JD_LincsUK 0 Posted February 10, 2011 Report Share Posted February 10, 2011 Yes, it's that time again - new PC building and yet again - in fact much more so than ever before - there's a bewildering amount of excellent GPUs around, all for a similar amount of dosh. My choice has been narrowed to two possibilities - mainly to keep costs down, but one is green and the other red. A couple of years ago, someone mentioned that FSX ran much better on nVidia cards - for some reason unbeknown to them. Maybe it was developed or optimised on the green stuff, and there was a little less compatibility with what the red corner had to offer - who knows? However, as FSX is the only simulator I have where I have suffered performance issues (in AH, approaching Anchorage with UTX Alaska installed and on the default, 'High Quality' settings) it is the one I want to make sure benefits most. I will be running 3 monitors, whichever card I go for and as only the red one is available in 2GB spec and also has the preferred method of 3-screen reproduction (the green one is 1GB only), that would normally suffice for my decision. But - I keep thinking back to that comment on nVidia and FSX and wonder... So. Opinions would be helpful, if anyone has any - and not those that are based on favouritism of one colour over the other, please (which is why I don't ask in certain other forums ) Chars JD Link to post Share on other sites
mutley 4,487 Posted February 10, 2011 Report Share Posted February 10, 2011 Hi JD, I recently purchased a top range nVidia GPU not totally convinced the expenditure would be recouped with performance but on this occasion I was wrong. The new GTX580 is a real brute if you can afford it. I really cannot speak from experience about ATi cards, they have this display port thingy for multi-monitors but not that many screens have that sort of interface. I know Tim runs a multi screen set up but I am not sure on his hardware, hopefully he will be looking here and will chip in. Cheers Link to post Share on other sites
JD_LincsUK 0 Posted February 10, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 10, 2011 Thanks for that - interesting. I can't really afford the 580 because of the other bits I'm buying - which are top of the tree items and therefore also expensive. The two cards in the frame are the HD6950 and the GTX560Ti. I'm currently using an HD4870 - but it is crashing regularly, though I'm not convinced it is actually the card itself at fault, but in any case doesn't support 3 monitors. I may go the triplehead2go route - though it must be showing its age by now. I'm trying to get all the facts - trouble is, everyone seems to have a different opinion (of the hardware review sites, I mean). Price for my bits is currently £1139 - from an intended budget of £850! :th_smiles73: JD Link to post Share on other sites
IcedUpPitotTube 0 Posted February 11, 2011 Report Share Posted February 11, 2011 "As far as choosing specific brands of a graphics card, users are advised to go with a NVIDIA because FSX was optimized for NVIDIA. FSX stores most of its textures in DDS (.dds) file format, which is a proprietary NVIDIA format. This format first needs to be decompressed before being stored in the VRAM. NVIDIA decompresses these files faster. Hence, this is one reason why they perform better than ATI in FSX. In addition, NVIDIA cards have faster clock speeds (raw power) and process instructions faster than ATI cards. In contrast, ATI cards have more pixel and vertex shaders, but slower clock speeds. More modern games (Crysis) use pixel and vertex shaders that compose a majority of the game’s rendering that provide complex visuals such as advanced lighting, bump mapping, bloom and HDR. FSX does not rely on shaders as much as modern games. Therefore, this is why NVIDIA is the preferred graphics card choice for FSX. In conclusion, users are advised to purchase an NVIDIA graphics card that fits their budget that has as much VRAM as possible. For specific models, users should research various gaming and Flight Simulator forums to find out exact performance, benefits and cons before making their final purchase." Taken from a friend's post in another forum. Link to post Share on other sites
stu7708 244 Posted February 11, 2011 Report Share Posted February 11, 2011 I'm running an ATI-card at the moment (HD 5770 if i remember correctly), but I'm not that impressed with it as far as FSX goes. It actually felt like the old Nvidia card (not sure of the model on that one, but it's about three years old now) I had in my previous computer did a better job with FSX, so I guess that there's some truth to this one. And from what Andrew shared above there's even a perfectly logical explanation to it... Link to post Share on other sites
JD_LincsUK 0 Posted February 12, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 12, 2011 Ordered today - as I said, looking for some savings, so items changed, but still very happy: i5 2500K Sandy Bridge cpu (3.3GHz, but reckon to get about 4.9GHz with a little uppage of the juicy stuff) Asus P8P67 Pro MoBo OCZ 700W Silent Modular psu 6GB Corsair Dominator XMS3 DDR3 1600MHz RAM Freezer Pro (used nowt else since AthlonXP days) Gigabyte GTX560Ti OC (I've been reading reviews of this card that show how easy it is to shove the overclock up on this card until it beats a GTX570 in performance, no voltage increases!) Nice, eh? I chose to ignore the Sandy Bridge ravings around the net, as I was sure I wouldn't be upgrading for a long while yet (have a C2D E6850 @ 3.6GHz at the moment with an HD4870 on an Asus P5K-E WiFi AP), but this last couple of weeks my poor pooter has had more and more problems. My DDR2 RAM (OCZ HPC-8500 - once the best on the market) has been removed as it refused to work any more - think it's the mobo dying, not the DIMMs - and I'm having regular, long lock-ups that prevent me doing anything except hit the reset switch. I wanted an i7 originally, but then remembered a video I'd watched over at Hexus when the new i series processors came out, they recommended the i5 for all but the 'must have the latest/top of the range' crowd. Now it's like Christams has come early - or late, as ours was pretty dull last year :icon_thumbup: Can't wait for the stuff to arrive. Oh yeah - cost. I did get it from Overclockers in the end, as with their 'this week only' offers and getting the OEM cpu instead of retail, it added up to a lot less than the Scan stuff I was halfway through ordering, when I decided on one last check £676.05 What a great decision that turned out to be! JD Link to post Share on other sites
