WHAT MOTHERBOARDS HAVE 3 PCE-E x16 that will all run at x16 in NON SLI?

[Quiksilver]

Originally posted by: SimSamurai
Ahh, didn't see the Skulltrail suggestion I will check that out tonight, thanks for the tip...and with a name like Skulltrail I already love it!

Skulltrail is super expensive. :/

 

[SimSamurai]

I don't know how to classify my "flat panel" trainer as I have not begun to seek the necessary requirements for FAA certification. I'm not trying to reproduce any one particular aircraft either but rather all aircraft. You can spend thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars buying real analog gauges to then spend all of your time soldering and wiring things to just make for instance say a Cessna 172 and once built your are stuck flying that panel for the rest of your sim flying days which would be quite boring. -and why do that when the sim has so many great aircraft to fly! Some actual real gauges, knobs, levers, are great however..i.e; the throttle quadrant, lights switches, battery, avionics, icing, heading adj, CDI adj, etc.. basically the ones that will be common to most every aircraft and in doing so you eliminate alot of mouse and keyboard use.

As far as panel building having some graphic design skills, a good bitmap editor such as Photoshop, and FS Panel Studio your "virtual" cockpits are unlimited to your own time and creativity. You can create as many new panels as you want for each aircraft and can build your own virtual gauges where and when need be. I have over 190 type aircraft with 570 tail numbers resulting in well over 3,000 gauges in my gauge folder to choose from. (you obviously have to know which right one's to use with each new aircraft however.) I've built so many custom panels now that I don't even fly any stock plane or stock panel anymore. I always make my own and tweak the aircraft config file to match real world performance. (found from real FAA data) I've got my building down to about 10 hours work per aircraft. Now that's cooking with Avgas!

 

[krnmastersgt]

I suppose we could be of more help if you gave us a rough estimate for the budget of this whole upgrade.

 

[SimSamurai]

Skulltrail looks awesome but 700.00 just for the mobo...O-U-C-H. Ok..so then price "bud---jets" for a system..I would say I only want to spend what is a reasonable amount to get the job done without overkill. $1,000.00 - $2,000.00 ???

However I really think it would be fun if we all make a full "system" suggestion based on what I want to do and thereby pick an optimal "dream" set up based on 3 choices of: HIGH END -- MIDDLE END -- and LOW END ---And just to recap guys I need 3 PCI-e slots with as many of them running at 16x electrically as possible to feed 5 monitor outputs. AND... for now I think we can probably just discount the use of Crossfire (and of course SLI) --(unless I can actually run 4 independant monitors via 2 cards in Crossfire mode while still running a 5th independent monitor (projector) on the 3rd video card ( I can't find any solid reports on this actually working and thus would not risk spending the money on it unless I had justifyable proof that A; it works well, and B; would make a great difference) from the reports and links you guys have posted just recently it seems I need to concern myself more with increased CPU power and not the complex (and still perhaps infant) GPU configurings so therefore the adage of "KISS - keep it simple stupid" would apply here. --- 3 cards, 5 outputs ...no fuss.

While I'm not afraid to try Intel / ATI cards I have been a die hard NVidia fan for quite some time and have found configuring my 4 outputs so far to be quite easy (in fact my center LCD is on its side and is in portrait mode!) and I have had no big sim issues with my current set-up. I have also only purchased BFG / Nvidia cards in the past because they have an excellent warranty/return policy. I have had one bad card before (even had bought it used off Ebay) and with a quick RMA I had a brand new one no questions asked within 2 weeks !!!! ..so they earned my loyalty there...(and I have their 1,000 watt PSU now too)

Anyway ...The high end system should reflect a top-notch Skulltrail mombo with two 3.0ghz quad processors and 3 high end video cards with at least 512mb memory each and minimum 4 gigs of DDR-3. The middle end system should be a 780/790i board with a sufficient single quad core chip, and DDR3 (or DDR2 if able as I could still use the 4 gigs I have now) and 3 mid-high video cards like either 8800's or 9800's. System 3 (the low end) should be a 680 or 780 system with a dual core chip, DDR-2 and would just use the 3 existing 7900 gtx 512 cards that I still have now (say a value of $150 each)

