upgrade gpu

Hey Guys;

Just recently put together a tower with an I7 4790;8GB ram;120 GB SSD;1TB Cavier Blue.

I'm running FSX;ASN;Traffic 360;UTX;GEX all on the HD....using the SSD for system and Tax returns !!

I'm presently thinking of replacing my MSI gtx 660 and moving upward to MSI gtx 970.

I'd really like to go to the 980,but it's a money thing with purse strings.

Are there any opinions,pro or con,about the 970. And also would I see any improvement in eye candy and /or scenery ?

Thanks for any input. You all have been extremely helpful with my sim experience and I am most grateful !!

Skip D

Given imminent release of the new 1070 card (June 10, IIRC), I'd wait - either to get the 1070 for the same price as a GTX 970, or to pick up a 970 at a reduced price.

The 970 will NOT improve fps, it WILL enable higher levels of AA, AF and possibly higher scenery settings in the sim, but FSX remains CPU limited, no matter the GPU.

I can't comment on the virtues or not of the 970. However, I've used several different GPUS with FSX and haven't seen any "eye candy" improvements. Other improvements like the use of multiple screens, yes. "Eye candy," no.

IMHO: FSX is way too CPU based to expect improvement in that regard using a different GPU.

I doubt that there will be a significant FPS improvement but I've never used a 660. I'll yield to Malcott on that one. And, he's right...you can run obscene settings for AA, etc. on the 970/980 with no performance hit. But...I can say, for sure, you will see NO difference on ANYTHING between the 970 and 980. I've used both and benchmarked both on this machine with FSX and P3D and there is absolutely no noticeable difference in performance. And, I really doubt if the 1070 will make any difference either. I'd wait until the 1070/1080 are released. That should drive down the price of the 970 and then I'd buy the 970.

Doug

FSX is CPU intensive rather than GPU intensive like previous versions - I doubt whether there is much to be gained from a GPU upgrade at the moment.

Which version of the 660 do you have, i.e. how much DRAM (which could be a factor if you use USEPOOLS=0 in your CFG)?

[bUFFERPOOLS]

UsePools=1

Poolsize=8000000

RejectThreshhold=126976

This is what I have in my fsx.cfg. I think I got this from Nick N

Should I use this setting ?? FSX is running very nicely now.

I'm not sure if Nick N recommends a reject threshold setting, I know that Bjoote does in his on line config tool.

If you want to try Usepools=0, it's worth a go and easy to set back if you get any issues. using a reject threshold setting or usepools=0 both use a significant amount of GPU DRAM, so it's important to see how much DRAM you have. 1.5 to 2 Gigs is OK.

(Note that usepools=0 will over-ride the poolsize and reject threshold settings anyway)

IAN

Does this help any ??

Yep, it says you have 2 gigs of DRAM, plenty to be able to use usepools=0 without any problems.

It would be interesting to see what the GPU load is with FSX running. Nowhere near 100% I would think.

Thank for that info. I'm going to reset the fsx.cfg and see if it makes any difference.

Deep thanks for the advice on waiting for the new cards to come out.

Skip D