8600GT Thoughts ?

"Wonderman" wrote in message
...
My vista score is currently a 4.3. Can anyone guess what an 8600GT score
would yield ?

Why don't you go out, buy it, then tell us all after ignoring all the
constructive advice?

Augustus wrote:

Why don't you go out, buy it, then tell us all after ignoring all the
constructive advice?

LOL! That would truly be an incremental upgrade.

Augustus wrote:

Why don't you go out, buy it, then tell us all after ignoring all the
constructive advice?

Hah! But that would mean he would have to face the sad reality that his
PC really isn't up to the task of running his flight sim the way he wants.

Face it Wonderman, if you want FSX to run better, you need a faster CPU.
as well, it's just how that goes. But, your Vaio can't take CPU upgrades
easily if at all, best guess.

Geez... Whats the average age on this board ? 8 ?



"Augustus" wrote in message
news:xZCtj.21382$FO1.14883@edtnps82...

"Wonderman" wrote in message
...
My vista score is currently a 4.3. Can anyone guess what an 8600GT score
would yield ?

Why don't you go out, buy it, then tell us all after ignoring all the
constructive advice?

"Wonderman" wrote in message

I was considering upgrading from an XFX 7600 GS 256 to this -

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125083


FS X is a bit too choppy in the old card and I could use a boost in
CAD as well. Any thoughts appreciated. BTW I'm running a nearly
silent Sony desktop so fanless is really important.

Given the 8600GT's DX9 performance is roughly that of a 7600GT it's not much
of an upgrade from a 7600GS.

Wonderman wrote:

Geez... Whats the average age on this board ? 8 ?

Well there's an exaggeration, to be sure. I think it's more like fifteen.

FS X is very CPU intensive. What are your system specs and at what
resolution are you trying to run it?

From this chart:
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphi...55 &chart=291

....you can see that the 8600GT would in fact be a decent upgrade in
this specific case, and you can also see how CPU limited the game
is, as the top GPUs don't perform significantly better at that resolution.

Click on the chart bars to get the system specs. It seems they used
an Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800, 2.93 GHz. I have read that better
multithreading support has been added with the FS X Service Pack 1.

Thank you for the perspective and info.

I'm running a 2.8 ghz Pentium D dual core with 2 gig ram and the 7600GS
card. The Windows Vista score is currently 4.3 and the resolution is 1650
x 1080. My sense of it ( despite the peanut gallery comments ) is that the
Gigabyte fanless 8600GT would be an improvement. Currently this system is
nearly silent and tremendously reliable.


"Fishface" ? wrote in message
news:C8Ztj.6637$kz3.5051@trndny03...
Wonderman wrote:

Geez... Whats the average age on this board ? 8 ?

Well there's an exaggeration, to be sure. I think it's more like fifteen.

FS X is very CPU intensive. What are your system specs and at what
resolution are you trying to run it?

From this chart:
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphi...55 &chart=291

...you can see that the 8600GT would in fact be a decent upgrade in
this specific case, and you can also see how CPU limited the game
is, as the top GPUs don't perform significantly better at that resolution.

Click on the chart bars to get the system specs. It seems they used
an Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800, 2.93 GHz. I have read that better
multithreading support has been added with the FS X Service Pack 1.

Wonderman wrote:
Thank you for the perspective and info.

I'm running a 2.8 ghz Pentium D dual core with 2 gig ram and the 7600GS
card. The Windows Vista score is currently 4.3 and the resolution is
1650 x 1080. My sense of it ( despite the peanut gallery comments ) is
that the Gigabyte fanless 8600GT would be an improvement. Currently
this system is nearly silent and tremendously reliable.

Setting up FSX is complicated, and the article here claims the frame rate
can be capped by "Target Frame Rate".

http://web.archive.org/web/200703180...Frame-Rate.htm

The Target Frame Rate setting is shown here.

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?s...e=post&id=5842
( http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=40850 )

In the Tomshardware chart, the more powerful video cards are all delivering
about the same frame rate. Could this be caused by "Target Frame Rate" ?
Or is it caused by running out of CPU power ?

More system examples here, and quoted frame rates.
http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/ya...num=1190754444

Paul



"Fishface" ? wrote in message
news:C8Ztj.6637$kz3.5051@trndny03...
Wonderman wrote:

Geez... Whats the average age on this board ? 8 ?

Well there's an exaggeration, to be sure. I think it's more like
fifteen.

FS X is very CPU intensive. What are your system specs and at what
resolution are you trying to run it?

