please .. this from the guy who bought the wrong 460... You really know a lot about what you're talking about don't you :)End of story then, send me the 460, I'll send you an 8800GTS in return. Do we have a deal? If no then why did you go through the hassle of exchanging the 460 if FSX is so cpu bound as you claim.

I never said I was a hardware guru or something like that. It was a few months ago when I decided to switch to FSX and built my first rig for that purpose, and believe me, I've made worse choices than the 465, but I've learned a few things in the process.That's obviously not your case. Come down and do your homework: I've tested 5 different cards with the same results. What do you have to back up your words?

please .. this from the guy who bought the wrong 460... You really know a lot about what you're talking about don't you :)End of story then, send me the 460, I'll send you an 8800GTS in return. Do we have a deal? If no then why did you go through the hassle of exchanging the 460 if FSX is so cpu bound as you claim.

Really well first of all you are getting horrendous frame rates... when you can pull 50+ FPS on your system and have it setup right, we'll continue this discussion on benchmarks.

Really well first of all you are getting horrendous frame rates... when you can pull 50+ FPS on your system and have it setup right, we'll continue this discussion on benchmarks.

Veeray,I think you're forgetting the original posting here and the video cards that the person was talking about. There will BE a frame rate improvement from the 7600 to the 8800 but not very much. Not as much as if the CPU was upgraded to a new generation CPU. I just upgraded my video card from an Nvidia 8600GT (not even a GTS) 256MB to an ATI (Sapphire) 5770 1GB. Frame rates for Amsterdam X by Aerosoft are: 8fps when taxiing! With the 8600, I had the Aerosoft Paris CDG (I did not have the Amsterdam yet as it was not out), and my frame rates were about 8-12fps when taxiing! With the 5770 at CDG, I believe I was getting about the same, maybe a bit more. But this video upgrade is a MAJOR video upgrade and what the original poster of this thread is considering is not a major upgrade.Just an FYI ...John

Really well first of all you are getting horrendous frame rates... when you can pull 50+ FPS on your system and have it setup right, we'll continue this discussion on benchmarks.

Dude I am a hardware guru and I Do know what im talking about and I can tell you that you would be right....... for 99% of games, but FSX IS NOT GPU BOUND. The GPU plays a big role BUT only a major upgrade makes a difference. Really your wasting our time aruging about something you know nothing about. Ask anyone in the forums and they tell you that WERE right!! @Byrna The reason you got bad frames is that the card is Ati and it has a few problems with FSX -_- If you would have got a GTX 460, 470, 480 there would have been a big improvement, but not with that.

Veeray - Yoou are so far wrong it is laughable. Obviously it is you who knows nothing about FSX. I have been building and maintaining computers and networks since the days of CP/M and I do know what I am talking about.FSX is CPU bound - period. You need raw processing power to get the best out of it. Put the best available video card in against a decent card with the same processor and you'll not see much of a difference. Now, when you start geting to 4ghz and above, the quality of the GPU starts coming into the mix and you'll get a bigger difference BUT not a major one.This only applies to FSX - any other games etc are a different story - remember FSX is really old technology as games go.To get the best out of FSX you need to get a balance of raw power (FPS) and image quality. Lower the quality and you'll get significantly higher frames but with stutters and problems.Vic

Dude I am a hardware guru and I Do know what im talking about and I can tell you that you would be right....... for 99% of games, but FSX IS NOT GPU BOUND. The GPU plays a big role BUT only a major upgrade makes a difference. Really your wasting our time aruging about something you know nothing about. Ask anyone in the forums and they tell you that WERE right!! @Byrna The reason you got bad frames is that the card is Ati and it has a few problems with FSX -_- If you would have got a GTX 460, 470, 480 there would have been a big improvement, but not with that.

