Well I guess its a given that the majority of us here are either current or former FSX flyers. We all know the tweaking and update drill, and being tired of that whole experience is probably at least one strand of the mosaic of reasons that finally attracted us to flight. Yet I have to admit that as a gamer and as a former FSX tweaker these latest Nvidia graphics cards and their performance numbers are very attractive, not least because flight is much more efficient in its use of GPU's, and promises to show a noticeable impact in those few areas where flight does slow down a bit in Alaska.

 

Further, I have been running Nvidias New Dawn graphics demo recently and must admit that my poor (less that a year old) 560GTX TI 448 is abruptly suffering from unfamiliar feelings of performance anxiety. Of course, this demo is designed to spur such feelings, and I am sure its a deferred lighting engine at some outrageous resolution then down-sampled to show flawless AA at a regular resolution....... and slow-motion performance.

 

Yet if the numbers are true, and these new cards can deliver smooth performance even with all that.........

 

What do you think? Anyone have one of these, yet? Should I go for it?

 

http://www.techradar...-1079728/review

 

http://www.shacknews.com/file/32419/a-new-dawn-tech-demo-10

 

Hey if you got the cash and want to be an early adopter, why not? Although I guess by now it is not that early any more.

I don't know, if the performance gain in Flight would be worth the price of admission, but that is subjective to the individual's taste as well. Plus if there are other games involved as well, that may well justify it also.

 

When it comes to video cards, I tend to lag about a generation behind - simply because I just refuse to spend that much money on a video card. I just not long ago, upgraded to the 560 Ti that I have now, and I am loving it's performance in Flight, and my other flight sims as well.

Well, it's your money so it's easy for me to spend it! :-)

 

But seriously, my first concern would be the i7 920 you're running. It's the processor I'm running as well, and as I think about graphics card updates from my aging AMD card, the first thing I think is that my proc may no longer be a good match for the latest GPUs.

 

Scott

Well, it's your money so it's easy for me to spend it! :-)

 

But seriously, my first concern would be the i7 920 you're running. It's the processor I'm running as well, and as I think about graphics card updates from my aging AMD card, the first thing I think is that my proc may no longer be a good match for the latest GPUs.

 

Scott

 

Well, I am running it at 4Ghz.........

 

I doubt its a bottleneck.

Depends, when do you intend to upgrade, or is this a spur of the moment, what the heck decision? I've got almost the same setup as you, except a lowly 560 OC Ti non-448 Core. I reckon an OC 670 is the real sweetspot right now, would love one, but it's overkill for Flight, like Don says. I'm running Flight at max except for density.

 

Even happy (generally) with xplane performance for now.

 

I'm waiting for the Ivy Bridge replacement, meant to be a major leap above Sandy/Ivy, called 'Haswell', should be out within a yr. Then I'll get a 670 for the price of a 560, or by then be tempted by some uber 680 OC Ti theyre throwing out. As ever, the longer you wait, the better!

 

In Oz, the 670s seem way overpriced, around $500!

 

Nope, our 920 isn't the bottleneck, it's a great CPU and OC's nicely. I cant get mine over 3.7 tho. I love how Flight uses the gpu, you can hear the fan working at the hard moments, a good sign

Well, I am running it at 4Ghz.........

 

I doubt its a bottleneck.

 

I was about to type the same, which is what I am running my 920 at as well.

When I upgraded to this GTX 560 Ti, I came from an OC GTX 460, and I want to say my peformance gain was probably in the 10%-15% or so range - nothing drastic, but honestly even my 460 was running Flight pretty well also.

I certainly do not regret getting the 560, as it has helped more for my other sims. I am sure if I were to go to the 600s series I would feel the same about it as well.

Well kinda spur of the moment, but also some future-proofing. I rarely let myself get more than a generation behind, and historically tend to be a generation ahead. I have just not had anything push the machine hard enough to justify upgrading until now.

 

All of these new programs using deferred lighting, which is mostly on the GPU is spurring me to think it might be time.

 

And prices in the USA are in the $399 range.

I went up from a 275! THAT was a noticeable boost!

you'd probably notice a pretty nice increase going from a 560TI to a 570...they're quite a bit faster now, and some of the evga stuff is getting nice and cheap. $250 (american), which i think is around $150 cheaper than the 670. i use a gtx570 sc from evga, i paid 370 for it a little over a year ago....anyways, for 250, you'll get one faster than mine. and you'll play flight maxxxed and never see a fr drop.

