Which CPU to buy Intel i5 4430 or AMD FX8350?

[smashwings 10]

I had the problems many had in multiplayer (http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?163442-How-to-avoid-GPU-underclock-in-multiplayer) , I may have a bottleneck with the CPU (E8400 clocked between 4.00 4.66), I know that a cpu change may not make MP playable because others have MP unplayable with new chips.

I have read sinthetic benchmarks, including arma 3 ones posted here http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2306250 but I'm only interested in the best MP performance.

I can't go over i5 4430 in money terms (will have to buy Ram and Motherboard, big investment for uncertain results), and the equivalent in money is AMD FX8350, AMD has best specs in paper , but in MP Arma3 what do you think would be better?

GPU: Asus 660Ti DCII OC 2 Gb

[jurrasstoil 10]

If you are upgrading for A3 exclusively: take the 4570. The 4430 is terrible value compared to the 4570.

Here is why: Both have a Turbo mode. But the 4430 only overclocks a single core from 3.0ghz to 3.2ghz. If there is load on all cores, it stays at stock 3.0ghz. The 4570 overclocks all cores from 3.2ghz to 3.4ghz or one core to 3.6ghz. Price difference should only be like 10 bucks.

The 8350 (the 8320, which you can overclock yourself, is way better value by the way) is a good CPU, but it needs multicore support to shine. Arma has terrible multicore support, so what counts is good singlecore performance. The 4570 beats the 8350 by about 50% in that aspect.

[ric 1]

If you are upgrading for A3 exclusively: take the 4570. The 4430 is terrible value compared to the 4570.

Here is why: Both have a Turbo mode. But the 4430 only overclocks a single core from 3.0ghz to 3.2ghz. If there is load on all cores, it stays at stock 3.0ghz. The 4570 overclocks all cores from 3.2ghz to 3.4ghz or one core to 3.6ghz. Price difference should only be like 10 bucks.

The 8350 (the 8320, which you can overclock yourself, is way better value by the way) is a good CPU, but it needs multicore support to shine. Arma has terrible multicore support, so what counts is good singlecore performance. The 4570 beats the 8350 by about 50% in that aspect.

^^this

[Kris470 11]

Probably also worth a mention that upgrading your CPU may help at the local end in terms of just running the game... But a lot of the other actual performance issues in multiplayer seem to come from server side.

Im running an i7 980x, with a gtx 590. The game usually runs fine with all settings maxed out, but some servers feel like im playing a slide show @ about 7-10fps. Becasue this is server side, i can drop the graphics down to the minimum and not notice any change in performance.

If you find you still have performance issues with a new CPU, the best test you can do is run the game singleplayer and guage off the performance then.

If it runs perfectly fine in SP, its probably the servers your joining...

[swiftn7 1]

It is common knowledge that Arma is in desperate need of single core performance, therefore AMD CPU is no option at this very moment.

I am also upgrading my rig from

Phenom II X4 945

Radeon HD6870

8GB RAM

to

Core i5-4670K (+new Mobo of course)

GeForce GTX 670

12GB RAM

That's a 600€ upgrade, but since I am running my current machine for 3 years already, it's time to invest :)

@Kris470: total agree. Most of the MP servers just suck! So on a bad server not even a GTX690 would give us better framerates. The netcode needs improvement, and also the servers need to be configured correctly.

[smashwings 10]

If you are upgrading for A3 exclusively: take the 4570. The 4430 is terrible value compared to the 4570.

Here is why: Both have a Turbo mode. But the 4430 only overclocks a single core from 3.0ghz to 3.2ghz. If there is load on all cores, it stays at stock 3.0ghz. The 4570 overclocks all cores from 3.2ghz to 3.4ghz or one core to 3.6ghz. Price difference should only be like 10 bucks.

The 8350 (the 8320, which you can overclock yourself, is way better value by the way) is a good CPU, but it needs multicore support to shine. Arma has terrible multicore support, so what counts is good singlecore performance. The 4570 beats the 8350 by about 50% in that aspect.

Thanks for the answer, the cheapest i5 was over my initial budget also, but thought than an i3 would not be enough, so it looks like I will have to get my budget a little bit bigger

It is common knowledge that Arma is in desperate need of single core performance, therefore AMD CPU is no option at this very moment.

I am also upgrading my rig from

Phenom II X4 945

Radeon HD6870

8GB RAM

to

Core i5-4670K (+new Mobo of course)

GeForce GTX 670

12GB RAM

That's a 600€ upgrade, but since I am running my current machine for 3 years already, it's time to invest :)

@Kris470: total agree. Most of the MP servers just suck! So on a bad server not even a GTX690 would give us better framerates. The netcode needs improvement, and also the servers need to be configured correctly.

Except for ARMA3 I was playing all games without problems, so I update "only" because ARMA3, I like to play in domination servers and I think that I'm not going to get satisfactory results no matter the rig, that's why I'm not very confident upgrading.

If you find you still have performance issues with a new CPU, the best test you can do is run the game singleplayer and guage off the performance then.

If it runs perfectly fine in SP, its probably the servers your joining...

In SP it runs quite well as showed in my other post, but in MP there's the idea that the AI and similar are bottlenecking my CPU, I've tried a lot of servers and the differences are minimal.