Hey Doug,Just wanted to add my experience of the GTX295 since you list you may be in debate which to get. I would not recommend it and stay with a lesser card personally. I have a 295 & 260 and there have been issues with the 295's since their release, mostly driver support. I'd do your 1st choice if anything, but of course wait til the release of the newer nvidia cards to hopefully lower costs.The 260's a great card and I really don't see much improvement with the 295 anyway,,, just in the reviews, not in performance in my games (there is 0 fps difference between the 2 in FSX).

Thanks, Dan. I'm running the 260 now, and thought about adding a 285 as a second card. I guess I could add another 260 and SLI them, but I have no interest in that. I tend to run FSX in full screen with VC and then other windows open in the other screen (FMS, Overhead, maybe an external view because I'm a dork like that...)

Thanks, Dan. I'm running the 260 now, and thought about adding a 285 as a second card. I guess I could add another 260 and SLI them, but I have no interest in that. I tend to run FSX in full screen with VC and then other windows open in the other screen (FMS, Overhead, maybe an external view because I'm a dork like that...)

I wish I had it to do over again, I would have bought the 285. I'm always wondering now when my system has a hiccup if it's one of the 295 qwerks I've heard about...As for Crossfire and SLI, I'm done with that phase and with the way the cards are now a days don't see any benefit in any game worth the cost of it unless of course you're running all your games in very high resolutions. I prefer one card for PhysX, I just wish there was a flight sim that could use that, it would give a HUGE benefit. I like just to have the extra DVI outs for more monitors too, unfortunately with the way FSX is, I can't use them the way I would prefer since the whole DirectX window takes up all of the screen realistate.

Hi guys, a bit off-topic but related nevertheless,I

Dario,How much are you looking to spend? Depending on what you've already got you can get a pretty high spec system for less than you think. about 9 months ago now, I bought:

• Gigabyte GA-X58 UD3R
• Patriot Viper 1600MHz 6GB RAM
• i7 920
• GTX260 896MB
• Corsair 650W PSU
• Akasa Nero Cooling Fan

For under

thanks andrew.what's your system performance like please? that motherboard is like 50

Your I7 is listed as a 2,60MHz, not sure about it's OC capabilities though.

The I7 920 is the best OC chip I've ever had. I have it and yeah it's normal clock is 2.6 but running mine at a very stable 3.8. In fact I was running it at 3.8 for about 8 or so months on stock cooling. Now I still run it @ 3.8 but my settings changed to bump up the memory and also bought a better cooler ($40 usd) and rarely hit above 50c. One thing though is this is one reason certain motherboards are better suited than others since some have very little OC ability.

will a NVIDIA card work in my system?

Yes, either ATI or nVidia card will work fine. The ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO is an ok board but not if you're thinking about SLI or Crossfire. It has 1# 16x PCIE and 1# 4x. It still looks like a good build but the one thing I never personally look for deals on or cut costs is the MB. In most cases you do get what you pay for. That again really only matters for sli/cross. Other than that it looks fine.My primary concerns on a new build are always, motherboard, case & PSU. You get those 3 things rock solid, the build will last many upgrades down the road and give you the performance room you're after.Of course CPU and memory go hand in hand with the MB, but if I need to spend more than expected coin on the MB, then I will just get a lesser cpu or even cheap temporary ram to get me by until down the road when I can afford better. The motherboard is the like the foundation of the house and no one wants to replace that soon after a new build.The other things, like sound card, hard drives, video cards, they too can take the lower priority, but a good case with good airflow and preferably bottom mounted PSU and ceiling fan is well worth the extra couple bucks.Sorry if this just adds to your confusion, but doing a new build is an investment like anything else and I think what makes the total value go up higher and higher is because I hate to waste money on less than or equal to the better architecture available.

It wasn't that hard to just take a look at your sigs to see that both Andrew and you have some massive OC there, so sorry about that, and with stock cooling you can reach 3,8?!?!! AwesomeI bought what seemed to be a nice cooler, but even at 3,4GHz when FSX forces the CPU to 100% the temperature is about 50

...And now I can see you already posted your performance figures there, Andrew. Thanks again, I'll check my RAM performance cause obviously I'm on a 64bit OSAbout the GTX260 896MB, I can see two different models here:http://www.pcbox.com/catalogo/ficha.asp?la...mp;prod=ASK1322 (211 eur)http://www.pcbox.com/catalogo/ficha.asp?la...∏=ZOT38 (160 eur)not sure what the difference is thoughI'll need to see how to monitor my GPU and see if it's overloaded by FSX and hence needs upgrading

Hello Dario,I can't open those links, so if you could describe both cards that'd be easier :-).

