I've just swapped out my NVidia 5600FX for an ATI 9800XT. An expensive operation but I cannot believe the increase in performance :-eekWhy I ever went the NVidia route in the first place I shall never know :-hmmm DavidIntel P4 3.2 Ghz processor hyperthreadingIntel D865GBF 800 FSB motherboard1 Mb Kingston PC3200/DDR 400 RAMATI Radeon 9800XT video cardSound Blaster Audugy 2 sound card200 Gb Maxtor hard disk17" LG Electronics LCD screenWIndows XP Pro

The 9800's blow anything nVidia has right out of the water. I made the switch a few weeks ago myself and can't believe the difference. The days of dominance for nVidia in the graphics processor wars is waning rapidly.

It the 9800XT is awsome indeed!! I purchased one with my new computer and I am able to max out all sliders including 100% ultimate traffic at KLAX and the performance is great! The picture is very clear also. Im glad you like your new card.Regan

I never liked Nvidia, they killed 3dfx. Oh and their image quality always sucked ;).-Daniel

Welcome to the club...:-)

"I never liked Nvidia, they killed 3dfx." - Agree...."Oh and their image quality always sucked." - DisagreeEven on my 4200, as long as I apply some of the more popular tweaks, I haven't seen a Radeon image yet that I would say is a better image, although I can only use the screenshots posted in that forum as an example. The Radeon 9800 is probably hands-down the fastest and best card at the moment, but image quality like that of the Nvidia's is all a matter of which tweaks are applied. Radeon seems to set up the defaults closer to what people "tweak" to achieve with the Nvidias.But it ain't worth the extra $$$ IMHO to switch--not until the 9800 starts hitting the closeout phase which is always when the best deals are had....-John

Welcome to the major league!

I have a 9800Pro. What's the benefit of the "XP" in this product? Is it worth upgrading from the Pro to XP?Thanks,Bruce.

well ive just baught a similar system and am a little dissapointed with the performance sometimes as low as 9 fps with sliders to max complex weather and at a complex airport like seattle tacoma even in a default aircraft, what am i doing wrong because surley this system should cope with any thing??? ive even overclocked both the graphics card and the processer but its still as bad , can any body help???kavanAntec tower1024 dual ddr rampentum 4 3.2 hyperthreadingASUS Springdale p4p800 deluxe motherboardherculese ATI 256 9800xt graphics card with latest driver

Bruce,No, there would be NO benifit moving from a Radeon 9800 Pro to a Radeon 9800 XT.The only difference is a slightly boosted core/mem speed which won't make too much difference in FPS or Image Quality.. :)Merry Christmas :-wave

John,I simply cannot believe you just said that. The ATi cards absolutely blow any card Nvidia has made when it comes to image quality. I realise image quality is subjective, but only to a certain point I would have thought. I would rather give up simming altogether than have to go back to the image quality of my Geforce 4 (which is now in my secondary machine). Infact I'm almost embarrassed to admit I even used Nvidia cards for gaming, but after 3dfx went out of business, there wasn't much choice at the time.As far as value for money is concerned, the $365 Australian I spent on my ASUS 9600XT would have to be by a country mile the best value piece of computer hardware I have ever bought in my life. Period.

Thanks John. Merry Christmas to you too :)Bruce.

As I said in my post Jon, I am only basing it on the screenshots I've seen posted from both types of cards from time to time in the screenshots forum. I didn't say it wasn't the best card--just that the picture quality hasn't been proven here, maybe because it hasn't been in the right hands, screenshot wise.Sorry to say I don't have $365 Australian or $500 US (the 9800 XT's going price here stateside) to find out myself.... That's a little out of my league given the demands of raising a family these days... I'm happy to enjoy simming and my el cheapo inferior simming experience GeForce 4, and time spent with my family. Guess that makes me a cheapskate, or just someone with different priorities based on his resources... The best value piece of computer hardware I ever bought in my life was my $40 ATI TV tuner, which allows me to record Barney videos for my little one.....:)-John

I normally don't post very often, but feel I need to put my two cents in here. I had till recently a Geforce4 TI4400, then I switched to a Radeon 9800 pro. I have to side with the people who are not as impressed with the change as others have been. I went into this knowing the FPS would not change that much, and they didn't. The only area I see a real improvement in performance is in flying through the clouds (FS2002). I see much less of a slow down. If anything It seems like to me the Radeon has more of a tendency to stutter and pause. As far as image quality they are about the same. I really don't notice the supposed incredible difference that is claimed, not only my members of the many forums I visit, but also the major hardware review sites. Can't imagine my eyes ability to distinguish this is a whole lot different than anybody elses. I am computer savvy, so it's not like I don't know how to tweak. With both the Geforce and Radeon I have tried the tweaks, and different drivers so I have been there done that. If it wasn't for the fact that I need to use the TI4400 for another puter I will be building early next year I would probably not keep the Radeon 9800 Pro. For the 300 bucks it just isn't the killer change for me to justify that much expense. Scott

Scott; if you didn't see a major improvement; at least double the performance and significant IQ improvement, you got some major problems with your system. I'd suggest you keep working on it. Probably related to drivers not being removed and installed properly or mobo drivers or bios needing updates. The 9800 Pro, with a decent processor, has been shown by many reputable reviews to beat the Ti4600 by a factor of three. That's three times the performance running AA & AF with much better IQ.