Well guess ill just go for the 9600 PRO not as powerful as the 9700 but less of a bite in the hip pocket.Then I guess ill upgrade the CPU and that next at least I know what im doing regards that department :)

Trouble is the nearest place that i know of that has a computer market is 5+ hours drive away... so the cost of travel would just outweigh the cheapness of the card...

You might like to try the online supplier PC Express based in Sydney - www.pc-express.com.au - their prices are similar to what the markets offer (eg 5600FX for $297).Bruce

>Anyways back to my friend, with his TI4200 and all sliders>maxed, he got 5-8 FPS at Simflyers KJFK, when we put in the>5600 it jumped to 12-16 sometimes 18, and when we put in my>Radeon 9700pro it went up 25+. He has since taken back the>5600 and got the radeon 9800pro, where he is getting around>35fps solid now (locked). >here is a link to the reveiw:>http://www.guru3d.com/review/hercules/3dprophet9700/Thanks for the info Jason, I think I'll be going for the 9800Pro - probably Hercules after seeing the review of it. A few more questions though.Some graphics cards have power cables on them, including it seems the Hercules 9800 pro. Now my current motherboard has no power connectors for this (MSI KT3-Ultra 2). Do these connect to the PSU rather than the motherboard?Also, the AGP connector is the AGP 2.0 4x standard. It appears to be a universal connector rather than keyed for 3.3v or 1.5v cards. Will is work on this despite being a AGP 3.0 standard card? A quote from motherboards.org says this:"While AGP 3.0 spec uses existing AGP 2.0 and AGP Pro 1.5v connectors, this does not mean you can use an AGP 3.0 card on a AGP 2.0 motherboard, you cannot." http://www.motherboards.org/articlesd/tech...ions/920_2.htmlMy hope with this article is that it refers to the AGP 3.0 *draft* spec. Other pages on graphics card websites appear to say that their cards are backward compatible to 4x speeds.Finally, I'm considering upgrading my motherboard to an Athlon XP 400Mhz FSB with the Nvidia Nforce 2 Chipset, would this chipset prefer Nvidia graphics cards to ATI cards?Once again, thanks so far for the infoAnthony Dyer

Wow thanks a lot Bruce I am just hopeless at trying to find places to buy stuff on the net... :)Thanks

Two things: Firstly, ATI are still working on problems with FS2004 on their cards. They will certainly fix the flickering menu and corrupted text problems, but may also address frame rate issues, so there could be a performance gain in the pipeline, we'll have to wait and see. Secondly, check around for prices of the Radeon 9700 pro before getting the 9800 pro, you might find some real bargains, the difference in performance is not that dramatic and you might gain more by saving the cash for other upgrades in the system.