In each estimate I would say it is not necessary to include a price of the case, hard drives, optical drives, or power supply as I already have the 1,000 watt BFG PSU and am soon buying a large rack mount tabletop style case. With CPU heat pipe coolers and video cards getting bigger and heavier I really think a big rack-mount case is the way to go these days so you don't bend your motherboard! - If I ever went to water cooling I would even want to invert the whole thing and "hang" the motherboard to wick away any possible condensation! --- now that would be cool....I'd just have to figure out how to keep the front face normal so your DVD's don't fall on the floor when you open the tray!) I'd call it the "bat machine" I can hear the Sesame Street Count now..... "tree....tree video cards ....muaahhh haa haa haaa!"

FORMAT FOR EXERCISE :

MOBO : PRICE:
PCI-e's (listed as qty, version (1.0 or 2.0) and true electrical capacity in normal mode)

CHIP(s): PRICE:

VIDEO CARDS (3) PRICE (x3) :

RAM (4 x1024) PRICE :

O.S. SUPPORTED :

 

[Quiksilver]

Originally posted by: SimSamurai
O.S. SUPPORTED :

You should probably fill that one in for us sames we don't know what applications and what not your working with.

 

[SimSamurai]

This computer's application is for flight simulator 2004 and flight simulator X only.... if anything else did not work on it I wouldn't care. I prefer to say on XP-Pro X64 but would move to Vista x64 if the new motherboard only supported that.

 

[Quiksilver]

Well I got around to making a list, for ease I didn't really shop around at prices so everything was done up at the egg, I also went along with manufactures I would purchase from and avoided products I know little about or just ones I would avoid based on how cheaply built they looked. Lastly, I tried to keep the builds as similar as possible and made sure to use all single-slot cooling for all video cards so none of the other slots would be blocked. The only thing is I am unsure of how well nvidia's multi-monitor support is. Also if I am wrong on any of the information just tell me so I can update it. I might tally up a skulltrail rig for fun later.

Build 1: Intel and NVIDIA Based
Motherboard: EVGA 132-CK-NF78-A1
---Note: I could not find the information about the electrical pci-express bus width.
Video Cards: 3x BFG BFGE88512GTOCE
Processor: Intel Xeon X3350
---Note: It's equivalent to the Q9450
Memory: Mushkin PC2-8500 4GB (2x 2GB Kit)
Operating System: Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit with SP1
Total Price

Build 2: AMD and NVIDIA Based
Motherboard: Asus M3N-HT Deluxe
---Note: Dual Cards x16, x16|| Triple Cards x16, x8, x8 bus width.
Video Cards: 3x BFG BFGE88512GTOCE
Processor: AMD Phenom 9850
Memory: Mushkin PC2-8500 4GB (2x 2GB Kit)
Operating System: Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit with SP1
Total Price

Build 3: AMD and ATI Based
Motherboard: Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe
---Note: Dual Cards x16, x16|| Triple Cards x16, x8, x8 bus width.|| Quad Cards: x8, x8, x8, x8. Also 3870X2 counts as 2 cards so if you were to use two of those you would be using quad crossfire.
Video Cards: 3x Sapphire HD3870 100225L
Processor: AMD Phenom 9850
Memory: Mushkin PC2-8500 4GB (2x 2GB Kit)
Operating System: Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit with SP1
Total Price

