Tech NA LC (1.4), MegaScenery X Phoenix & Hawaii, and GEX (1.08) installed. Still have to add FSUIPC, FS Inn, and my add-on planes and will be good to go! Hope to post more test pics tonite.BTW, I hooked up my old PC to a Sony 40" flat panel TV and it looks unbelievable! Will have to find a way to hook up the new rig to that TV for a totally immersive flightsim experience. Was surprised how good it looks if you just back up a few feet from the TV.

i hope you're going back to more modest settings... nice stress test but if you're getting 22fps in the outside hate to see what your getting in VC. :)

Correction, they both make excellent graphic cards with certain applications (games). FSX just happens not to be ATI's forte.No driver is going to help a GPU's architectural deficiency in running a particular application/game engine.

When you're talking about a purely CPU-bound application (FSX) it absolutely makes all the difference in the world. After all, drivers don't run on their host device, they run on the CPU.

When you're talking about a purely CPU-bound application (FSX) it absolutely makes all the difference in the world. After all, drivers don't run on their host device, they run on the CPU.

So do think a driver update from ATI is going help the performance hit when you get heavy particle effects in a game or heavy weather in FSX because of the that narrow memory bus?

djt01: I have no clue where you get your specs but these are North American specifications at retail. http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?ca...8&card2=605

djt01: I have no clue where you get your specs but these are North American specifications at retail. http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?ca...8&card2=605

How come you don

Well I did do my Numerical Analysis homework back in the days.. and it tells me that there is no such thing as a 512bit application. you planning on writting any CUDA applications with your card? Hardly has anything to do with graphics now does it....

So do think a driver update from ATI is going help the performance hit when you get heavy particle effects in a game or heavy weather in FSX because of the that narrow memory bus?

FSX performance is limited by the CPU. Drivers are code which is executed on the CPU. The more CPU time your driver code takes up, the fewer cycles you have for your application. A more efficient driver which takes less CPU time would yield higher FPS in an application such as FSX.

How come you don't have a clue? Wait don't answer that, we already knew you didn't have a clue. The same place everyone else here get's their specs. Did you look at the links I gave you before; it's a no-brainer -http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3501&p=1http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardw...b-review-2.htmlLook at the section that shows "M E M O R Y B U S" in the charts. See it's a no-brainer. The number 512 (as in 512-bit) is larger than the number 256 (as in 256-bit). Isn't that easy, now go do your homework, lol.

Memory bus width on it's own is not a measure of bandwidth and therefore not a performance metric. Bandwidth is derived by the following equation: bus width x memory clock. Since HD4870 and 4890 cards make use of GDDR5 they overcome their relatively small memory bus. 3.6GHz/3.9GHz GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus yields 115-125GB/s respectively. Not exactly a paltry sum. Less than a GTX 285, certainly (mine provides close to 176GB/s bandwidth at it's current clocks) but the biggest consumer of bandwidth on a graphics card nowadays is AA samples at high rates and shader calculations. We all know FSX isn't using up shader processing power so that elminates the need for high bandwidth from one's graphics card outside of ridiculously high AA sample rates at high frame rates. Since we're dealing with a CPU-bound application here high frame rates are pretty much out of the question so FSX is unlikely to ever be held back by one's video memory bandwidth, when using a modern high-end graphics card of course.