Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler | PC Support |
PCI-E Graphics Cards |
DVA2253
Senior Captain, DC-8-61
COMM
Joined on April 01 2005
Everett 250 Club
Online Century Club
Eight Century Club
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary
"I'd rather be flying!" Church Hill, TN USA
862 legs, 1,344.5 hours
108 legs,
165.2 hours online 299 legs,
485.1 hours ACARS
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Posted onPost created on
September 14 2005 18:27 ET by George Lewis
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Ok folks, I am going to be upgrading to a PCI-Express setup very soon - was wondering if anyone can give me any feedback on the PCI-E Nvidia cards out there? I notice some vendors I am familiar with (Leadtek) and some I am not (BFG, Sapphire, a few others) - any recommendations to avoid or look at? I'm probably going with either the top 6800 model or the 7800GT - dunno for sure yet -
at the moment I am also "open to suggestions" on the ATI stuff, but more than likely, I'm sticking with NVIDIA. I haven't done enough reading up on the 7800 series - I just made a decision to day to do it. I need better frame rates in flight sim
ps: please, let's not turn this into a ATI vs Nvidia thread - I'm looking for manufacturers and specific cards, driver issues, overheating or stability, etc. Probably won't overclock anything, just leave it as is...
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DVA1576
Captain, B777-200
Joined on March 12 2004
Century Club
Silverdale, WA USA
112 legs, 534.5 hours
20 legs,
129.3 hours ACARS
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Posted onPost created on
September 14 2005 19:35 ET by Michael Johnson
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The 7800GT is going to be better then the 6800, it's their newest, latest and greatest card, and it's usually only about $70 more then the 6800.
Brand wise, a good friend of mine who worked IT for the army says to stay away from overclocked graphic cards. Most of problems he's seen have been with the overclocked cards, and there’s really only a small increase and speed. Specifically between PNY and BFG, the BFG cards are only about 5% faster then the PNY cards, but I met people who like BFG. I personally like PNY, a few months ago I upgraded to the PNY 6600GT AGP and have no problems with at all, and it has been a huge performance boost over my old 5200 FX. My brother has the eVGA 5700 Ultra and only problem he had was with their software, the card ran great. He right now in the middle of building a new computer and is going to buy the PNY 7800GT. Asus makes good motherboards, but I haven't heard anything about their graphics cards, but I'm assuming they would. I've never heard of Sapphire; however they are not listed on nVidia's certified upgrades list. (http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone_build.html)
I know looking for a graphics card can be a pain, there’s a lot to look for and consider, but I hope this helps, good luck.
Michael
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DVA2253
Senior Captain, DC-8-61
COMM
Joined on April 01 2005
Everett 250 Club
Online Century Club
Eight Century Club
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary
"I'd rather be flying!" Church Hill, TN USA
862 legs, 1,344.5 hours
108 legs,
165.2 hours online 299 legs,
485.1 hours ACARS
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Posted onPost created on
September 14 2005 19:46 ET by George Lewis
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Thanks Michael. I have finally done some reading on the 7800 and stuff - the SLI sounds like a great idea - of course, I need to now check benchmarks - would it be better to go with 2 6800GT cards or 1 7800 GT? Does the ATI brand have a similar setup like SLI?
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DVA894
Captain, B757-200
Joined on September 27 2002
Round Lake, IL USA
24 legs, 55.6 hours
8 legs,
22.1 hours online 4 legs,
10.5 hours ACARS
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Posted onPost created on
September 14 2005 20:39 ET by Bill Bouxsein
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ATI is going to produce something like SLI, called "crossfire". To the best of my knowledge it is not out yet. Also the motherboards right now will be specific to either SLI or crossfire. Elite might have a board out right now that will support both, but that is the only one I know of. I am not sure how much of a gain you will get in FS with SLI, as I am not sure it is really used. I will let you know soon though, I am going to add a second card this weekend.
