HD 3650 > X800XL?

My X800XL is acting a little funny lately- I want to replace it with a HD 3650. I know that this is not an "upgrade", I'm just looking for slightly better performance at a budget price. Am I right in thinking that the 3650 will out-perform the X800XL in Flight Simulator 2004? Currently my settings are pegged at ultra-high at 1280x1024x16.

Jeff

Well I have AGP so I'm pretty limited. I was planning to built a new system around Christmas so I'm trying to keep things under 100. The 3650 I was looking at was 83 at newegg whereas the next competitor was the 3850 which was 140. I really like my current system, but it is getting phased out.

If I bought the new card I would hold off on the new system. I'm still trying to figure out if a new PSU and GPU will fix my current weird problems. My system crashes and blames it on the ati driver, sometimes won't recognize my monitor (when it is plugged into the X800XL), and my FPS took a 50% drop. Additionally I have tried 3 different drivers and reinstalls to no avail.

I tried those- the weird part is that this all started from reinstalling XP. To fix it I tried various drivers, reinstalled again- I've pretty much done everything to my knowledge, but nothiing works. My hunch is that the video card is failing on me, but it could also be my PSU because it only offers 14A on each +12V rail (and the X800XL only takes from one rail). Any ideas? I've posted on hardware forums, flight simulation forums, the list goes on lol.

make sure that you have installed AGP gart driver , this usually comes with your motherboard chipset drivers or try to download it, this is extremly important and i'll say this is most likely your problem.

since you said problems came after reinstaling windows then hardware problems should be discarded (unless if it's a really bad coincidence) and the only thing i see is you forgetting to install agp gart which does excatly the problems you mentioned if it hasn't been installed.

install it and let me know

I feel like taking an M80 to it, really. I know for sure the chipset drivers are installed properly, as well as all of the other drivers. I've installed XP various times in the past and I've never any issues. I'll try the compressed air and hope for the best.