Upgrade from i7 860 to i5 6600k

[vasudan 11]

I recently upgraded from an i7 860@3.4Ghz to an i5 6600K@4.5Ghz. My video card is a single GTX 780 and I obviously had to but new DDR4 memory. I did a lot of research trying to find out if this was a worthwhile upgrade for general gaming but in all honesty, I really just wanted to improve ARMA3.

 

I didn’t have much luck, there was very little regarding ARMA3 comparisons for these 2 processors with similar overclocks. Trying to decide if I was CPU bottlenecked in a game notorious for poor GPU optimization that seems to bottleneck all CPU’s was nigh on impossible, so decided to do it anyway. I’m posting this here in the hope of helping others in similar positions.

 

What information I could find l lead me to believe that no CPU can handle ARMA3 and I might get a 10fps improvement. I can happily say I’ve near doubled my FPS in both single and multiplayer. A typical SP mission averaged 50-60 and would drop to around 40 in heavier action. It now breaks 100 with ease and can hold averages of 70-80 when the action heats up.

 

However, it’s the multiplayer that was my main concern. I was playing a lot of KOTH and previously getting 20-30 at best. I’m now getting 40-50 in town (80+ at spawn) and still averages 30-40 on a full server in Kavala. Frames are much more stable as well, less highs and lows and more solid averages. I don’t play wasteland but used to get about 20fps, can only assume that would improve quite a bit. The new Exile mod runs fantastic as well.

 

This is with very generous video settings trying to get as much load on the GPU as I can. View distances in the 3-4k range, high-ultra options with high AA/AF. Please note the GPU still maxes out at around 60-70% usage with the CPU maxing out a single core, a common complaint I’ve seen around the forums, I saw no change with this upgrade.

 

So, if your into ARMA3 and your running something from the 1156 socket days, skylake comes highly recommended.

 

Vas.

[blackpixxel 53]

Thank you for the info!

 

Now it would be interresting to know, if the CPU was the only reason for the performance improvement, or also the new DDR4 RAM. The best test would be to compare a 4790k to a 6700, which have nearly the same performance. But I guess nobody in the world would upgrade from a fourth-gen to a sixth-gen Intel with such a small performance gain.

[someuser 10]

upgrading from a Lynnfield to a Skylake is a decent upgrade. with arma 3 being a relatively cpu intensive game it does not surprise me to see such an improvement in frames... I honestly doubt it has much to do with the memory as, frankly, in all the benchmarks I looked at, memory is usually not a huge FPS booster.

 

however, I really really really doubt its going to be anywhere near that dramatic going from a Haswell to Skylake.

 

 

just my two cents... if anyone does upgrade from a Haswell to Skylake I would love to know what improvement there is (assuming the gpu stays the same).

[domokun 515]

This recent benchmark from a reputable site:

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/940-15/cpu-jeux-3d-crysis-3-arma-iii.html

seems to suggest that Skylake is a mild disappointment as it barely offers a 10% increase in performance over previous generation.

In fact, the surprise appears to be it's ugly step-sister, the i5-5675C, which seems to offer slightly better performance (+10%) than the i5-6600K, despite using DDR3.

Moreover, it runs cooler with TDP of 65W versus 91W of its more glamorous cousin.

The only black spot so far seems to be the price, where i5-5675C appears to 10% more expensive ($275) than the i5-6600K ($245) but this is compensated by the fact that the 5675C's motherboards (LGA 1150) are much cheaper (Asus Z97-A @ $140) than 6600K's motherboards (Asus Z170-A @ $160).

So the main fly the in the ointment seems to be the 5675C's lack of DDR4 support and even that doesn't look bad at all, i.e. although DDR4 offers higher speeds, this doesn't translate into significant gains and its slightly more expensive ($100 v $90 for 2x8GB of 2133).

So what do think?

[St. Jimmy 272]

This recent benchmark from a reputable site:

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/940-15/cpu-jeux-3d-crysis-3-arma-iii.html

seems to suggest that Skylake is a mild disappointment as it barely offers a 10% increase in performance over previous generation.

In fact, the surprise appears to be it's ugly step-sister, the i5-5675C, which seems to offer slightly better performance (+10%) than the i5-6600K, despite using DDR3.

Moreover, it runs cooler with TDP of 65W versus 91W of its more glamorous cousin.

The only black spot so far seems to be the price, where i5-5675C appears to 10% more expensive ($275) than the i5-6600K ($245) but this is compensated by the fact that the 5675C's motherboards (LGA 1150) are much cheaper (Asus Z97-A @ $140) than 6600K's motherboards (Asus Z170-A @ $160).

