what about 480? :(

480 is the older GF100 core that runs hotter and uses more power. A 570 is actually faster than a 480.

I'm using a mildly overclocked 570. Stays nice and cool, but crashes with any real attempt to push the clock speed.I want a bit more FSX performance (frames are slowing down a bit in the cities at night - I'm using UTX night lightling). I was wondering if the 580 would help a little in this regard. I also like that FSX glow effect that kills frames...and I still can't run it in dense urban areas. These were the sort of effects I could imagine a heftier video card helping with, but I'm no expert on this.If I was betting...I'd say what I really need is more MHz on the CPU...but would a 580 or some future card speed this sort of thing up?

That's all CPU, not GPU unfortunately... The only stuff that's really heavily affected by the GPU in FSX is shader stuff, which those night lights are not.

My 580 helped with UTX night lighting a lot couldn't really use them until I bought a gtx580.Rich

Oz its crashing because you need to up the voltage on your qpi/vtt voltage I believe, I had the same problem go here http://www.overclock...ml#post13750691 this is the thread where I solved my problems, Alan and Guru will help they no their stuff big time, sign up and respond to that thread its a thread dedicated to your motherboard, nice. :( Overclocking a video card is a waste of time, get your cpu overclock stable with your cpu 4.2 would just about do it. Oh download cpuz to check your overclock.Rich

Hey Rich, thanks for the link and I'll definitely check it out cos I'm always trying to learn a bit more about OCing the Nehalem CPUs (at least until I go Sandy Bridge). FWIW, my CPU overclock is solid at 4.0GHz with a lot of tweaking behind it, including qpi/vtt - I use it at this speed for work etc as well as FSX. I've run it at 4.2Ghz and I can do it but I get a few too many BSODs. I was just referring to overclocking the NVidia 570, which I do, but which doesn't give much in the way of performance gains as I think you said. From what I've read it's a pretty poor overclocker but at stock speeds (+ a bit) it's still a great card. I almost bought a 480 - the 570s were released the weeek I built the system so they weren't particularly cheap. As Ryan said, the 570 is probably faster, plus it runs nice and cool in comparison, so I've always been glad I went with the new-gen card and would advise the same to anyone else.RE: the UTX night lighting...interesting comments from Ryan and Rich. Sounds like I'm not the only one trying to light up the streets at night with UTX. I'm using an external frame rate limiter set at 30, and was seeing drops to about 17fps last night flying in to KSAN and KSFO.I've got a feeling that I need about 6MHz (+/- an NVidia '780') to be happy!Btw, I once wrote a (not very good) flight simulator that ran on a 1Mhz computer... :)

Hi Buddy did you download the evga precision tool I always crank up my fan speed when using fsx when I get out I turn it back down do you have an evga product ? I highly advice against overclocking the gpu not enough bang ofr the buck lol and it can actually hurt your card in the end, happened to me never do it again. :( Oh yah even the overclocker pros will admit that cpu the only way to go.Rich

Hi Buddy did you download the evga precision tool I always crank up my fan speed when using fsx when I get out I turn it back down do you have an evga product ? I highly advice against overclocking the gpu not enough bang ofr the buck lol and it can actually hurt your card in the end, happened to me never do it again. :( Oh yah even the overclocker pros will admit that cpu the only way to go.Rich

No, I've got a Leadtek 570 - I mentioned above I'd get an EVGA next time, and that's cos of the software. The tweaker with my Leadtek didn't actually work so I'm just OC using NVidia inspector which I'm happy enough with. I think a gentle GPU overclock is likely to be OK - but just like overclocking your CPU there's always a chance you'll fry it. Obviously more upside by far with CPU overclocking for FSX - I've tended to give my GPU a gentle wind up as well, but haven't ever quantified the effect.

Hey Ryan and Richard,I thought I'd test the theories above ie does a ninja video card (the 580) have a chance of improving performance, and does overclocking help.Here's my little experiment:Methods:Using a NVidia 570Sitting on 34R at KSEA at dusk with the UTX nightlighting on.I way underclocked my card as followsMemory 475 MhzShader 810 MhzAverage frame rate 17.5 fpsOverclockThen I overclocked it as I sometime do:Memory 2026 MhzShader 1569 MHzI saw an improvement of 1-1.5 fps.Findings:A massive change in clock speed results in a very small but noticable change in FPS. The normal overclock of about 5% above baseline is unlikely to provide a signifnanct incerase in FPS and has the disadvantage of increasing the incidence of BSOD syndrome and also may lead to premature GPU expiry.Discussion: I will not be buying a 580-series card. BTW, by way of comparison my computer CPU reset to non OC frequencies earlier today and I didn't note until a dusk approach into KSEA. In this case, the frames were down to single figures - so I think my CPU overclock is getting me at least a 50% improvement which has a massive impact on the game (unliek the GPU tweaks).

Hi Rob:You are spot on in your findings buddy good one, you really need to talk to the boys at that overclockers thread, I had the same problem loosing my overclock, exact same problem, they helped me thru it, they are very willing to help others, please do that you wont be sorry, good luck Rob.Regards, Rich