Build 4: Intel and ATI Based
Newegg doesn't really have anything that has in this area that supports 3 physical cards in crossfire and from what I can see you would be forced to use DDR3 which is super expensive at the moment.

~~~
For fun you could use 8GB in a (2x 4GB) kit for $600.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820231182

 

[SimSamurai]

Quicksilver, thanks for your grand efforts and for the excellent showdown of wares. I will have to take a week to review each category to determine prices vs. functionality. I personally think Nvidia has great multi-monitor support as that is what I've been using with my flight sim for years. Again I'm already running 3 LCD's and one projector now on my Gigabyte Quad Royal mobo with just 2 video cards. The 3 LCD's are all at the same resolution (1680 x1024) but the center monitor is in portrait style so (1024x1680) and the projector is maxed out at something like 1024 x 768. Configuring all of them with the Nvidia utility is a real breeze and it has served me well so far... So in that I guess I'm hesitant to try ATI as I'm totally unfamiliar with their cards or utility / configuring software. If I knew of anyone who was doing exactly what I'm doing now but with ATI cards I would love to see it. (especially if the crossfire is working with 4 monitors and then another non crossfire card running simultaneously too with added monitors..)

I am really liking the EVGA board right now and at $225 it's even reasonable that it might go down some over the summer too. I noticed in all 3 cases you are recommending Vista Ultimate x64. Is that because this is all they will support? (I haven't checked yet...) And or is it just because it is what you are currently using? AND if so...what do you think of it ..the "Big V"? I had Vista HP 32x for 8 months and ABSOLUTELY HATED it...nothing but issue after issue, after issue and do I really need a thousand ways to accomplish one task? Just look at the shutdown menu compared to XP. XP has like 3 options..Vista has like 10. Not to mention everything is laid out so different and it was just excruciating to find anything.

I had so many issues with Vista but the biggest was the ill-fated and TOTALLY random NVLDDMKM.dll crash error. It would disappear for weeks and then randomly show back up and crash my system for days on end...it was just UNREAL. --and yes I had first flashed my BIOS, installed Vista chipset drivers, GPU drivers, etc and installed all O. S. updates for Vista each day (only like 200 of them) nothing ever helped...ever. In fact I went through 11 new editions of Nvidia drivers in 8 months man!!! It was just absolute insanity and I think I actually cried and lost many nights sleep over it. (I know I sure drank alot...and not water either) I can't even sell the crappy O.S. on Ebay now for less than $100 of what I paid for it!!! I literally spent the whole time I had Vista just arm-wrestling it each day and I also saw that it used like 30% of my CPU and ram just sitting idle at the desktop.!!!!! When I installed XP-pro X64 on the same exact computer I had NO issues whatsoever...NONE N-O-N-E None It is as smooth as a baby's a.. and my frame rates in the sim literally doubled if not tripled. My CPU now sits idle at like 3-5% and memory at 18% or less. N-I-C-E, I love it. (and who writes viruses for Xp 64? I feel pretty secure with it and I like its simplicity compared to Vista)

I made the analogy that Vista and Flight Sim are like two hungry dogs in the same room fighting over the same bone. One of them had to go and obviously it wasn't going to be my airplane! If you have been running on Vista x64 with no issues PLEASE indulge me as to why I should switch back to that demon. I don't want to build any high-end system just so it can support a ridiculously power hungry O.S. which could just leave me back where I was last fall. (ANGRY AS ALL HELL) I could care less about the rich color depth 3-D backdrop or cool looking graphics for file downloads or "widgets"... (really ....why????) An O.S. should stay out of the way of programs and not battle them for power dominance which is the only thing I see it doing so far. (and 13 gigs for an O.S. ...are you kidding me?) So if ANY of these new motherboards will support XP-Pro x64 then that is where I'm headed unless I could be REAAAAALLLY...REAAAALLLY...R-E-A-L-L-Y convinced otherwise. (p.s. did I mention I hate Vista?)

 

[Quiksilver]

Originally posted by: SimSamurai
