I just boot up FSX:SE and MSI Afterburner monitoring tool. Jump into the Aerosoft Airbus 320 plane from KLAX to KLAS. From takeoff to halfway through, my GPU usage was at it's highest 15%. My GTX 970 is not overclock. Some of it was probably because I have 2 other screen running. So before you buy the biggest video card you can, be aware that it's probably a waste of money for FSX. I guess it was to be expected but I am really sad of how little the GPU is being used.

For FSX I agree. For P3D and xp10 it should be different - at least that's what I'm hoping!

if you use very very high AA (like I do) and you have Overcast and youre flying at FL400 and ASN is displaying clouds 170 miles then it makes a massive difference. It did for me anyway, I went from a 680 to a 970. 

 If you want FSX to look good and to run well while doing so, having a better videocard makes a world of difference. Sure, you don't need to have the best available, but at the same time you can't expect wonders out of the lower end cards.

I believe the consensus is that your FPS won't really change with one of the new GTX 9xx cards but you will be able to turn on more bells and whistles while maintaining the FPS you already got.  Prepar3D uses the cards much better but still it is a sad thing to see graphically complex games like Skyrim blazing across three screens with 12 gigs worth of graphic MOD add-ons but our sims still struggle no matter how much hardware we throw at it.   And before someone points out that Skryim isn't a flight simulators I call LIES!   I fly a dragon quite nicely in that game!!!   j/k

I think the videocard will work harder if you use usepools=0 unless I'm misunderstanding the results.

 

IAN

Try DX10. It offloads quite a lot from the CPU to the graphics card along with better rendering.

I think the videocard will work harder if you use usepools=0 unless I'm misunderstanding the results.

 

IAN

That is correct.  In FSX, only with BufferPools=0 will you see the GPU being used to the fullest.  I would also add that only with FSX-SE where you can use this tweak with no artifacts like black texture flashing.  

I went from a Radeon HD6770 to a Gigabyte GTX670 Windforce OC (which is now getting outdated actually), and I have to say that it improved my FSX performance immensely. I can now up the AA and have no stutters in the clouds, the extra gb of ram helps over my old 1gb 6770, and its running super smooth finally at 35fps (1/2 refresh fate).

 

Now, if I had like a GTX580 or something before, then I probably wouldn't have gained much performance. But making a good upgrade like mine proved a world of difference to my perfectionist, keen eye. 

 

I'm also now able to take advantage of DX10, which actually runs smoother and better looking than DX9 on my system. (It was possiblon the 6770 but bad performance.)