I just built a new computer for FSX and am trying to figure out what to do about a video card. I have an i7 960 3.2Ghz processor 4GB of ram and my old Radeon HD 4850 video card with 512MB of memory. I am trying to figure out if it is really worth my money to upgrade to a newer better video card. I've been looking at the GTX570. I have been reading several threads here and it seems that many people are not seeing a real increase in FPS with the upgrades they have done but I believe they are upgrading from better cards than the one I have. I don't really know how to compare theirs to mine because they are upgrading from Nvidia cards (GTX 260-275s and GTX 460-460s and cards like that). The other thing I am noticing in the threads I have read is that many have overclocked their CPUs which I guess can make a difference in how much the video card will improve performance. I know nothing about configuring overclocking and am reluctant to try it. I am running Active Sky Evolution and Ultimate Traffic 2 with mostly PMDG and Level D planes. and just want to get my FPS up.

I just built a new computer for FSX and am trying to figure out what to do about a video card. I have an i7 960 3.2Ghz processor 4GB of ram and my old Radeon HD 4850 video card with 512MB of memory. I am trying to figure out if it is really worth my money to upgrade to a newer better video card. I've been looking at the GTX570. I have been reading several threads here and it seems that many people are not seeing a real increase in FPS with the upgrades they have done but I believe they are upgrading from better cards than the one I have. I don't really know how to compare theirs to mine because they are upgrading from Nvidia cards (GTX 260-275s and GTX 460-460s and cards like that). The other thing I am noticing in the threads I have read is that many have overclocked their CPUs which I guess can make a difference in how much the video card will improve performance. I know nothing about configuring overclocking and am reluctant to try it. I am running Active Sky Evolution and Ultimate Traffic 2 with mostly PMDG and Level D planes. and just want to get my FPS up.

You'll see an improvement if you OC your CPU at least to 4GHz.... Try to inform yourself about OCing... it really boost your system performance... I went from a HD5870 to a GTX580 (with CPU OC'd to 4.5GHz) and it was like night and day... Great improvement...Dexter

Ok thanks for the info. I guess I have some learning to do on the overclocking. I specifically built this computer to finally get FSX smooth and I'm close as it is.