I am really liking the EVGA board right now and at $225 it's even reasonable that it might go down some over the summer too. I noticed in all 3 cases you are recommending Vista Ultimate x64. Is that because this is all they will support? (I haven't checked yet...) And or is it just because it is what you are currently using? AND if so...what do you think of it ..the "Big V"? I had Vista HP 32x for 8 months and ABSOLUTELY HATED it...nothing but issue after issue, after issue and do I really need a thousand ways to accomplish one task? Just look at the shutdown menu compared to XP. XP has like 3 options..Vista has like 10. Not to mention everything is laid out so different and it was just excruciating to find anything.

I personally didn't have a hard time adjusting to vista and with my experience with it at college campus it wasn't really that bad. I mean I suppose if you needed support for older programs or had hardware that depended on something but was changed in vista (like creative sound cards...) then you might encounter issues. I think you might want to give it another try using the latest service pack and drivers, most of the issues you may have encountered have probably been fixed by now. In any case like I said the OS is entirely up to you, I have not used XP 64 bit but I have used vista 64 so it's why I choose it.

I had so many issues with Vista but the biggest was the ill-fated and TOTALLY random NVLDDMKM.dll crash error. It would disappear for weeks and then randomly show back up and crash my system for days on end...it was just UNREAL. --and yes I had first flashed my BIOS, installed Vista chipset drivers, GPU drivers, etc and installed all O. S. updates for Vista each day (only like 200 of them) nothing ever helped...ever. In fact I went through 11 new editions of Nvidia drivers in 8 months man!!! It was just absolute insanity and I think I actually cried and lost many nights sleep over it. (I know I sure drank alot...and not water either) I can't even sell the crappy O.S. on Ebay now for less than $100 of what I paid for it!!! I literally spent the whole time I had Vista just arm-wrestling it each day and I also saw that it used like 30% of my CPU and ram just sitting idle at the desktop.!!!!! When I installed XP-pro X64 on the same exact computer I had NO issues whatsoever...NONE N-O-N-E None It is as smooth as a baby's a.. and my frame rates in the sim literally doubled if not tripled. My CPU now sits idle at like 3-5% and memory at 18% or less. N-I-C-E, I love it. (and who writes viruses for Xp 64? I feel pretty secure with it and I like its simplicity compared to Vista)

Last time I checked that issue was fixed in the latest drivers, perhaps you were just uninstalled them from control panel or just installing over the top of the drivers. Usually its best to uninstall them from control panel from safe mode, then run driver sweeper (its free @ guru3d.com) over the top to clean out any remains, then install in normal boot mode. Memory management is different in vista yes, but for the better in most scenarios sames it improves game load times by caching files of your most used programs. CPU usage I suppose coudl go up if you don't disable things like UAC or that silly side bar menu but other than that I didn't see any cpu usage in my case increase.

I made the analogy that Vista and Flight Sim are like two hungry dogs in the same room fighting over the same bone. One of them had to go and obviously it wasn't going to be my airplane! If you have been running on Vista x64 with no issues PLEASE indulge me as to why I should switch back to that demon. I don't want to build any high-end system just so it can support a ridiculously power hungry O.S. which could just leave me back where I was last fall. (ANGRY AS ALL HELL) I could care less about the rich color depth 3-D backdrop or cool looking graphics for file downloads or "widgets"... (really ....why????) An O.S. should stay out of the way of programs and not battle them for power dominance which is the only thing I see it doing so far. (and 13 gigs for an O.S. ...are you kidding me?) So if ANY of these new motherboards will support XP-Pro x64 then that is where I'm headed unless I could be REAAAAALLLY...REAAAALLLY...R-E-A-L-L-Y convinced otherwise. (p.s. did I mention I hate Vista?)

As I said before I would just give it another try to see if any of your issues were solved in the latest drivers, updates, and service pack. I'm not gonna force it down someones throat when they may not like it, all I can say is give it another shot.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Hmm, forgot what post brought it up, I think almost every one of them talking about 8800 GTs but the stock reference cooler leaves something to be desired, the MSI 8800 GT comes recommended since its dual slot cooling are much quieter and move more air. Might be a problem if 3 are sandwiched together but hopefully that won't be the case, also why not consider the 8800 GTSs? At least for driving the projector's output they'd be better off than an 8800 GT. Just my 2 cents.

 

