Card Recomendations

[Thud]

Do you guys have any recommendations for video cards?
FSX says my current one is: Intel G33/G31 Express Chipset family.0
Is that any good? Because FSX has some problems with my computer, like when I put all the sliders up, some settings go down without me putting them down. Like what would happen sliding the Global Texture Resolution and all the Scenery settings down if I have the autogen to max. But If I have the other things low when I have autogen to the max, it's fine.

I've never changed graphics/video cards and the computer is around 1 year old now.
Any recommendations?
8-)

[Thud]

Anyone? :-/

[Speed of flight]

Intel G33/G31 Express Chipset family.0

Is this in a laptop?
It sounds like this is an on-board or integrated graphics thingy. If so, and it's a big enough case, then the one to get is the ATi 5870, or the GTX 295 if one prefers Nvidia. However, one might wait a little bit, because the Nvidia folks are working on an answer to ATi's 5870 with an awesome video card. Don't know much about it, as I'm an ATi guy. If these are too expensive (and to most of us, they are) go for the ATi 5750 or 5770. GDDR5 and a handy little O/C and O/Volting tool on the XFX cards, to my understanding. The 5850 Black Edition is around $350 and is VERY comparable to the 5870, with a slightly lower clock speed, or something to that effect. The 5750 and 5770 are about $150-$180, and still use 1 GB GDDR5. Pretty good cards, and a little friendlier to your wallet.

That's all I got.

[Rich H]

Make sure you get a decent power supply and a processor to get the most of that graphics card too.

[Thud]

Thanks for the recommendations, Speed of Flight!
And Rich, I think my comp has enough power,  :-/

[Rich H]

[quote]Thanks for the recommendations, Speed of Flight!
And Rich, I think my comp has enough power,

[Thud]

I really have no clue. How would I find that out?

Woot, 100th post!

[Mazza]

Open up your case, there should be a big box with power cords coming out of it (Top or maybe at bottom of case) on the side it should say how many Watts 

[Thud]

The actual CPU?
I can give you as much info as you need from the DxDiag thing.

[Slotback]

1. What PSU do you have? Open up the case and find out. It's what the external power cable connects to.

2. Does your motherboard have a PCI-Express x16 slot? You can grab a program called CPUID (aka CPU-Z), and it will tell your motherboard model in the mainboard tab.

3. Intel Pentium Dual Core CPU @ 2.0ghz is not very fast. Don't spend money on a really high end card (e.g. 5870, GTX 285) because you CPU will likely become the limiting factor. Look at 9800GT, GTS 250, GTX 260, Radeon 4870, Radeon 5770, Radeon 4890.

[Speed of flight]

1. What PSU do you have? Open up the case and find out. It's what the external power cable connects to.

2. Does your motherboard have a PCI-Express x16 slot? You can grab a program called CPUID (aka CPU-Z), and it will tell your motherboard model in the mainboard tab.

3. Intel Pentium Dual Core CPU @ 2.0ghz is not very fast. Don't spend money on a really high end card (e.g. 5870, GTX 285) because you CPU will likely become the limiting factor. Look at 9800GT, GTS 250, GTX 260, Radeon 4870, Radeon 5770, Radeon 4890.

Yes, very good observation! I was so busy tellin the guy about cards, I didn't even notice this! Even still, though, since I'm an idiot (as in keep buying the newest thing whenever it comes out ) I would still say to get that card, and when your CPU does become your bottleneck, you can just get another one of those! Then, as soon as your CPU is up to snuff, you'll probably end up noticing that you don't have enough RAM, or that it's too slow, and you might as well get 6,8,or 12 GB of new RAM, provided your MoBo will take DDR3. If not, then you may need to spring for one of those. After you do all that, though, you're pretty much done; unless you plan to OC it, then you need to make sure your case allows for a lot of air flow (fans, vents, etc)...

But then you're ALL finished, except that now, you've got this whole other system that you don't use anymore, and you can't figure out what to do with it. Oh sure, you can try to sell it, or even GIVE IT AWAY to a friend, but they'll all know that you just upgraded, and if your old one was worth it, you NEVER would have spent ALL THAT MONEY on a new one, LIKE I JUST DID (*grumble* rathafrakin new parts takin all my money) Anybody want to buy a MSI K9A2 Platinum with an AMD9850 BE and 8GB DDR2? I'm hungry...

[Thud]

1. What PSU do you have? Open up the case and find out. It's what the external power cable connects to.

2. Does your motherboard have a PCI-Express x16 slot? You can grab a program called CPUID (aka CPU-Z), and it will tell your motherboard model in the mainboard tab.

3. Intel Pentium Dual Core CPU @ 2.0ghz is not very fast. Don't spend money on a really high end card (e.g. 5870, GTX 285) because you CPU will likely become the limiting factor. Look at 9800GT, GTS 250, GTX 260, Radeon 4870, Radeon 5770, Radeon 4890.

Well with that said, if I was looking for that sort of power, would I be better off (price wise) upgrading my comp or getting a new one?

[Rich H]

Well with that said, if I was looking for that sort of power, would I be better off (price wise) upgrading my comp or getting a new one?

How much do you want to spend?

[Speed of flight]

That is the question! How much! If your proc is only 2.0 GHz now, OCing it wouldn't yield much more, I bet: Or not enough, at least, to really notice a gain.

Not that I recommend spending a bunch of money (cuz that's just stoopid), every 2 years or so, I spring for a whole new system. If you use that as a guideline, it may be time for you. Right now you can get really good deals on components and even entire systems, and you wouldn't need to do it again for a while. With the advent of DDR3 and Intel's new I-cores (primarily i5 &i7's), you can get a budget system that really ROX, and will continue to rock for a while. I always go with AMD, just cause I go for the "underdog", but you should do your research before you choose, if you do upgrade or build new.

There isn't going to be a new Flight Sim like this one for some time, with ACES being ousted, and the hardware that's out there now has finally caught up with it. If you post your motherboard model # (unless you have already and wasn't paying attention) some folks in here, including myself, can help you look up its specs and see what you can upgrade to, or if it's even worth it. As far as components go, if you want power and speed, the MoBo is the most crucial component, as far as I'm concerned. That will dictate how far you can go, without an entire new build. If you want to go fast, you need to have the capacity for up-to-date processors, as those change more often than anything else.

Really, you would have to decide. Here's some places to look for stuff:

frys.com
bestbuy.com
newegg.com
tomshardware.com (for reviews, news)

plenty of others. I recommend frys, cuz I go to their stores all the time, and am just overtaken with their goodies. Ask my girlfriend! She's yelling at me about it right now!

[B_7772]

1. What PSU do you have? Open up the case and find out.

You can't just open up the case, you first NEED to get a static wrist strap, otherwise you'll kill your computer with static electricity.


Also, if you decide to get a new PSU, go modular (much easier), specifically these, http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... ro&x=0&y=0
I had to change out my PSU 3 months ago (for same reason), I couldn't image doing it with a non-modular.