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DVA043
Senior Captain, MD-11
OLP
Joined on June 10 2001
Event Half Century Club
Online Double Century Club
50 State Club
DVA Twenty-Year Anniversary
Everett 1500 Club
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Four Million Mile Club
"Col. Panic" Marietta, GA
2,241 legs, 8,967.3 hours
240 legs,
553.9 hours online 1,899 legs,
7,760.4 hours ACARS 75 legs,
196.3 hours event 2,277 legs, 9,102.2 hours total 91 legs dispatched, 66.4
hours
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Posted onPost created on
September 14 2005 20:42 ET by Luke Kolin
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If I recall correctly, FS2004 does not support SLI and the benchmarks do not indicate any improvement. YMMV.
Cheers!
Luke KolinSenior Captain, MD-11
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DVA2541
Captain, B737-800
E-MAIL
Joined on August 17 2005
Century Club
"What's that button for? OOPs" Erwin, TN USA
122 legs, 206.7 hours
1 legs,
1.1 hours online 1 legs,
1.2 hours ACARS
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Posted onPost created on
September 14 2005 22:49 ET by John Swisher
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Hey George
Right now the "in" video card is the 7800GTX, it has no equal as far as speed. As far as picture quality, I like my 9800 XT as well as anything on the market currently. I have both a 5900xt and a 9800xt the 9800 picture quality is better by a small margin. I personally picke the ATI x800xl for replacing my 9800 in the new system, but the 7800GTX is faster.
My 5900xt was made by Inno3d, I dont know if they even make cards anymore, but have had no trouble what so ever.
My 9800xt is made by ATI(retail ATI), but I have several friends that like the Asus rendentions of the Ati cards just as well.
Hope This helps.
John SwisherCaptain, B737-800
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DVA2253
Senior Captain, DC-8-61
COMM
Joined on April 01 2005
Everett 250 Club
Online Century Club
Eight Century Club
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary
"I'd rather be flying!" Church Hill, TN USA
862 legs, 1,344.5 hours
108 legs,
165.2 hours online 299 legs,
485.1 hours ACARS
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Posted onPost created on
September 15 2005 00:13 ET by George Lewis
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Thanks Luke - you saved me some money
John - thanks - I probably won't go for the GTX but maybe the 7800 GT... my main concern is overheating...
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DVA1385
Captain, B767-300
E-MAIL
Joined on November 09 2003
Century Club
"www.flyaoamedia.com" Western United States
122 legs, 479.3 hours
72 legs,
282.0 hours online 36 legs,
162.1 hours ACARS
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Posted onPost created on
September 15 2005 00:27 ET by Chris Palmer
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True, a lot of companies got really excited about the PCI-E technology, but the gains were so minimal that the extra cost makes no sense. The problem with that craze was many of the latest and great motherboards are designed for PCI-E. So, if you want to take advantage of a faster FSB, than you may want to go PCI-E
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DVA2253
Senior Captain, DC-8-61
COMM
Joined on April 01 2005
Everett 250 Club
Online Century Club
Eight Century Club
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary
"I'd rather be flying!" Church Hill, TN USA
862 legs, 1,344.5 hours
108 legs,
165.2 hours online 299 legs,
485.1 hours ACARS
|
Posted onPost created on
September 15 2005 08:34 ET by George Lewis
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the PCI-E has better cooling and other considerations in mind, not to mention a much faster bus. Sure, PCI-E is still a baby compared to the AGP and PCI stuff, but it's a step forward nonetheless. Now, I wouldn't just go out and replace my stuff with PCI-E just for the heck of it - I need to upgrade my equipment anyways, so if I'm going to get a new mobo/cpu/ram I may as well get the better stuff - the cost difference really is minimal IMHO.
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DVA2299
Captain, B767-300
Joined on April 24 2005
50 State Club
Quincentenary Club
Windsor, ON Canada
560 legs, 1,204.2 hours
16 legs,
25.2 hours online 300 legs,
596.1 hours ACARS 2 legs,
2.6 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
September 15 2005 13:54 ET by Steve Brayford
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I think you'll find that SLI will hold its own if you run the sim at higher resolutions. I personally have an SLI system with dual 6600 GT cards in it (it's also got a dual core processor as well). My cards work very nicely together and i really have no complaints - sliders maxed (including weather sliders and i still get buttery smooth graphics in virtual cockpit mode at all the major eye candy airports). 2 6600 GT cards have been benchmarked at better performance than a single 6800 GT/Ultra, so bang for buck 6600 GT cards worked for me. Of course if you have the money to spend then dual 7800 GTX cards would be a good bet :-)
Either way just make sure you have a good motherboard that's going to easily support tomorrow's technology and gives you plenty room for expansion.