JD_LincsUK 0 Posted February 14, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 14, 2011 Oops! I meant to reply, but ended up replacing my previous post! What a Wallaby! It's my age.... and I'm on some new medication since this morning - maximum opiate dosage per day! JD Link to post Share on other sites
MartinW 0 Posted February 15, 2011 Report Share Posted February 15, 2011 You may wish to check out the topic by Herky on Just Flight, regarding graphics card choice for multiple monitors. http://forum.justflight.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=16315 nVidia are great cards, especially in a single monitor setup. But some think differently for multiple monitor setups. I know you've already ordered, so i feel a bit bad about posting this, but Herky seems to have done a lot of research. Link to post Share on other sites
JD_LincsUK 0 Posted February 15, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 15, 2011 No worries - I'm keeping my current set-up, as far as monitors go - part of the enforced savings. I had explained in the previous post that I accidentally deleted the content of. If I was still going 3 monitor it would definitely have been the HD6950 and Eyefinity. nVidia was the non 3-way choice Same with the problem of the Sandy Bridge P67 motherboard issue affecting this chipset and SATA 3GB/s ports - the mobo I've chosen has enough SATA 6GB/s ports for me not to need the ones that are possibly having issues. In any case, I can swap the mobo when the 3rd revision ones are available, at no cost, so happiness all round. :001_th_smiles89: JD Link to post Share on other sites
JD_LincsUK 0 Posted February 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 Yeehar! Got all my new kit - and it absolutely rocks! :icon_rockon: Took me 4 days to get it working properly (the default BIOS on the Asus P8P67 is old and very very bad - but easy to update). The new style EFI BIOS takes some getting used to - GUI and mouseclicks instead of text based - but even on default settings, the i5 2500K gets a good auto-overclocking. My previous rig was a Core 2 Duo with 5GB 1066 DDR2 and an HD4870/1GB and scored 4078 in 3DMark06 rev.2010. This baby got a cool 23,231 3D marks this morning and 6083 CPU marks. That's well impressive, considering I haven't even started overclocking the thing yet - and both will go up some way. Luckily, CustomPC have just done articles on how best to overclock the i5 (to a constant 4.5GHz with standard air cooling) and the GTX560Ti (ditto) so I'm even more chuffed :icon_thumbup: Christmas has finally arrived! :001_th_smiles89: JD PS - if any of you get a P67 board, look HERE for the newest driver links and the answers to the problems that come with the board. It is very much worth taking the time to sort them. Link to post Share on other sites
mutley 4,487 Posted February 23, 2011 Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 That's great news JD, I am so pleased things are going your way :001_th_smiles89: Link to post Share on other sites
JD_LincsUK 0 Posted February 24, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 24, 2011 Thanks, Joe - it's nice to have something to smile about :biggrin: correction - old 3D score was 7048, not 4078. JD PS - video of the new UEFI BIOS (with the Asus board that I have - is Link to post Share on other sites
mutley 4,487 Posted February 24, 2011 Report Share Posted February 24, 2011 I tried that 3d mark on my laptop last night and got a score of 11300 and burnt my knee! Boy that machine made a lot of noise! Link to post Share on other sites
JD_LincsUK 0 Posted February 26, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 26, 2011 Yeah, that's a good result on a lappy - and shows why I needed to upgrade my gaming machine. Although until the recent troubles I had, which I think were down to a dying motherboard, I had absolutely no complaints at all about its performance. The stuttering I mentioned in FSX (in a highly loaded environment)was the only ever mishap with it in any sim and I really liked it and had no intentions of changing it. As it is, I am so far absolutely blown away by my new set-up. The GTX560Ti is incredible and the SandyBridge processor and 1155 motherboard do an outstanding job, too. Now is the time, if your kit is looking tired Unless you need to wait for prices to come down, but in the current financial climate, I wouldn't count on it soon, and there are definitely bargains to be found if you look for them. JD PS - using MSI Afterburner and a relatively mild overclock with temps remaining at around 50-60°C I am now at 28,406 3D marks and 7603 cpu (clocked to 4.326GHz). Link to post Share on other sites
SEATAC 400 Posted June 5, 2011 Report Share Posted June 5, 2011 So, how do you like the video card, now that you've had some time with it? Link to post Share on other sites
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