[RoboPC]

n/m

 

[Quiksilver]

Originally posted by: krnmastersgt
Hmm, forgot what post brought it up, I think almost every one of them talking about 8800 GTs but the stock reference cooler leaves something to be desired, the MSI 8800 GT comes recommended since its dual slot cooling are much quieter and move more air. Might be a problem if 3 are sandwiched together but hopefully that won't be the case, also why not consider the 8800 GTSs? At least for driving the projector's output they'd be better off than an 8800 GT. Just my 2 cents.

Cheaper after MIR.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814130357

 

[SimSamurai]

Thanks for the suggestions on video cards guys but for now I think I will just be purchasing a motherboard and CPU as I initially plan on continuing to use my 3 BFG 7900gtx 512 cards and all the other airframe surplus I still have. I don't think that the 8800's performance will be so noticeably great over what I have now so as to justify 3 new cards. I'd rather get the base up and running first and then maybe step up to newer cards next fall when they get even cheaper. (and when my 7900's are then worth pennies...right!)--And so maybe I should just sell them now on Ebay afterall and go ahead and step up to 3 new 8800's..... (staying ahead of the curve is constant maintenance isn't it!)

After doing some more research into FS-X it seems that having a high end CPU is much more important than top notch graphics cards anyway so therefore I think the motherboard I choose will be one in the 780i or 790i series based around a Q6600 with the G0 stepping or maybe the earlier suggested AMD Phenom 9850, or perhaps the Intel board with the Xeon x3350. While there does seem to be some debate on the benefits of Dual Core Vs. Quad Core for flight simulation I was able to find sufficient reviews from actual sim users with Quad Cores that all seemed to think it was much better. I assume if anything it cant hurt as it is more "future ready" and the cost difference is fairly nominal for the upgrade.

The key in all this is again finding which ones have the best configuration of 3 PCI-e slots that will run at the highest electrical capacity in NON SLI and NON Crossfire. I've already found this to be a big challenge so far as each mobo's manufacturer's specs don't give enough detail (some literally none) and I think there is alot of general speculation on different forums and review sights most particularly because everyone just references use of SLI or Crossfire. I guess I'm in no mans land here as you don't see alot of folks like me wanting 6 outputs! (in fact I plan on building a second 2 GPU system to network to PC #1 so as to run 4 more views for the left /right sides of my sim station) (and yes I'm nuts..)

I think the best motherboard performance referenced so far was one that can do 16x-16x-8x electrically ..and I need to confirm if that's PCI-e V1.0 and holds true in non SLI or Cross mode. Also PCI-e 2.0 slots obviously only make a difference if I have PCI-e V2.0 video cards and after the reviews I've read so far I've concluded that justifying the purchase for both a 2.0 mobo and V2.0 GPU cards will really not equate to enough gains in FPS to even make it a worthwhile consideration. I believe I read that the sim software can't even push it that far to matter. (a severe travesty non-the-less!) AND.... there is the talk of PCI-e V3.0 on the horizon so why even waste the money on pricey v.0 gear only to watch it too become obsolete in a year. This is why I typically look at building any new PC with parts that sit around 75% of the latest and greatest. Its like buying a "new" car that already has 20,000 miles on it. Its much cheaper and the ones with no miles depreciate as soon as you drive it off the lot..

With that building philosophy in mind I did find a few 680i motherboards with 3 applicable PCI-e slots for around $100 but based on everyones advice here so far it seems the majority opinion is to stay far away from the 680i boards altogether. (the one I was particularly looking at was the ABIT 680i IN9 32X MAX) So... I'm trusting you guys know what your doing better than I do and hence why I appreciate all the help so far! (...is it just me or do I write waaay too much ??? sorry)

 