Steve BrayfordCaptain, B767-300
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DVA2299
Captain, B767-300
Joined on April 24 2005
50 State Club
Quincentenary Club
Windsor, ON Canada
560 legs, 1,204.2 hours
16 legs,
25.2 hours online 300 legs,
596.1 hours ACARS 2 legs,
2.6 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
September 15 2005 13:59 ET by Steve Brayford
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In addition, my 6600 GTs run nice and cool. Not sure if this makes a huge difference, but i ended up going with one supplier for both the motherboard and the video cards - MSI.
You will not regret the upgrade, i promise you. I was running a 2.4Ghz Pentium with a GeForce 5200 vid card before ... i felt like this system took me to the FS promised land. :-)
Steve BrayfordCaptain, B767-300
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DVA2253
Senior Captain, DC-8-61
COMM
Joined on April 01 2005
Everett 250 Club
Online Century Club
Eight Century Club
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary
"I'd rather be flying!" Church Hill, TN USA
862 legs, 1,344.5 hours
108 legs,
165.2 hours online 299 legs,
485.1 hours ACARS
|
Posted onPost created on
September 15 2005 14:07 ET by George Lewis
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Thanks Steve - so it does help you... smooth is good I may go with 2 6800GTs and SLI... I'll have to look at it...
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DVA2299
Captain, B767-300
Joined on April 24 2005
50 State Club
Quincentenary Club
Windsor, ON Canada
560 legs, 1,204.2 hours
16 legs,
25.2 hours online 300 legs,
596.1 hours ACARS 2 legs,
2.6 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
September 15 2005 18:14 ET by Steve Brayford
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With 2 6800 GTs you should be doing fine, as long as you don't have any other components that could potentially bottleneck. For me i think the combo of the dual core processor (especially since FS9 is so processor intensive) along with SLI to spread out the graphics load really helps.
Steve BrayfordCaptain, B767-300
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DVA043
Senior Captain, MD-11
OLP
Joined on June 10 2001
Event Half Century Club
Online Double Century Club
50 State Club
DVA Twenty-Year Anniversary
Everett 1500 Club
Bi-Millennium Club
Four Million Mile Club
"Col. Panic" Marietta, GA
2,241 legs, 8,967.3 hours
240 legs,
553.9 hours online 1,899 legs,
7,760.4 hours ACARS 75 legs,
196.3 hours event 2,277 legs, 9,102.2 hours total 91 legs dispatched, 66.4
hours
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Posted onPost created on
September 15 2005 19:46 ET by Luke Kolin
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Steve, while 2 6600GTs have been benchmarked at a 6800, I can assure you it was NOT in FS9. In fact, two 6800s won't even outperform a SINGLE 6800:
http://www20.graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041123/sli-performance-21.html
Cheers!
Luke KolinSenior Captain, MD-11
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DVA2253
Senior Captain, DC-8-61
COMM
Joined on April 01 2005
Everett 250 Club
Online Century Club
Eight Century Club
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary
"I'd rather be flying!" Church Hill, TN USA
862 legs, 1,344.5 hours
108 legs,
165.2 hours online 299 legs,
485.1 hours ACARS
|
Posted onPost created on
September 15 2005 20:53 ET by George Lewis
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I decided earlier today to just go with most likely the BFG 7800 GT card on a Abit AW-8 motherboard. Maybe FS10 will take advantage of the SLI type technology - I can always upgrade later
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DVA894
Captain, B757-200
Joined on September 27 2002
Round Lake, IL USA
24 legs, 55.6 hours
8 legs,
22.1 hours online 4 legs,
10.5 hours ACARS
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Posted onPost created on
September 21 2005 22:46 ET by Bill Bouxsein
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I will agree with Steve that while FS9 does not expressly support SLI right now (might be a driver issue) the 2 cards do make a difference in allowing higher AA and AF with no loss in frames. Another nice thing Nvidia is working on is a recent set of driver that was released have dual core support. That might help in FS. I am running an AMD 4200x2, 1GB RAM, Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI and 2x Evga 6600GT in SLI. On thing I did have to do was replace the stock coolers on the 6600's as they run fairly hot. I went with Vantec Iceberq5 Pro coolers on each and temps went way down.
