Hi,

 

My signature a has my PC specs and all I run in FSX. I only have FSX boxed version.

 

I have got a good deal on a couple GTX 7xx, a 770 4GB and 780 GB, price difference is about $100.

 

Given my setup, addons, what card should I go for ?

 

Currently I have a GTX 660 and I get 20fps.

 

 

Thanks.

For FSX, you dont need a new GPU.

In FSX the CPU is more important.

 

What is your current CPU?

The more vram the better ! Especially if you ever decide to use xplane !

If you buy a GTX 770 or 780, they will still be bottlenecked by your i7 920's PCIe 2.0 bus. The GTX 600 series and above cards use PCIe 3.0, so you'll be gimping your GPU either way. I would save your money and build a new, modern system. 

The GTX 770 is not going to gain much performance if any. Right now I would not be wasting time look at the 7-series of cards. I am looking at the 1070 myself.

If you buy a GTX 770 or 780, they will still be bottlenecked by your i7 920's PCIe 2.0 bus. The GTX 600 series and above cards use PCIe 3.0, so you'll be gimping your GPU either way. I would save your money and build a new, modern system.

 

Not strictly true according to http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/pci-express-scaling-game-performance-analysis-review,1.html. As the articles says, "at Gen 2.0 even high-end SLI or Crossfire is just not an issue bandwidth wise as the utilization of the bus remains low". The conclusion on page 17 reinforces this: "so if you are worried that performance is cut in half due to that faster PCIe Gen 3.0 slot, then think again - a modest 2 to 3% percent on average". Most of the tests were done with graphically intensive games so with FSX or P3D you should see virtually no performance difference running a PCIe 3.0 card in a PCIe 2.0 slot (but you'd get all the advantages of a more modern, faster card).

 

I have an overclocked i7-920 with a GTX 970 card and I'm very happy with the performance.

Well, Microsoft themselves said that autogen performance is bottlenecked by PCIe bandwidth & speed. None of those sites benchmarked FSX in their testing. One site did use FSX in their tests, and you can see a huge performance difference of over 30 FPS between the lowest PCIe bus (1.0 4x), and the highest one (2.0 16x). 

Well, Microsoft themselves said that autogen performance is bottlenecked by PCIe bandwidth & speed.

 

But that was comparing PCIe 1.0 with PCIe 2.0 which was a massive jump in performance. PCIe 1.0 really was the limiting factor then for high quality graphics. Although PCIe 3.0 is potentially faster, it all depends on whether or not you're maxing out your PCIe 2.0 bus which is usually not the case. In the Tom's Hardware article you quoted, the difference between running the same card in PCIe 1.0 and PCIe 2.0 both running a x16 is only a couple of FPS - the PCIe 2.0 slot is just not being stretched.

In the Tom's Hardware article you quoted, the difference between running the same card in PCIe 1.0 and PCIe 2.0 both running a x16 is only a couple of FPS - the PCIe 2.0 slot is just not being stretched. 

 

Does this look like a couple FPS? Looks to be almost 30 FPS difference. 

 

 

Although PCIe 3.0 is potentially faster, it all depends on whether or not you're maxing out your PCIe 2.0 bus which is usually not the case

 

There are two components to the PCIe bus, bandwidth, and speed. Not just bandwidth. Under today's systems using DX10, bandwidth is aplenty, but the speed is the issue. Under older DX9 systems both bandwidth and speed are a problem. Doesn't have to be maxed out on bandwidth either in order to have performance issues. 

 

Getting back to the GPU thing. It does help to have a faster GPU, because all the textures and meshes in FSX are processed by shaders. The more shaders a card has will help to smooth things out. 

Does this look like a couple FPS? Looks to be almost 30 FPS difference. 

 

 

 

There are two components to the PCIe bus, bandwidth, and speed. Not just bandwidth. Under today's systems using DX10, bandwidth is aplenty, but the speed is the issue. Under older DX9 systems both bandwidth and speed are a problem. Doesn't have to be maxed out on bandwidth either in order to have performance issues. 

 

Getting back to the GPU thing. It does help to have a faster GPU, because all the textures and meshes in FSX are processed by shaders. The more shaders a card has will help to smooth things out. 

 

But you're not comparing like for like. That was the fastest speed PCIe 2.0 slot (x16) compared to the slowest speed PCIe 1.0a slot (x4) - of course there'll be a huge difference. A better comparison would be to put the same card in the same speed slot in both types of PCIe bus. From the final table in your second link, 1920x1200 at more representative settings, the 8800 GTS in PCIe 2.0 x16 gave 27.9 FPS. The same card in the PCIe 1.0a x16 gave 25.9 FPS - that's only 2 FPS difference. If the PCIe 1.0a slot was seriously bottlenecked, you'd expect a much larger improvement when you changed to a PCIe 2.0 slot, and that's not the case.

 

The point that I was making earlier is that if you want to buy a PCIe 3.0 card and run it in a PCIe 2.0 x16 slot until you upgrade your motherboard, there won't be much of a difference in performance in FSX (or most games, come to that).

But you're not comparing like for like. That was the fastest speed PCIe 2.0 slot (x16) compared to the slowest speed PCIe 1.0a slot (x4) - of course there'll be a huge difference. A better comparison would be to put the same card in the same speed slot in both types of PCIe bus. From the final table in your second link, 1920x1200 at more representative settings, the 8800 GTS in PCIe 2.0 x16 gave 27.9 FPS. The same card in the PCIe 1.0a x16 gave 25.9 FPS - that's only 2 FPS difference. If the PCIe 1.0a slot was seriously bottlenecked, you'd expect a much larger improvement when you changed to a PCIe 2.0 slot, and that's not the case.

 

The point that I was making earlier is that if you want to buy a PCIe 3.0 card and run it in a PCIe 2.0 x16 slot until you upgrade your motherboard, there won't be much of a difference in performance in FSX (or most games, come to that).

Thanks for the guidance.... wiall get a new gpu and update CPU/mobo/ram early next year.