60€ is the price difference (Sparkle GTX 285 2GB for 350€ or 1GB for 290€), the new i7 build will be for next 3 years approx. Is it worth the price and is it needed? I know when I bought my 8800GT 512MB looked like helluwa lot. Now it's nothing...

60

Ah well, not only FS. But mostly.But is there really a difference between different makes? I see there are also different prices, for example between eVGA, Sparkle, Zotac and Gigabyte.

Gigabyte and EVGA will have the highest-binned SKUs, in laymen's terms: their products are overclocked the most from the factory and will likely overclock the highest in the user's hands. Zotac has nicely overclocked SKUs as well, but are a relative newcomer so they don't have the reputation of quality of the likes of EVGA or Gigabyte. Sparkle is a cheap brand, I'd recommend against. As to your main question, go with the 1GB card. There is no game or combination of graphical settings (aside from humongous video walls with ridiculous resolutions) which is primarily limited by the size of one's video RAM. You will run into processing or bandwidth bottlenecks long before that extra 1GB of video RAM becomes useful.

Max, I have to say you were highly wrong on the 1GB answer.As I proceed with testing of FSX, I am hitting very often the 1GB limit. Measuring courtesy of GPUZ.I use the 8,5 in terrain settings.

HelloIt would appear that zotak is the Nvidia subsidary of PC Partner who also manufacture Sapphire ATI cardsBeing AMDs primary supplier of graphics cards I would guess they will make a decent card, and given they are trying to build the brandI would reckon that quality will be well up there

Word Not Allowed - you're the first person I've ever seen report > 1GB VRAM usage for FSX. You've either got some insane settings or the tool you're using is measuring incorrectly, or you're reading it wrong.

Word Not Allowed - you're the first person I've ever seen report > 1GB VRAM usage for FSX. You've either got some insane settings or the tool you're using is measuring incorrectly, or you're reading it wrong.

Insane setting? FSX at it's default install + some decent scenery and usual addons, and I get this:I don't see anything wrong.If I bump the LOD_RADIUS up to 8.5 to make sharper textures in distance, I get usage over 900MB according to GPUZ.

Word Not Allowed - you're the first person I've ever seen report > 1GB VRAM usage for FSX. You've either got some insane settings or the tool you're using is measuring incorrectly, or you're reading it wrong.

I reported a few weeks ago in a unrelated post (BP) that I was using above 1GB Vram with FSX with GPU at 67% load.Easy to do when running LOD above the default max of 4.5 and running many good scenery add-ons.1920x1200x32 8sxAA/16xAF also will help fill it up.As verified with RivaTuner/GPU-Z /Powerstripwin 7 Desktop aero = on sam res as above, Vram total 70-80MB FSX main startup menu Vram total - 180 MBStart Flight at FSDT KORD or similar Vram total - 680MB+ jump into your favorite heavy PMDG/CS/LD etc, let AI start to set up, go flying, VC views, pan outside views - VRAM total - 1018MBI have maxed frame buffer of every card I can think of that I have ever used with FS, it just depends on the setting and add-on you are running.In just thinking about this, my mind starts to hurt, consider: the NY-Monroe county scenery add-on project I have been developing is a healthy 120GB of 13cm/pix compressed textures, and at FL10 you can quickly pan all of it or see all of it on aproach.Obviously its not ALL loaded and rendered to screen due to mipmaping, but throw 3D objects on it and add some weather, dont forget an airplane with HD textures if you really want to fill it up....Add shadows and Water reflections and levels of AA ..........how much Vram do we need?As far as the quetion about 1Gb vs 2Gb, I dont know, you sure can run higher res if your monitor(s) allows, and higher AA without kicking it back down, but other than that I am not sure if you would gain a thing. As for it being "slower", sure it is slightly slower in some respects but I doubt very much it would result in FSX running slower.I say that because I can overclock the snot out of MY 285GTX but from my stock clocks the benchmarks are impacted just a fraction in the data as in tenths of 1 FPS running FSX as I do: Vsync on, FPS capped at 34 at high IQ settings enabled.So, I dunno Word Not Allowed, beside an Impact on alocated Memory for the OS I think if I had the choice I might go with the 2GB, but maybe thats just because I'm curious.I think If I grab a Fermi it will be a 2GB version.

So, I dunno Word Not Allowed, beside an Impact on alocated Memory for the OS I think if I had the choice I might go with the 2GB, but maybe thats just because I'm curious.

Been there done that last summer. Thinking I might experiment with the

Thinking I might experiment with the

unrelated to BP, did you test forextreme IQ? What screen res, type of AA and LOD did you throw at it and with what results?

If you call 2048x1536 resolution with 16xAA

If you call 2048x1536 resolution with 16xAA

That is a sweet screen res! I like the Dell 2408WFP but I'm stuck with 1920x1200.

That was on one of the 22

That was on one of the 22