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DVA2253
Senior Captain, DC-8-61
COMM
Joined on April 01 2005
Everett 250 Club
Online Century Club
Eight Century Club
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary
"I'd rather be flying!" Church Hill, TN USA
862 legs, 1,344.5 hours
108 legs,
165.2 hours online 299 legs,
485.1 hours ACARS
|
Posted onPost created on
September 21 2005 22:48 ET by George Lewis
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I wound up going with a 7800GT card, Bill - and the BFG was out of stock so I went with Leadtek - it'll arrive on Thursday so by this weekend I'll have a fair idea of what she'll do. I'll start with using my current graphics settings to have a comparision, then move to full graphics after that I hope.
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DVA894
Captain, B757-200
Joined on September 27 2002
Round Lake, IL USA
24 legs, 55.6 hours
8 legs,
22.1 hours online 4 legs,
10.5 hours ACARS
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Posted onPost created on
September 22 2005 23:00 ET by Bill Bouxsein
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You definitely will not be disappointed with that. Another nice thing about the 7800 series is that the drivers for them will continue to get better over the next few months. Let me know what kind of temps you get also. I think a big part of the issue I had with running hot was the factory heatsink/fan combo's. The heatsinks were not flat on the bottom, and also had been painted, which has to decrease the effectiveness of the heat transfer.
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DVA2253
Senior Captain, DC-8-61
COMM
Joined on April 01 2005
Everett 250 Club
Online Century Club
Eight Century Club
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary
"I'd rather be flying!" Church Hill, TN USA
862 legs, 1,344.5 hours
108 legs,
165.2 hours online 299 legs,
485.1 hours ACARS
|
Posted onPost created on
September 23 2005 01:01 ET by George Lewis
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I have an Antec TX-1050B case - a big ole honking fan on it too and an opening for air to get out - I have to say, this is the nicest system I have ever put together - The motherboard, case and everything was just super simple and the instructions were laid out better than I have ever seen - even the CPU and the Fan install were easier on the socket 775 than the other stuff I've done - no experience with AMD though...
soon as I get FS9 loaded up and configured, I'll post some frame rates and screenshots and stuff...
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DVA2253
Senior Captain, DC-8-61
COMM
Joined on April 01 2005
Everett 250 Club
Online Century Club
Eight Century Club
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary
"I'd rather be flying!" Church Hill, TN USA
862 legs, 1,344.5 hours
108 legs,
165.2 hours online 299 legs,
485.1 hours ACARS
|
Posted onPost created on
September 23 2005 08:25 ET by George Lewis
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for those interested - I don't have an official amount of time it took to install Windows XP with SP1 but it was less than 20 minutes I believe. FS2004 from the time I stuck in the CD and clicked install till the time I clicked run to start the database files going and enter flight sim took 13 minutes. That's pretty impressive.
I did an inital startup at KSEA with fair weather in the C172 and was in I believe the 40 or 50s fps wise sitting on the ground - I was in VC mode, took off flew around for a few minutes then went to go thrun up the graphics and realized - they were already on ultra-high! cool! about all I could do was crank up the mip-mapping to 8 and turn on anti-aliasing and rachet up the cloud distances - I am getting in the 30s in fps with that. I have not configured the graphics card in any way yet to help out flight sim - anyone know any settings I should set on the nvidia card to max out stuff for flight sim9?
now to install the add-ons
btw, the temp on the gfx card was 40°C after running it for a few hours - and even running flight sim for a few minutes - threshold is like 115°C I think it said...