Sure thing, here we go:the 211 eur one:GRAFIC CARD 896MB ASUS GTX260 CUDA PCX DDR3 576M- Chip Manufacturer : NVidia- Grafic Chip: GeForce GTX 260- RAM: 896 MB DDR3- PCI Express: x16- Memory Interface: 448 bit- Engine Clock: 576 MHz- Shader Clock: 1242 MHz- Memory clock: 1.99 GHz- Resolution DVI: 2560 x 1600- Conectors: 2xDVI / 1XS-Video- Fans: si, turbine- Minimum PS: 500W- Alimentacion: 2x6 pins. the 162 eur is:GRAFIC CARD 896MB ZOTAC GTX260 CUDA PCX DDR3 PREMIUM- GPU: GeForce GTX 260- Core clock: 576MHz- stream Processors: 216- Shader Clock: 1242 MHz- Memory clock: 1998MHz- Mem size: 896MB- Mem interface: 448-bit- Mem Type: GDDR3- 3D API, DirectX 10 y OpenGL 2.1- Ports: DVI: 2 , TV-Out: HDTV / S-Video / videocompuesto- RAMDAC: 400 MHz- Max Resolution: 2560 x 1600- Windows: certificado para Windows Vista y Windows 7- Others: CUDA y PhysX So the first one is made by ASUS and the 2nd by ZOTACHope my 630W PSU can handle this if I go for it eventually

Hi,Basically, if you didn't kown already, nVidia makes the chips, then ships them off to various manufacturers who put them on the board, along with memory and cooling etc. Hence, there is a large range of cards running the same chip. This also means that some cards are better than others. I've not had experience with either of those two manufacturers (ASUS or ZOTAC), so you might want to do some research on what one performs the best. Also, the newer cards are starting to come with 1792MB of RAM, which may be an advantage if you run high resolutions.I, personally have a Gainward Golden Sample card.

Very interesting Andrew, that's a test that can help me pinpoint what to upgrade. I can lower my resolution (currently at 1920x1080) and see if the is an improvement.If there is, I have a GPU issue there, at least memory wiseWhat I've read in some search though, is that speed is much more of a factor than memory when it comes to GPU used for gaming, and also that NVIDIA cards are faster than ATIs in general

Very interesting Andrew, that's a test that can help me pinpoint what to upgrade. I can lower my resolution (currently at 1920x1080) and see if the is an improvement.If there is, I have a GPU issue there, at least memory wiseWhat I've read in some search though, is that speed is much more of a factor than memory when it comes to GPU used for gaming, and also that NVIDIA cards are faster than ATIs in general

That's correct, but as with CPUs, it's also down to architecture, drivers, and memory as well as speed. Good cards have a combination of all of these. ATI's cards are no worse than nVidia's, however, their drivers don't work very well with AA in FSX from what I've read, and don't do clouds without complaining. However, the shear power of the new ATIs seems to overcome these limitations, but I wouldn't spend

Well, this is what I've tested so far:Overclocking/Downclocking the CPU with no results. I can even downclock from 3.4 to 3.0GHz with the same performanceDownloaded GPU-Z to find the card's load is more or less 40-50%.Adjusted the GPU settings to an optimized profile and overclocked it like mad... to no avail eitherObserved that memory usage never exceded 2,5 Gb, about 1,5 (maximum) of them assigned to fsx.exeChanged the DRAM freq from 533MHz (7 7 7 24) to 800MHz (11 11 11 30). No impactConclusion, no f***ing clue where the problem is :(Besides, W7 is supposed to support DirectX 11, but my system specs page says the current version is 10Not sure if DX11 could help

Ok, one last question please.I'm checking Nvidia GPUs and compared to the ASUS GTX260 for 211 eur, there's a POINT OF VIEW GTX275 896 MB GDDR3 PCX for 232 eur. Is it worth those extra 20 or would you stick to the GTX260?