Building a Flight Simulator X (video card suggestions)

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Best Video cards i need to go with for the triplehead2go with direct X 10

  • SLI NVIDIA x2 8600 GT's

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • SLI NVIDIA x2 8800 GT's

    Votes: 21 41.2%

  • Crossfire ATI x2 HD 2900XT's

    Votes: 1 2.0%

  • Crossfire ATI x2 HD 3850's

    Votes: 3 5.9%

  • Crossfire ATI x2 HD 3870's

    Votes: 14 27.5%

  • No you have no idea what you are doing pick the Video card i am suggesting

    Votes: 12 23.5%
  • Total voters
    51
It would be very difficult to prove the benefit or performance increase for having dual pci-e 16x vs. dual 8x. Obviously we don't have an issue with a single card because all motherboards sold today (that are relatively new) have at least one 16x slot.

What I would need to do it first off buy a card that has more bandwidth than mine (preferably a 9800GX2 when it comes out) and I'll need two. Then I'll need to compare those cards performance in both a 780i motherboard and a 750i motherboard with identical hardware and clockspeeds/settings. Then we will have some pretty accurate test results.

I completely doubt that we would see much of a difference with 8800GT's but with a larger 9800GX2 I think we would. I even think we would with 3870X2's in CF. Come to think of it I wonder if we would see a difference with 8800GT 1GB version.

Does anybody know of a way to set an SLI system with 2 pci-e 16x slots to 8x? That way I could see for myself what the true difference is. Does anyone have a 750i with SLI 8800GT's that we can compare?
 
If you currently have a board that can support x8 SLi (like mine) there is no real point in upgrading just the board for x16 SLi. If on the other hand, you're going to build a new system then it'd probably be worth shelling out the extra on a newer board. I looked over x8/x16 SLi bottlenecking before I built my system (with plans to go SLi GTXs in the future) and thought the extra for a 590SLi chipset board just wasn't worth it, for a few FPS. I'm planning on making a 790FX & 3870X2's in CF platform, in which case I think the extra bandwidth of the 3870X2 may be a little bottlenecked by x8 lanes over x16's. For a new build though, I think the extra £ is worth it!
 
ok Guys and Gals. i have bought my hardware this is what i have. I listed the prices for what i paid as well. I went to microcenter they all had really good prices on equipment.

$175 after $20 mail in rebate.


Asus P5k $135

$199 instore special.

WD Cavalier HDD 160 GB $50

$81 after $30 rebate.

OK, here in a month or two when i get the monitors I am going to throw in the X2 HD 3870 1gb video card for the two monitors, and back bone the seperate 3870 for the third. They are on sale for $380 at microcenter.

Ok now i have not bought memory yet.. They were out of stock on the set i was eye balling. So here is my next debate.



This memory is Advanced Latency Settings (5-5-5-18). Would 8gb of this stuff be pretty descent or is there better memory that i should get for around 140-160?
 
Good stuff so far... I personally have the 2X2 OCZ reaper 4-4-4-15 set... It runs very smooth at those timings at 800mhz. I got it on newegg with rebate for less than 100.
 
well i can get 8gb for $130 at microcenter of the Corsair memory. (5-5-5-18) is there that much of a difference between that and the OZ (4-4-4-15)?
 
glocke6, I regret to see that you've purchased an ATI graphics solution for FSX. If you consult Tom's VGA Charts - http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=1060&model2=1057&chart=292 you will see that nVidia cards clearly dominate FSX frame rates.

Since Flight Simulator X is heavily CPU bound, frame rates scale almost 1:1 with CPU clock speed, which I've tested extensively. When I upgraded many months ago from my E6600 to the Q6600, I also tested both CPU's for comparison at 3.6Ghz. The Quad increased frame rates by an astonishing 80%. As a result, I enjoy a very smooth flight experience, excellent average frame rates from 45 to 70, with minimum frame rates rarely falling to 35.

I am aware you've stated that you have a somewhat less than burning desire to overclock, however, my best recommendation to you is to purchase a Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme with a 65 CFM fan, and overclock your Q6600 as high as safe temperatures will permit. No other hardware variable has nearly as much impact on FSX frame rates than a highly overclocked Quad Core processor.