[Quiksilver]

Originally posted by: SimSamurai
After doing some more research into FS-X it seems that having a high end CPU is much more important than top notch graphics cards anyway so therefore I think the motherboard I choose will be one in the 780i or 790i series based around a Q6600 with the G0 stepping or maybe the earlier suggested AMD Phenom 9850, or perhaps the Intel board with the Xeon x3350. While there does seem to be some debate on the benefits of Dual Core Vs. Quad Core for flight simulation I was able to find sufficient reviews from actual sim users with Quad Cores that all seemed to think it was much better. I assume if anything it cant hurt as it is more "future ready" and the cost difference is fairly nominal for the upgrade.

I would pass on the 790i chipset as it requires DDR3 which is not worth the price is costs at the moment. I would also go with the Intel Xeon X3350 due it being 45nm, having increased cache, and it being higher clocked at stock speeds(of course you could overclock them but I don't know if you would want to considering it will be in a hot environment it sounds).

 

[BeastFromTheEast]

As far as I know, only a 790i-based motherboard has what you want...3 PCI-e slots running at 16x electrical. It actually supports 2 PCI-e 2.0 slots running at 16x and a 3rd PCI-e 1.1 slot running at 16x. Only problem is...last I had heard there were some possible corruption issues with these motherboards. If not for this I would have purchased one of these boards already. You might want to wait a bit and see if they address this as it seems to be exactly what you're looking for.

 

[SimSamurai]

It seems some of us are in dis-agreement now over the 790i too. There are a few good 780i motherboards I found such as the : ASUS STRIKER II, ASUS P5NT, MSI P7N DIAMOND, XFX NFORCE 780i, and the EVGA 780i...all of which can be bought for abut 250. Any opinions on these 780 boards???

AS FAR AS CHIPSETS GO : I do think that I will stick with Intel & Nvidia as after doing some further independant benchmark comparisons its seems that Intel is still the overall winner for Quad-Cores. AMD does make some nice videos on YouTube that make their Phenom look like it is above and beyond the ability of Intel quads but you'll notice they never detail what exact hardware is used. (And why would any manufacturer make their product look worse than the competition when making a sales video...duhhh!) Therefore I looked at 4-5 independant tests and Intel was the winner in each one. I also re-checked the YouTube video with the "Flight Simulator X" on 8 monitors and while I says it is running on a series 7 AMD chip (Phenom) I saw that it was in undocked mode (which is what I use too...and actually this does eat more FPS than full-screen) and you can see the "window" borders on each screen. Laslty, I assume the 4 video cards it used was all ATI 9as the cards are red in color) but no Crossfire was implemented as I saw that there are in fact NO links connecting each video card to any other one. I do wish they had also specified the video cards and motherboard used and I sent an email to the poster of the video but no replies as of yet.

Therefore I must stick with what I know can be done, and what independent research provides i.e; INTEL & NVIDIA. If the 790i boards are having issues too though and require very pricey DDR-3 then I might as well bench this whole idea for another 6 months until prices drop enough that I don't care OR just wait another year and get the oh so delicious Intel Skulltrail D5400 XS with 2 Xeon X5472 3ghz Quad processors. Again, If I have to spend about $600 right now in a mobo & chip, plus say $200 x 3 ($600) in video cards (3 8800's) for a $1,200 total (and not including DDR-3) to only get a "decent" boost out of my sim then it seems to me the obvious smart thing to do is just live with what I've got for now which is 4 monitors running "ok" with Flight Sim 2004 on my Pentium D 3.4 and 2 7900gtx 512's.

So maybe the best choice is just bench FS-X for another year, (hell it shouldn't have been released until 2009 anyway...those bastards!!!!!!) and then when prices drop a little on the Skulltrail and 771 Xeon Quads then I should just go that route AND would be willing spend perhaps a little more still ---Hopefully the end result would be something like being able to maintain 6-8 monitors at 30+ FPS while at 1,000 ft AGL while doing snap rolls in a thunderstorm!!

