which graphics cards to upgrade to?

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craigknights

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#35245 6-Jun-2009 19:12

Hi, I'm upgrading a machine to provide better performance in MS Flight Sim X. Thing is I'm not really gamer and not so up on which graphics cards are better than others...

It was a Core2Duo 2.4GHz and had 2GB ram with a pair of Nvidia 7950GT's (512MB ones) running in SLI on Windows XP

I've upgraded it to 8GB of ram and Vista 64Bit.

The problem is that with those 7950 cards it can't run Multi Monitor SLI. They need to be 8000 series minimum. The owner really wants 2 monitors running, and was switching off SLI so he could. Which of course is not the best for the graphics performance.

So my question is what 8 or 9000 series cards would give a bit more performance and be able to do that multi monitor sli? Pricing closer to the low to mid range than the outrageous end.

Or would it be better to kick out the SLI and grab a fast single card?

Thanks,
Craig.

xpd

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#222385 7-Jun-2009 08:51

Single card probably would be better - we set up a multi-screen FSX system a few months ago and used a mid priced GTX200 series card that was out at the time. Ran very nicely apparently (I didnt see the end result) however they were using a Matrox Digital Triple Head unit to power the screens. ($600)
The thing with FSX is that it dosent matter what gear youve got, youll never get a "near perfect" experience, the game jsut dosent seem to have a ceiling when it comes to hardware vs performance.

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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andy123

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#227077 21-Jun-2009 05:58

I agree with Xpd multi-screen FSX system has not great effect on experience. Go for a better single card rather than having 2 cards.

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#227088 21-Jun-2009 09:00

i wonder if the ati 4870x2 1gb will do your dual monitor thing?

z2k

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#227121 21-Jun-2009 12:14

joker97: i wonder if the ati 4870x2 1gb will do your dual monitor thing?

I'm pretty sure all new cards support dual monitors so you dont need SLI or crossfire to achieve this.

Also, I heard that nvidia performs way better than ati for ms flight simulator..

craigknights

14 posts

Geek

#227125 21-Jun-2009 12:27

in the end I decided the existing cards were probably fast enough and upgraded the 2.4 Core2Duo to a 2.4 Core2Quad

it looked like the game was actually maxing out the CPU, and FSX will make use of all 4 cores when patched to the latest version

we'll keep one card driving each screen and see how that goes... maybe replace the video cards later...

thanks anyway,
Craig