ATI X800XT PE Opinions

[John]

Okay guys. Computer is

Shuttle AN35N MB
1 meg 400mhz memory
Barton 2500 AMD CPU
currently running 9600XT and want to upgrade to X800XT PE.

Mostly use standard apps but main game is Flight Simulator 2004 with a ton
of add-ons including the PMDG747-400 and Ultimate Traffic.

I know the CPU is going to be a bit of a bottleneck, but am I wasting my
money on the Video Card? Your opinions please.

 

[Ed Medlin]

Okay guys. Computer is

Shuttle AN35N MB
1 meg 400mhz memory
Barton 2500 AMD CPU
currently running 9600XT and want to upgrade to X800XT PE.

Mostly use standard apps but main game is Flight Simulator 2004 with a ton
of add-ons including the PMDG747-400 and Ultimate Traffic.

I know the CPU is going to be a bit of a bottleneck, but am I wasting my
money on the Video Card? Your opinions please.

Probably so. With the 2500+ you would probably not see a lot of difference
with the x800 or x850 in FS. There are a lot of changes coming along in the
next several months like the slow death of the AGP and incorporation of
PCI-E. There are also the new sockets for both AMD and Intel. I would really
hold off on a major upgrade at this point and save for a system upgrade to
the new formats and faster processors. You can also bet that the next
version of FS will follow along, like always, and be a real resource
hog........ I have the X850 and a P4 S-775 3.6g 2mb L2 with a meg of DDR2
and do fine with FS 2004, but kind of wish I had held off for a few months
for faster DDR2 cas speeds and a couple of better MB chipsets that are now
available.

Ed