It has nothing to do with the 5770 being an ATI card. The ati issues are driver related, but they don't perform any worse than nvidias (except for clouds, that is actually a driver issue too but it effects performance cause ATI drivers are not optimized for the FSX shader implementation)If a small GPU upgrade doesn't help, neither will a great upgrade. That's what happens when you have a bottleneck somewhere else (the CPU in FSX)

Veeray - Yoou are so far wrong it is laughable. Obviously it is you who knows nothing about FSX. I have been building and maintaining computers and networks since the days of CP/M and I do know what I am talking about.FSX is CPU bound - period. You need raw processing power to get the best out of it. Put the best available video card in against a decent card with the same processor and you'll not see much of a difference. Now, when you start geting to 4ghz and above, the quality of the GPU starts coming into the mix and you'll get a bigger difference BUT not a major one.This only applies to FSX - any other games etc are a different story - remember FSX is really old technology as games go.To get the best out of FSX you need to get a balance of raw power (FPS) and image quality. Lower the quality and you'll get significantly higher frames but with stutters and problems.Vic

So you've seen 4GHz+ CPU starting to overcome the CPU bottleneck? can you please let us know the details? (CPU model, cards you tested, performance gain...)That's very interesting indeed :)

It has nothing to do with the 5770 being an ATI card. The ati issues are driver related, but they don't perform any worse than nvidias (except for clouds, that is actually a driver issue too but it effects performance cause ATI drivers are not optimized for the FSX shader implementation)If a small GPU upgrade doesn't help, neither will a great upgrade. That's what happens when you have a bottleneck somewhere else (the CPU in FSX)

Listen I've told you once I'll say it again. I had a C2D @3.3Ghz E6600 and I went from the ATi 4580 to the GTX 470, a major upgrade with some major results. Like 20 FP/S better. And yes overall Ati cards can't perform in FSX as well as Nvidia Period.

Thanks for clarifying how much of a hardware guru you are, and how trustworthy your benchmark results were

Listen I've told you once I'll say it again. I had a C2D @3.3Ghz E6600 and I went from the ATi 4580 to the GTX 470, a major upgrade with some major results. Like 20 FP/S better. And yes overall Ati cards can't perform in FSX as well as Nvidia Period.

huh? You can't say its not true becasue I actually had both cards and I know.

Okay and yes I do have benchmarks, I had a saved flight on the tarmac at VHHH wilco 777 + Fraps 30 secondsThe results for E6600 3.3Ghz Ati 4580Max: 22 Avg: 20.6 Min: 16E6600 3.3Ghz GtX 470Max: 54 Avg: 37.8 Min: 24NowMax: 103 Avg: 75.4 Min: 46Yes the i7 made a big differnce but so did the GTX 470, so everyone who says a BIG GPU upgrade makes no differnce is wrong. Or why would anyone ever upgrade??I see both points here but I can argue either ways, I just wanna drop this, the whole point was to help the guy who posted, we helped him, No he shouldn't upgrade. Now Dazz dont turn against your fellow CPU bound believer friends, dont get me wrong I share your opnion besides jsut how much the GPU affects everything. So what just chill B)

Thanks for clarifying how much of a hardware guru you are, and how trustworthy your benchmark results were

Stop hating man, come on. You know I agree with you about the CPU's importance... Don't start this. ^_^

Wow seems you can't even agree amongst yourself... obviously since you're all talking pure nonsense. If anyone has seen the 10 line PATTERN to every DirectX game pipeline you'd realize that rendering is 50% CPU and 50% GPU. Anytime I increase either one it will definitely increase overall FPS. That's why every console game uses all 3 cpus. Why would they if they're software didn't suffer from the same issues that FSX does... according to you guys it's a walk in the park for every other game.Of course if you get 17fps and have choked your system beyond repair. Delete fsx.cfg fly in a default airport/airplane and tell me how CPU limited it is when you're hitting your monitors 60hz bound. FSX is limited by the addon junk you load, and the silly amount of AA/AF you force your card to do. hence why MS put those sliders there in the first place. Suggesting that there are other bounds then just your cpu.... more formally on the INPUT which is what 99.99% of applications are bounded by. What surprises me most is people will say yes it's CPU bound, then will go and apply every snake oil patch thinking there is a solution.

No one with an I7 thats running well is choking at 17 FP/S they can get 30 locked which is what your eye can see. And in excess of 100FP/S away from airports. What's the point of FSX if you're not gonna run any addons. The game is played in DX9 not DX10. And yea it's pretty hard to agree complety but the basis is there, the CPU is what mainly lets us acheive high FP/S.You obviously have no idea about FSX and you insist on tring to convince us that were wrong when you don't know a single thing.