Hi All,Looking for some advice on a minor graphics card update.I currently have a 7600GS 256MB card running on an E6600 CPU and 3GB RAM on WinXP.I'd like to stick with this system until I have the time/budget to build myself a new top-notch PC.Until then, I wondering if an upgrade to an 8600GT 512MB would help the smoothness in flight and complex airport sceneries in FSX? There's stil some of these old cards floating around so for a small investment of ~$30, would I see much gain in FSX performance?The reason for the 8600GT is my motherboard supports only PCI-e 1.0 and I may be limited by the power supply - right now the card plugs directly in the the mainboard with no additional power connections needed.Is the 8600GT as far as I can go with these limitations? I believe 88xxx cards come with PCI-e 2.0 so while it would work, I would only have half the bandwidth available. Is this right?ThxMark

Your processor is the bottleneck. A gpu upgrade may improve image quality, but smoothness and frame rate are obtained with processor power and fast ram. So, I'd sooner do a minor cpu upgrade. Get cheap E8600 and overclock it to 4 GHz, make sure your mobo supports that cpu and that BIOS allows OC.

exactly, that little GPU upgrade is hardly worth it. It would only be worth it if you were to get a higher end GPU like the GTX 285 or GTX 460

Hi All,Looking for some advice on a minor graphics card update.I currently have a 7600GS 256MB card running on an E6600 CPU and 3GB RAM on WinXP.I'd like to stick with this system until I have the time/budget to build myself a new top-notch PC.Until then, I wondering if an upgrade to an 8600GT 512MB would help the smoothness in flight and complex airport sceneries in FSX? There's stil some of these old cards floating around so for a small investment of ~$30, would I see much gain in FSX performance?The reason for the 8600GT is my motherboard supports only PCI-e 1.0 and I may be limited by the power supply - right now the card plugs directly in the the mainboard with no additional power connections needed.Is the 8600GT as far as I can go with these limitations? I believe 88xxx cards come with PCI-e 2.0 so while it would work, I would only have half the bandwidth available. Is this right?ThxMark

Hi Mark,FSX is definitely a CPU (processor) intensive program because it does many many calculations. The video card upgrade you mention will be unimportant. Also, the 8600 GT from ASUS which I used to have, DOES plug into the power supply with a dedicated power chord if I recall. So you won't be well off with this. The performance gain will be barely noticeable also. If your mother supports it, try a better CPU like maybe an E8400 if these are still available.John

What are you guys on? Increasing the GPU power always results in more frames per second. It's a symbiotic relation :)If you can get a cheap 8800GT I would do it, otherwise save the money for a CPU/Motherboard upgrade

Were on nothing but knowledge. Yo, FSX is tied to the CPU, a major GPU upgrade is great but a small one like this is rubbish...

Were on nothing but knowledge. Yo, FSX is tied to the CPU, a major GPU upgrade is great but a small one like this is rubbish...

Aaay! I'll drink to that! Cheers! :Big Grin:

Aaay! I'll drink to that! Cheers!

Sure thing :Cuppa: sorry no beer

Really so you don't think upgrading to a DX10 card with support for HD is worth it such as the 8800GT? Next time someone asks about a card upgrade, go to GPUREVIEW and see what they're actually dealing with... I think that rule/advice is stickied for a reason.

Nope! Almost No one uses DX10 with FSX and if you knew anything, you would know that much.Why spend 80-100$ to see 1-2FP/S more Besides, he said 8600GT not 8800GT he obviously doesn' want to spend that money.

Yeah well when there's only a 10 dollar price difference feel free to make a suggestion like I did for a truly beefier card. And no my friend has an 8800GTS that I gave him and he has less of a CPU, and he got twice the fps increase. If you think FSX is CPU bound, obviously you have no idea how to use the settings. There is no reason FSX can't get 60fps.

he got twice the fps increase

sure he did0 x 2 = 0 hehe, just kiddin

Yeah well when there's only a 10 dollar price difference feel free to make a suggestion like I did for a truly beefier card. And no my friend has an 8800GTS that I gave him and he has less of a CPU, and he got twice the fps increase. If you think FSX is CPU bound, obviously you have no idea how to use the settings. There is no reason FSX can't get 60fps.

Haha Ya right 60FP/S sure he did, his setting were on Ultra, Ultra LOWAnd what was your friends card before ati prehestoric v.1 with GPU clock of 50Mhz and And Mem clock of 35Mhz

sure he did0 x 2 = 0 hehe, just kiddin

:Applause: That would be priceless

Waste of my time... I can't deal with 13 year old kids who know nothing about computers... Saying FSX is cpu bound is not only the silliest thing it just shows you have no clue. Second saying a MAJOR GPU upgrade won't improve performace because of the CPU is just uttlerly re****ed

Waste of my time... I can't deal with 13 year old kids who know nothing about computers... Saying FSX is cpu bound is not only the silliest thing it just shows you have no clue. Second saying a MAJOR GPU upgrade won't improve performace because of the CPU is just uttlerly re****ed

Look:GTX460 @ 715MHz / 1800MHz & 100% traffic:Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg 7784, 300000, 17, 38, 25.947GTX460 @ 870MHz / 2200MHz & 100% traffic:Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg 7708, 300000, 16, 38, 25.693.... so no benefit from overclocking. Now without traffic:GTX460 @ 715MHz / 1800MHz & 0% traffic:Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg 10877, 300000, 23, 52, 36.257GTX460 @ 870MHz / 2200MHz & 0% traffic:Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg 10909, 300000, 24, 54, 36.363again the same. Everybody knows FSX is CPU bound