CPU or video card update for higher framerate in FSX

Since the first time I put my had on a joystick and played Microsoft Flight Simulator X, performance (especially framerate) was one of my biggest problems. I like eye candy so I'm always pushing my computer configuration to the limit, after all it needs to be as real as it can.

Having this in mind I decided to scrap my old Geforce 9400 GT and buy a new video card.

I found this cool article on TomsHardware which compares FSX framerate on multiple CPU and GPU confrontations and at different quality settings. The graphics cards used in the tests are not the newest ones, but for people like me that are on a tight budget when it comes to hardware purchases, it does it's job.

Looking at the graphs, and in my pocket I ended up in deciding between a Geforce 9600GT and a Geforce 9800GT (1GB of DDR2 respectively DDR3). Combined with my E5200 processor which I just overclocked last evening at 2.78 Mhz it should hopefully give me the 20 framerates per second I dream at, while flying a complex aircraft during storm with medium/high quality clouds. Who knows maybe I will be able to even enable bloom.

Will test it and place my results as soon as I make the purchase. Keep you posted. If you have experience on a similar system please feel free to share.