I'm going to spend the next week looking at my favorite flight sim forums to see what people think are both the "optimal" machine and "dream" machine for running FS-X. If it can swallow 8 cores.... I'll see you in a year Skulltrail!

 

[Quiksilver]

Originally posted by: BeastFromTheEast
As far as I know, only a 790i-based motherboard has what you want...3 PCI-e slots running at 16x electrical. It actually supports 2 PCI-e 2.0 slots running at 16x and a 3rd PCI-e 1.1 slot running at 16x. Only problem is...last I had heard there were some possible corruption issues with these motherboards. If not for this I would have purchased one of these boards already. You might want to wait a bit and see if they address this as it seems to be exactly what you're looking for.

Nope.
780i is too

790i requires DDR3 which is expensive and worthless at this point in time too.
The only issue with 780i I've heard at this point is RAID I would believe a BIOS update would fix that though.

Edit:

I'm going to spend the next week looking at my favorite flight sim forums to see what people think are both the "optimal" machine and "dream" machine for running FS-X. If it can swallow 8 cores.... I'll see you in a year Skulltrail!

Intel will be on Socket 1366 with their new processors by the end of this year.

 

[BeastFromTheEast]

790i does require DDR3 which is pricey and that kind of sucks.

But still, this chipset is the only one I know of that supports 3 PCI-e with electrical x16 so if that is a firm requirement, this is currently your best bet. I'm hoping that any day now we'll see some news about the supposed corruption problems, because really that's the only thing holding me back from buying one of these since I also am looking for 3 PCI-e @ x16.

 

[krnmastersgt]

780i runs all 3 slots at x16 as well, though the board itself runs hotter than the 790i does, but with adequate cooling and a mod here and there, that shouldn't be a problem either. The MSI 8800 GT is cheaper by $20, so I'm not quite sure what you were looking at Quik, although EVGA does have the better warranty etc.

DDR3 is pricey but FBDIMMs aren't exactly cheap either you know, Skulltrail runs rather slow though doesn't it? It was built off of a server board and architecture, can only use FBDIMMs, and the real world benefits of running 2 quads is nowhere close to justifying the price if you ask me.

As for Sim, the benefits you'd see from going from 7900s to 8800s alone would be more than exceptional, then going from Pentium D to any quad core would also vastly improve your performance, you'd definitely be able to run FSX on a system with just 1 or 2 8800s. I still think 780i/790i + 3 8800s + Any quadcore = win.
And the ATI cards you mention, most ATI brand cards are red, the entire 3XXX series for instance, red is the AMD/ATI color, green is nVidia, not sure what Intel is yet, we shall find out with Larabee I suppose.

780i board + 3 8800 GTs + 4gb of DDR2 = ~$800, just throw in a case,psu, and afterstock cpu cooler and that's roughly $1000 for a kickass system imo.

 

[SimSamurai]

Again the key of this post is trying to find any new board that has 3 (or even 4!!) x16 slots all running at PCI-e V2.0 and or all slots running at 16x electrically but as Quicksliver pointed out in the very beginning of my post...it unfortunately just doesn't exist yet (and if it did it would most likely cost as much as the new Skulltrail board) The Skull mobo is priced at about $650 but I saw one go for $510 on Ebay yesterday. The new Intel Skulltrail D5400XS actually has 4 PCI-e x16 slots (much like my own Gigabyte Quad Royal) but they all operate at V.1.1 so I'm assuming that is 8x electrically per slot. (which again is what I'm running now..a suped up "AGP" machine) -- However it would be quite SICK to run 8 cores for FSX but I can't exactly justify $1,500 for two Xeon quad chips right now! Again, I have found no motherboard yet that has 3 x16 slots at 3 x x16 electrically. The best found so far are 780 / 790's that have x16-x16-x8 which ain't bad I guess for $250. It's obviously my only option if I want to upgrade now.

Therefore for now I think my best resolution is wait a few months and just buy a 780i board and a Q6600 chip. This way I'm spending the least amount but will get the benefit of a Quad chip which I can overclock up to say 3.5ghz I hope, and can still use my 4 gigs of DDR-2. (I believe only the 790i is DDR-3 required) So with the 780i I can continue to use my 7900gtx cards and thus my only out of pocket costs for this simple upgrade will be a motherboard and processor for under $500. For this I at least will get the added benefit of ramping up 2 of my video cards to their 16x electrical capacity (which I need to verify too if this will really happen in non SLI mode as I assume my 7900's are PCI-e V1.0) ...But I do know the quad chip will at least improve frame rates in both my sim versions.

