Cheapest card that can play flight sim X @ 1280x1024

[Spike]

I'm looking for a cheap vid card for a family memeber who wants to play flight sim X at 1280x1024. From what I can tell almost any recent card will do like the super cheap 9600GSO's that where going for not very much money recently. What about older cards like the 8600GT? HD 3850? How about the 4670?

I would like it to be less than $80 if possible and lower power consumption so that their Dell 520 won't blow up. Thanks for any help!

EDIT*** Well, I was wrong on the pc, it's actually a 521 which means it takes half height cards or whatever that means. Anyone know a good half height card? Would that new AMD 4350 or whatever it was work for flight sim X or is it just too underpowered?

 

[james1701]

delete

 

[Modular]

This Tom's Hardware Reivew is a little old, but shows that the CPU clocks are the most important thing in this game.

I'm sure that there are many other reviews out there that you can get a hold of. I found that with a quick google search. Basically, you will want to search for reviews that have that D520's processor matched with whatever GPU you want and go based off of that.

 

[betasub]

As Modular's link show, CPU compute power is a big thing for FSX. Other than that, FSX also caches a lot of textures, with a lot of traffic across PCIe (it's one of the few games that benefits from moving to PCIe2.0 16x) so don't skimp on graphics card memory - is there a 512MB GF 9600 card inside your budget?

 

[daveybrat]

An ATI Radeon HD 4670 would probably be the best bet as you won't need a better power supply or a 6-pin power connector either.

 

[Spike]

Originally posted by: daveybrat
An ATI Radeon HD 4670 would probably be the best bet as you won't need a better power supply or a 6-pin power connector either.

This is the card I was leaning towards due to the power requirements but the prices still seem a little high compared to the deals being offered on other cards out there. I know CPU is an important part but I have no idea what processor they are running. I was just asked to look into vid cards for this game so I figured I would ask.

Anyone know of any deals on the 4670? Maybe for $60 or so?

 

[happy medium]

4670 65$ AR here.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814127383

 

[Spike]

Originally posted by: happy medium
4670 65$ AR here.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814127383

Thanks, I passed that along with a 9600GSO, 8600GT, and HD 3850. I recommended the 4670 above the rest simply due to the lower power requirements but I left the decision up to them.

Thanks again for the help.

 

[betasub]

I hope they don't go for the underpowered 8600GT and its 128bit memory interface.

 

[Spike]

Originally posted by: betasub
I hope they don't go for the underpowered 8600GT and its 128bit memory interface.

The only reason they would choose that is price and their limit is $100 though they obviously want to spend less. From the graphs I saw the 8600GT should work ok for them though I was pushing the 4670 so I hope they go for that.

 

[Spike]

Would this work in the C521 or does it need to be half height but have a full length bracket? And If it fit would it even play flight sim x at all or would it still drag along?

 

[Denithor]

The 3650 wasn't really designed as a gaming card, as shown in this GPU benchmark at tomshardware.com. Compare the 3650 result (non CF = 14 fps) to that of the 9600GT (34 fps) and then get this card instead.

Galaxy 9600GT ~$100AR

That's probably the only true gaming card you're going to find in a low-profile configuration.

What cpu does their Dell have? If it's a C2D or X2 it should be ok for FSX. If it's a single core of any kind the GPU will help but you're probably going to be CPU-bound to some degree.

 

[FalseChristian]

I concur with Denithor.:thumbsup:

 

[Spike]

Originally posted by: Denithor
The 3650 wasn't really designed as a gaming card, as shown in this GPU benchmark at tomshardware.com. Compare the 3650 result (non CF = 14 fps) to that of the 9600GT (34 fps) and then get this card instead.

Galaxy 9600GT ~$100AR

That's probably the only true gaming card you're going to find in a low-profile configuration.

What cpu does their Dell have? If it's a C2D or X2 it should be ok for FSX. If it's a single core of any kind the GPU will help but you're probably going to be CPU-bound to some degree.

Thanks for the info. I'm fairly certain it's an X2 but I don't know that for sure. I like the 9600GT but the price is getting higher than they wanted to go and I'm not sure the psu can support it. I may just have to tell them that it's hopeless if they want to stick with the 521.

Thanks again for the info.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: Denithor
Galaxy 9600GT ~$100AR

That's probably the only true gaming card you're going to find in a low-profile configuration.

That's actually the only card mentioned in this thread so far that's worth spending a penny on, if FSX will be the system's predominant game.

What cpu does their Dell have? If it's a C2D or X2 it should be ok for FSX. If it's a single core of any kind the GPU will help but you're probably going to be CPU-bound to some degree.

I'm CPU-bound @ 1280x1024 with a Q6600 @ 3.2Ghz, in FSX. And that's with 0x AA. FSX is the most CPU-bound game ever released. That's why it's threaded for up to 256 cores.:shocked: Spike, show your relative this link. Oh, and Sitka is in the middle of nowhere, that's why the framerates are so high. Flying through Manhattan (NYC), I get ~30 FPS.