Okay Guys I want some sound advice

[TX-Bomblast]

Careful when you read the add for the 5600 card. It's a "256-Bit" "Performance Graphics Core", "128-Bit DDR Memory Interface"

[TX-Deck]

I picked up the nvidia FX 5700 128mb card a month ago from Best Buy for just at $200.  At the time it was a week old, had just been released.  The core chipset is the same as the 5900, but I haven't seen any benchmarks comparing the two.   The only 5900 benchmark I could find with head to head results against the 5700 was for the 5950 Ultra, which is a $500 card (at the time).I've been more than happy with my purchase, although Eco pointed out that newegg.com had a 5900 128mb version for roughly the same price.   I can max out FB at 1024 res and maintain 40-60 fps with no problem.   Good luck, I wish I knew more about all the cards out there to help you make a decision, but to me it is always simply overwhelming to keep up with every spec, and usually I just purchase whatever $200 will get me, every couple of years.TX-Deck out.

[TX-EcoDragon]

Yeah. . . the bottom line is, the MX cards are no good for FB, and you will certainly notice a nice improvement, nitpickings aside.S!TX-EcoDragonBlack 1TX Squadron XO

[TX-FlightRisk]

Thank all of you. i have decided on the 5600 with the 256 DDR for 139 at New EggS~TX-FlightRisk Black 3

[Bill_Grant]

Darn! I was too slow. Seems that Best Buy has the ATI 9800 PRO on sale for $399, but there is a $100 M.I.R. with it as well! I got my B.B. M.I.R. for a Maxtor drive in under 4 weeks.... ATI sucks, huh? Gee. It looks pretty *awesome* on my machine. Plus the one I just built. Would on FL-Bomblast's machine too, if the guy would just send me some money to build it! But I have been buggin him for years. Aint gonna happen. HA! Seriously. Black Death track at 1280x920x32, AA=4, AF=8, all settings highest except perfect.  Avg: 31.308 - Min: 14 - Max: 68 on FRAPS.  Every once in awhile I have Bomblast tell me about "Jaggies."  Fun story. No clue what he is talking about though.....~Bill

[Bill_Grant]

Almost forgot, Flightrisk. If that is still too rich, then I would heartily suggest that you invest your cash in a nice ATI 9600 card instead. The ATI cards kick the pants off the Nvidia cards in the image quality area. A high frame rate is sweet, but NOT if your canopy pillars look like stairsteps!! The 9600, while not the barn burner, smokes most of the competition. Plus, the fact remains that Nvidia is having hardware issues with the new games coming out, since their claims of DirectX 9 compliance have proven ill-gained.  Its pretty bad when the software company Valve, which is about to publish Half-Life 2, comes out and calls your product (Nvidia) "Crap." ~Bill

[TX-EcoDragon]

I would have to agree, and the 9600XT is looking pretty nice, it is 169 at newegg, and that is what I jsut suggested for my friend Ben (Hwkmn), but his system already has an older ATI card and seems to run his software jsut fine. . . the only issue that has made me think twice about ATI is that I have seen tooo many strange conflicts and errors. . .and good old CTDs with ATI 9700 and 9800 Pros. The few programs I use all have issues though, even when they work ok, like the DirectX only issue that IL-2 had with ATI, the blue screen shots (cant use in game screencapture), LOMAC didn't support them at all. . . but in the last build apparently did implement Radeon coding. . . which clearly can't be all that well tested since the game was just released. Apparently the CAT 3.9s are causing some trouble, but the older 3.7s are running many of the programs I use pretty well it seems. I myself like the stability that I have always had with nVidia, but right now ATI has the image quality in the bag, and either performs better or just a hair worse than the nVidia rivals (nVidia benchs faster in FS2004, X-Plane, IL-2 and FB, but probably looks not quite as good in screencaptures, and seems slower in most other games). . . and they are cleaning up their driver beta program too. All that said if I had a 500 gift certificate to a comp shop I would be going for the 9800XT!S!TX-EcoDragonBlack 1TX Squadron XO