If the V2.0 slots will not help my 7900's then I will most likely sell them soon and upgrade to the 8800's or any applicable V2.0 GPU. However I'm definitely not planning on upgrading to DX-10 and Windows Vista any time soon as I have found more recent flight sim forums with people complaining about many various issues with FS-X and Vista. Microsoft released both Vista and FS-X at the same time trying to egg people on to upgrade and I was one of the poor suckers who fell for it in March of last year. BIG-BIG-BIG MISTAKE. All those Vista VS. Mac commercials ARE NO JOKE!!! While I assume many things may have been fixed now as Vista has had a gazillion hot-fixes, updates, and SP-1, and FS-X too has had 2 service packs now which is also ridiculous because games usually have patches and not whole "service packs",..let alone 2 of them! -- So... Irregardless of some new stability claims on both ends I will stick by my original statement that Vista and FS-X are like two hungry dogs in the same room fighting over the same bone......I just can't live with them both no matter how "fixed" they are.

If I can upgrade my motherboard and processor for under $500, keep my remaining existing hardware and XP- x64 operating system, and see a noticeably large increase in framerates with FS-2004 due to the hardware upgrade, then I will be quite satisfied with that for another year at minimum. When I do build another PC then this unit would become the networked slave to run 4 additional monitors for my side views and then the new system I would build in a year or more would then become the mainframe to run FS-X and my main cockpit instrumentation. - Hopefully In a years time we will see a motherboard with dual sockets like the skulltrail but with 3 or 4 PCI-e 2.0 slots all running at 16x electrically. I'm keeping my fingers crossed! (it has to happen at some point, right?)

I assume at this time Microsoft would also be releasing FS-11, DX-11 along with a new O.S. ( and I'm hoping they name the new one "BUGLESS". ) -- I really hope they learned their lesson from the last years fiasco.

P.S. If I can find a MAC to do what I want.... I'm not ruling it out. At this point I'd pay the extra $1,000 to not deal with the headaches I had last year.

 

[SimSamurai]

Kern, thanks for the opinion.... I couldn't have said it better...I think we posted at the same time above! The PSU I already have..a honking BFG 1,000 watt ! I like my current case a Thermaltake Xaser III...nice aluminum front.. but I think I'm going to buy a tabletop/rackmount case soon. As I am building my throttle quadrant the PC tower sits in the center of my sim station up under the middle LCD monitor and whenever I work on my system I have to move my rudder pedals and then laydown on my back like a plumber working on a sink so I recently installed shelves on drawer rollers on each side (pilot & copilot) about 8" under the desk level so that a tabletop or rack mount case like the Antec take 4 could be used and will be much easier for hardware changeouts. Eventually the center area where the existing tower is now will be used for a water cooling housing --In the meantime....any recommendations for an afterstock CPU cooler for the Q6600? I will obviously need something good as I will want to overclock the Q by 1 ghz if possible.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Probably the TRUE, probably the most highly rated cpu cooler around, of course most say you won't get the best out of it without lapping it and the ihs on your chip. Head over to the cpu section if you want to see what they can recommend.

 

[SimSamurai]

My preliminary search for a TRUE cooler on Ebay yields a nice beer cooler. Perhaps a good addition to the flight galley! ......"Yes stewardess I think I will have another Guinness..." (by lapping I assume you don't mean drinking ???)

 

[BadRobot]

A quick FYI. I have not seen a benchmark yet that the move from pci-e 1.0 to 2.0 actually increases performance with current hardware.

Maybe soon we will use all that bandwidth but haven't seen anything yet indicating we hit the bandwidth ceiling of pci-e 1.0...

 

[BadRobot]

Also, If you can at all possibly wait until p45 chipset comes to the market, more mobo's that fit your requirements will be out.

EDIT! my mistake p45 chipset also has the third pci-e slot limited to 4x bandwidth.