Comp :sol:
 

At what sort of resolution?!?
On one of my work machines I needed to use FS X for a while and could barely get out of the 20-30fps range at med. settings (generally) @ 1680x1050 with a QX6850, 8800GTX, 2Gb Dominator 1066RAM...
 
2 8800GTs
2 9600GTs
2 HD3870s

one of those is preferred, possibly a newer card when it comes out.

Did anyone else look at the VGA charts? I don't see how he expects more than 5FPS with 3 monitors!
 



Oh but the thing that i am going with is the X2 3870 1gb card here in a few months. That alone is much better than any nvidia cards. Besides you are talking about 21.9 nvidia frame rate to ati's 19.1 who cares about that differnce. Plus i saved alot of money by going with ATI. That kind of difference is the deal breaker. Trust me i gave it plenty of thought.

And far as the Q6600 there isnt a better processor out there for what i need to do. So i did good.
 
LukeBird, to answer your question, the difference in FSX frame rate between a 7800GT and an 8800GTX is only 2FPS at ANY resolution. If you study Tom's VGA Charts, you can see for yourself that resolution matters very little, which is simple enough to confirm by methodically testing various resolutions on your work rig, which once again proves just how very CPU bound FSX is.

Further, if you study Tom's multi VGA Charts, you can also see that FSX frame rate is affected very little by high-end graphics cards, or SLI / CrossFire configurations. Since FSX frame rate does not behave in the same ways as GPU bound games, you must shift your thinking away from placing so much emphasis on graphics cards when discussing FSX.

As I've pointed out, FSX frame rate is overwhelmingly affected by a highly overclocked Quad Core, which will enable the simulation to run just fine on a single 7600GT.

Comp :sol:
 


Why didnt you just get an X2 now and then another one when the prices drop? Your 3870 will be useless with an X2... unless you can crossfire those which I doubt! Well I dont really know but have never heard of that.
 
Please, please, please go over to the Avsim forum for FSX qualified and tested hardware scenarios. With all due respect to the posters here, FSX is it's own animal and (IMHO) if you're building a machine specifically for it, it's best to listen to those with that specific experience. As Geofelt said, the Phil Taylor blogs will give some insight into the changes from SP2 and the end of the DX10 development trail for this version.
 
here's some links

http://www.flightsimworld.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=119046
http://www.fsinsider.com/tips/Pages/AccelerationandTripleHead2Go.aspx
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=740&model2=722&chart=293
http://forums.slizone.com/index.php?showtopic=5834
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=60610

But the beef with the Matrox thingie is that it essentially limits you to 1280 x 1024 LCD monitors which is kinda "eh". "Id wanna be going like 5760 x 200 on three 1920 x 1200 monitors.

from the last post above, it seems FS is CPU bound that is vid cards not the bottleneck.

Seems to me a program like FS ought let you use three vid cards and send the output of each to one card / one monitor.


 

Yeah I released it was CPU, not GPU bound, but I didn't realise thatmuch! :ouch:
So perhaps it may be worth bumping my work QX6850 to 4Ghz or so and see what happens! :lol:
 
You will be amazed! As I said in a previous post, FSX frame rate scales nearly 1:1 with CPU clock frequency. I have verifed these findings by sampling frame rates at 2.4, 2.7, 3.0, 3.3 and 3.6Ghz. You're welcome to repeat this test and prove it for yourself.
 

No, I do believe you!
It'd be interesting to see what would happen with the QX and a bit (a lot! :lol: ) of OCing! 😉
 
I love FSX, the rig I'm using has a AMD 64X2 6400BE, with 4gig of memory, Vista Ultimate 64bit and I'm using a single ATi 1900XTX card. My FPS is 40 with all graphics settings one step below max and that is with using autogen scenery. I'm using a 36" HDTV for a monitor and playing the game in 1080i. I plan on replacing the 1900XTX later this year when the next generation ATi cards come out and at that time I will be planning on trying Crossfire.
 
The most you're gonna get from a 36" hdtv is 1366x768 which is why you're getting 40 fps..
Try running it on a 22" monitor @1680x1050 (native resolution I think.)
Things will definitly be diferrent!
But at the same time the visual will be much better.
 
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