From this chart:
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphi...55 &chart=291


...you can see that the 8600GT would in fact be a decent upgrade in
this specific case, and you can also see how CPU limited the game
is, as the top GPUs don't perform significantly better at that
resolution.

Click on the chart bars to get the system specs. It seems they used
an Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800, 2.93 GHz. I have read that better
multithreading support has been added with the FS X Service Pack 1.

OK. I went to Best Buy and bought a PNY 8600GT 512K with GDDR3 memory. And
a real loud fan so its going back. The fan itself isn’t too loud but in
this case it is like a Dustbuster.
My Windows Experience score went from 4.3 to 4.7 with the card itself going
from 4.3 to 5.7. The CPU is the constraining score at 4.7 so the
speculation about FSX was correct actually. It ran a bit more smooth but it
wasn’t enough to knock you back in your chair.

In CAD rotating a 3D solid was quite a bit smother and for the sum total of
the user experience I’ll go for the fanless one form NewEgg.

My last question for the group is whether to go for the Gigabyte 8600GT with
512K of GDDR2 or the same card with 256 of GDDR3 ? Some of the comments
about the heat those cards generate were a concern as well.


"DRS" wrote in message
...
"Wonderman" wrote in message

I was considering upgrading from an XFX 7600 GS 256 to this -

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125083


FS X is a bit too choppy in the old card and I could use a boost in
CAD as well. Any thoughts appreciated. BTW I'm running a nearly
silent Sony desktop so fanless is really important.

Given the 8600GT's DX9 performance is roughly that of a 7600GT it's not
much of an upgrade from a 7600GS.

'Wonderman' wrote:
| OK. I went to Best Buy and bought a PNY 8600GT 512K with GDDR3 memory.
And
| a real loud fan so its going back. The fan itself isn’t too loud but in
| this case it is like a Dustbuster.
| My Windows Experience score went from 4.3 to 4.7 with the card itself
going
| from 4.3 to 5.7. The CPU is the constraining score at 4.7 so the
| speculation about FSX was correct actually. It ran a bit more smooth but
it
| wasn’t enough to knock you back in your chair.
|
| In CAD rotating a 3D solid was quite a bit smother and for the sum total
of
| the user experience I’ll go for the fanless one form NewEgg.
|
| My last question for the group is whether to go for the Gigabyte 8600GT
with
| 512K of GDDR2 or the same card with 256 of GDDR3 ? Some of the comments
| about the heat those cards generate were a concern as well.
_____

Clearly you need a better performing CPU, as that is the weak link indicated
by the fairly useless 'Windows Experience' test. My T7200 2.0 GHz X 4 MB L2
cache Dell Inspiron notebook with a 8600M GT beats your CPU score and the
low power (low clock speed) 8600M GT comes in at 4.6, just below your 8600
GT at 4.7. I certainly would not call my notebook a serious gaming system;
the 3DMark06 score is ~ 3800 unless I overclock the video card (which quite
easily will handle a 30% clock rate increase.)

A noticeable improvement for your system is going to require more than going
from last generation's midrange video card to a current generation midrange
video card.

But evidently you don't want to hear that.

Phil Weldon

"Wonderman" wrote in message
...
| OK. I went to Best Buy and bought a PNY 8600GT 512K with GDDR3 memory.
And
| a real loud fan so its going back. The fan itself isn’t too loud but in
| this case it is like a Dustbuster.
| My Windows Experience score went from 4.3 to 4.7 with the card itself
going
| from 4.3 to 5.7. The CPU is the constraining score at 4.7 so the
| speculation about FSX was correct actually. It ran a bit more smooth but
it
| wasn’t enough to knock you back in your chair.
|
| In CAD rotating a 3D solid was quite a bit smother and for the sum total
of
| the user experience I’ll go for the fanless one form NewEgg.
|
| My last question for the group is whether to go for the Gigabyte 8600GT
with
| 512K of GDDR2 or the same card with 256 of GDDR3 ? Some of the comments
| about the heat those cards generate were a concern as well.
|
|
| "DRS" wrote in message
| ...
| "Wonderman" wrote in message
|
| I was considering upgrading from an XFX 7600 GS 256 to this -
|
| http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125083
|
|
| FS X is a bit too choppy in the old card and I could use a boost in
| CAD as well. Any thoughts appreciated. BTW I'm running a nearly
| silent Sony desktop so fanless is really important.
|
| Given the 8600GT's DX9 performance is roughly that of a 7600GT it's not
| much of an upgrade from a 7600GS.
|
|