Do i need a upgrade for FSX??

[zm15]

Hey everyone, i am getting back into the sim community after a 14 year hiatus! 1994 was the last time i was in the grips of Flight Simulator, and now i'm back again. I need some help discerning if i need to upgrade my system. Here are the current specs:

Athlon X2 5000+ BE @ 2.8 Ghz
8 GB DDR2 800 RAM (i'm a video editor)
Plenty of HD space
Geforce 9500GT 512MB GDDR3 RAM
Audigy 2 Platinum Soundcard
Logitech Extreme 3d Pro Joystick
24" Monitor

I know i'm due for an upgrade, but i am waiting another 6+ months to upgrade to the core i7 system, possibly longer. So i am wondering if moving up to a video card like a 8800GT would make alot of difference? A more realistic upgrade for me right now.

Thanks!

 

[dokk2]

According to the upgrade charts that were here on Tom's, a video upgrade should be several levels above current,nonetheless the 8800gt is a good card [got one myself,so I am biased] and it might be quite a while before you will feel the need to replace it,and the 5000 will not hold it back,of course you can always up the multiplier on the 5000 [got one of these too,, running the 7850be now tho]....

 

[zm15]

if i were to upgrade to a core i7 920 and a 8800gt, would i be able to play at 1920x1200 with high settings???

 

[arthurh]

if i were to upgrade to a core i7 920 and a 8800gt, would i be able to play at 1920x1200 with high settings???

Actually I would recomend a 8800GTS 512 (g92) graphics card for this game if you can still find one thou the 9800GTS+ might do just as well. This game does like nVida over ATI and Intel over AMD.

I have tried both. 5000+ OC'd to 3.2 and my current set-up @ the bottom. My experience shows FSX does not like SLI. i7 will diffently play this sim better than any thing out there as this sim will use up to 256 cores!!! i7 is a quad with Hyper Threading which adds 4 more cores this sim can use.

Most of my settings are completely maxed out and my frame rate is set to 30. I have a 20" CRT monitor @ 1600 X 1200. No stutters in FPS as set @ this time. If I absolutely max out evrything and lower my frames to 20 I do really good as well with just an occasional stutter at like LAX.

I'm using Win 7 as this seems to be working better than Vista. Just my opinion. Hope this helps.