 

 

 

also, the 560ti is pretty popular, i'm not sure which model you have exactly, but i'm sure you could sell that for some fair coin.

you'd probably notice a pretty nice increase going from a 560TI to a 570...they're quite a bit faster now, and some of the evga stuff is getting nice and cheap. $250 (american), which i think is around $150 cheaper than the 670. i use a gtx570 sc from evga, i paid 370 for it a little over a year ago....anyways, for 250, you'll get one faster than mine. and you'll play flight maxxxed and never see a fr drop.

 

 

 

also, the 560ti is pretty popular, i'm not sure which model you have exactly, but i'm sure you could sell that for some fair coin.

 

My current card: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814127615

 

And this is what I am looking at: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125423

I would like to see a comparison between what you have and what you want to buy. Me thinks it would be insignificant.

 

One thing I've noticed about the 670 and 680 series and I will say I'm not as geek-ey as I use to be, but why put a bigger engine in a car and reduce the speed limit that you can drive it at? The 560 is a 320 bit data path, the 670 (and 680) sits at 256 bit. That's your freeway for data transfer. One is like driving at 2:00 pm and the other is 5:00pm.

 

I wanted to build a new system and waited for the Ivy Bridge and new nVidia series to appear. Neither has given me a reason to whip out the credit card and I'm hoping both will release new stuff before I make my Dear Santa list.

OK boys, I just put an EVGA 670 (FTW) into my i7-920 (stock at 2.67) last weekend and it is a monster! It goes through Flight on max settings (density, shadows, everything max) without even a hiccup. It's tremendous. If you're on the fence, don't be. Go to Amazon or Newegg or wherever else you like to buy your computer goodies, and order it right now. You'll be absolutely thrilled with it, I promise. The images are gorgeous and as far as absolute total smoothness in Flight, well, if that's what you want, that's what you're going to get! :P FYI, I was coming from a gtx 285 so my performance increase was substantial. Still, if you don't have absolute total smoothness in Flight LOL, it can be obtained with the 670, even in the most forrested areas in Alaska at max settings. Hawaii too is a breeze of course.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=14-130-787&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Keywords=%28keywords%29&Page=1

I would like to see a comparison between what you have and what you want to buy. Me thinks it would be insignificant.

 

One thing I've noticed about the 670 and 680 series and I will say I'm not as geek-ey as I use to be, but why put a bigger engine in a car and reduce the speed limit that you can drive it at? The 560 is a 320 bit data path, the 670 (and 680) sits at 256 bit. That's your freeway for data transfer. One is like driving at 2:00 pm and the other is 5:00pm.

 

I wanted to build a new system and waited for the Ivy Bridge and new nVidia series to appear. Neither has given me a reason to whip out the credit card and I'm hoping both will release new stuff before I make my Dear Santa list.

 

http://www.hwcompare...eforce-gtx-670/

 

http://www.digitalve...rsus-table.html

 

The GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 comes with clock speeds of 732 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 1280 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 448 SPUs along with 56 Texture Address Units and 40 Rasterization Operator Units.

 

Compare those specs to the Geforce GTX 670, which has clock speeds of 915 MHz on the GPU, and 1500 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1344 SPUs as well as 112 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

 

So I guess the big advantage will be in all of those extra Stream Processing and Texture Adress Units coupled with the higher Core speeds.

this demo is designed to spur such feelings

 

I don't believe in tech demo's. They aren't actual games. What you see in those demo's you will never see in an actual game, at least not until a few years later.

 

I own a GTX580 (a previous flagship) and wonder how much Flight would benefit from a new card. I have a i5 2500K running at 4.5 Ghz. If I turn Scenery density to Max I clearly notice a drop in performance: Flight just isn't that smooth anymore. I wonder if a 670 would suddenly give me smoothness all over the place... I've had some more flagship GPU's and I never was utterly impressed... It never gave me the giant leap forward I was promised by the ads.

I don't believe in tech demo's. They aren't actual games. What you see in those demo's you will never see in an actual game, at least not until a few years later.

 

I own a GTX580 (a previous flagship) and wonder how much Flight would benefit from a new card. I have a i5 2500K running at 4.5 Ghz. If I turn Scenery density to Max I clearly notice a drop in performance: Flight just isn't that smooth anymore. I wonder if a 670 would suddenly give me smoothness all over the place... I've had some more flagship GPU's and I never was utterly impressed... It never gave me the giant leap forward I was promised by the ads.

 

I guess it would depend. What games did you normally use at that time, besides FSX? My own experience in the past few years was that while FSX was relatively inert as far as GPU upgrades, other games usually did show improvement.