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DVA2253
Senior Captain, DC-8-61
COMM
Joined on April 01 2005
Everett 250 Club
Online Century Club
Eight Century Club
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary
"I'd rather be flying!" Church Hill, TN USA
862 legs, 1,344.5 hours
108 legs,
165.2 hours online 299 legs,
485.1 hours ACARS
|
Posted onPost created on
September 23 2005 12:09 ET by George Lewis
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been running the thing all morning but not much of a workout on the gfx card - core slowdown threshold is 115°C and the card runs between 38 and 40° C so far - not bad I don't think.
all graphics on - outside view in the LDS763 is in the 50-60 fps range. in the cockpit in the 30s and in the VC in the high 20s-low 30s. that's with everyone one and in the Major thunderstorm weather theme. very flyable
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DVA2541
Captain, B737-800
E-MAIL
Joined on August 17 2005
Century Club
"What's that button for? OOPs" Erwin, TN USA
122 legs, 206.7 hours
1 legs,
1.1 hours online 1 legs,
1.2 hours ACARS
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Posted onPost created on
September 26 2005 19:26 ET by John Swisher
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George which processor did you get?
John SwisherCaptain, B737-800
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DVA2253
Senior Captain, DC-8-61
COMM
Joined on April 01 2005
Everett 250 Club
Online Century Club
Eight Century Club
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary
"I'd rather be flying!" Church Hill, TN USA
862 legs, 1,344.5 hours
108 legs,
165.2 hours online 299 legs,
485.1 hours ACARS
|
Posted onPost created on
September 26 2005 23:40 ET by George Lewis
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the 650 - an Intel P4 3.4 GHz with 2MB cache onboard.
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DVA2299
Captain, B767-300
Joined on April 24 2005
50 State Club
Quincentenary Club
Windsor, ON Canada
560 legs, 1,204.2 hours
16 legs,
25.2 hours online 300 legs,
596.1 hours ACARS 2 legs,
2.6 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
September 27 2005 18:05 ET by Steve Brayford
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Bill - I pretty much have the same layout as you. Athlon 64 4200 x2, MSI Premium SLI motherboard and MSI 6600 GTs. I went with the Coolermaster case and Vantec cooling. My 6600 GTs run nice and cool (45C), so no problem there. I have an FS9 Nvidia profile with the SLI Rendering Mode turned on to Alternate Frame Rendering 2 and it seems to distribute the workload nicely over the two cards. I have the Forceware 7772 drivers (not sure if this feature was available in earlier driver versions). The benchmarks that Luke points out earlier were from November 2004 and i think the drivers have advanced enough now to take advantage of SLI rendering modes. I also run 64 bit Windows which while I understand that FS9 is not a 64 bit app, i'm convinced gives some performance enhancements in certain circumstances - 64 bit OS memory management for instance seems a little better.
As for Dual Core processors well ... i personally love mine. It really helps to keep things smooth .. especially for us multi-tasking simmers (e.g Active Sky, FS Flight Keeper, AI Smooth etc)
Steve BrayfordCaptain, B767-300
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DVA2253
Senior Captain, DC-8-61
COMM
Joined on April 01 2005
Everett 250 Club
Online Century Club
Eight Century Club
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary
"I'd rather be flying!" Church Hill, TN USA
862 legs, 1,344.5 hours
108 legs,
165.2 hours online 299 legs,
485.1 hours ACARS
|
Posted onPost created on
September 27 2005 22:07 ET by George Lewis
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I greatly considered a dual-core processor and even SLI but decided in the end I wanted the PCI-express 955X chipset and for my flight sim machine, no need to use dual-core, as it probably wouldn't benefit me as much as pure speed for flight sim. when flying, I have 2 other machines nearby at my disposal so it's not as big a deal.
Of course, when FS10 comes out and if it really benefits from dual-core and SLI, then maybe by then I'll have another reason to upgrade
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DVA894
Captain, B757-200
Joined on September 27 2002
Round Lake, IL USA
24 legs, 55.6 hours
8 legs,
22.1 hours online 4 legs,
10.5 hours ACARS
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Posted onPost created on
September 27 2005 22:21 ET by Bill Bouxsein
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Steve- sounds real similar. I have been very happy with the Vantec coolers. Both of my cards now run between 45-50 degrees. I havent had the time yet to set up a profile for the SLI. I am running the 78.01 drivers, which have a profile for FS9 included, but I don't think the SLI is turned on. I just havent had a chance to experiment very much. If you have any suggestions I would be more than happy to listen.
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