Hi all

 

I'm considering just upgrading my graphics card from the one originally installed when the pic was built for me.

 

It's a 512MB Geforce 8800GT PCI Express so probably wise to go to a 1gb card now, but not being that tech savvy and having an extended break from the sim can anyone suggest a suitable alternative / upgrade for me?

 

Really want to don't want to invest too heavily on the hardware (even software) but I think the graphics card is the weakest link in my setup.

 

I have a pretty advance FS9 setup but am getting a cheap FSX copy to have a little play around with so want to make sure my pic can run it with some Addams eventually.

 

Here are my complete system specs:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (4 x 2.40GHz) 1066MHz FSB/8MB L2 cache

RAM: 2GB (yes only 2x 1GB sticks!!) Corsair XMS2 800MHz

Motherboard: ASUS P5K SE: DDR2, SATAII, PCI-e x16, 2 PCI, 3x PCI-e x1

Hard Disk: 3 in total - 2x 500GB Serial ATA II Hard disks (16MB Cache) and 1x 150GB WD Raptor SATA 16MB cache

Graphics Card: 512MB Geforce 8800GT PCI Express

Power: 800W Quiet Quad Rail PSU + 120mm case fan

Processor Cooling: Super Quiet 19dBA Intel CPU Cooler

 

I knowin today's environment the PC is a little dated now but handles my FS9 setup very well and as said would be looking to run FSX for flying when have up to speed with my mods.

 

Thanks for your help

 

Nick

Your system is not much different than mine was.  I upgraded to an EVGA 560Ti Super Over Clocked card with 1GB of memory.  This was a pretty good card a few years ago, but you might want to consider a 2 GB card.  I sometimes wonder if occasional slow loading of textures while flying and occasional blurries are brought on by the video RAM being only 1 GB. 

 

You might want to consider overclocking that CPU or even replacing it with a Q9650, if you can find one.  My Q9650 easily overclocks to 3.8 GHz with an aftermarket heatsink and fan.  FS9 is strictly a single core program, so the faster that core, the better.  The first release of FSX was also optimized for single core CPU's, but with the release of SP1 it was given the ability to use multiple cores, but it still wants really fast cores.