So the main fly the in the ointment seems to be the 5675C's lack of DDR4 support and even that doesn't look bad at all, i.e. although DDR4 offers higher speeds, this doesn't translate into significant gains and its slightly more expensive ($100 v $90 for 2x8GB of 2133).

So what do think?

Broadwell can only take DDR3L which means low voltage memory (1.35v but I'm not 100% sure could you give more volts because Sandy is rated 1.5v but it can be run 1.65v). So Skylake can run faster memory but Broadwell still runs Arma 3 bit faster or at the same fps which is impressive when you also watch the power consumption. Intel can have something nice in their sleeves in the future when you watch those things. The DDR3L is also likely the reason why Skylake gets about the same performance as Broadwell when both are overclocked because faster memory helps in the overclock performance. So Skylake scales better up.

[I give up 152]

I recently upgraded from an i7 860@3.4Ghz to an i5 6600K@4.5Ghz. My video card is a single GTX 780 and I obviously had to but new DDR4 memory. I did a lot of research trying to find out if this was a worthwhile upgrade for general gaming but in all honesty, I really just wanted to improve ARMA3.

 

I didn’t have much luck, there was very little regarding ARMA3 comparisons for these 2 processors with similar overclocks. Trying to decide if I was CPU bottlenecked in a game notorious for poor GPU optimization that seems to bottleneck all CPU’s was nigh on impossible, so decided to do it anyway. I’m posting this here in the hope of helping others in similar positions.

 

What information I could find l lead me to believe that no CPU can handle ARMA3 and I might get a 10fps improvement. I can happily say I’ve near doubled my FPS in both single and multiplayer. A typical SP mission averaged 50-60 and would drop to around 40 in heavier action. It now breaks 100 with ease and can hold averages of 70-80 when the action heats up.

 

However, it’s the multiplayer that was my main concern. I was playing a lot of KOTH and previously getting 20-30 at best. I’m now getting 40-50 in town (80+ at spawn) and still averages 30-40 on a full server in Kavala. Frames are much more stable as well, less highs and lows and more solid averages. I don’t play wasteland but used to get about 20fps, can only assume that would improve quite a bit. The new Exile mod runs fantastic as well.

 

This is with very generous video settings trying to get as much load on the GPU as I can. View distances in the 3-4k range, high-ultra options with high AA/AF. Please note the GPU still maxes out at around 60-70% usage with the CPU maxing out a single core, a common complaint I’ve seen around the forums, I saw no change with this upgrade.

 

So, if your into ARMA3 and your running something from the 1156 socket days, skylake comes highly recommended.

 

Vas.

Can you please provide the frequency of your DDR4?

About KOTH, Wasteland or Life, do not worry about, its not your computer. These gameplay mods are a lagfest by default and most of them are running in servers with poor hardware (in matters of cpu and ram), having several stances running in the same hardware.

[jumpinghubert 48]

The only sad thing on the newer cpu´s are the lower overclocking abilities. Would be interesting whats the thermal paste between core and heatspreader. Is it possible to delete the heatspreader of the broadwell or skylake? My watercooled ivybridge wasn´t able to reach the 4.5GHZ with heatspreader. Without i am able to reach 4.9GHZ.

[I give up 152]

Broadwell can only take DDR3L which means low voltage memory (1.35v but I'm not 100% sure could you give more volts because Sandy is rated 1.5v but it can be run 1.65v). So Skylake can run faster memory but Broadwell still runs Arma 3 bit faster or at the same fps which is impressive when you also watch the power consumption. Intel can have something nice in their sleeves in the future when you watch those things. The DDR3L is also likely the reason why Skylake gets about the same performance as Broadwell when both are overclocked because faster memory helps in the overclock performance. So Skylake scales better up.

Not only Broadwell but also with Sandy or Haswell, there was no support for DDR4 until Skylake.

And not only that, also the first chipset to have support for DDR4 is the Z170.

Looking at Skylake+DDR4+Z170 architecture and looking how ARMA 3 operates in matters of hardware is perfectly normal to see a noticeable performance increase

Also about servers, soon they start to change for this new hardware we will see also a performance increase in matters of multiplayer.

I said some some ago in this forum that the ARMA 3 was too much advanced for the technology available, now the technology in matters of hardware is starting to provide what ARMA 3 needs.

[St. Jimmy 272]

The only sad thing on the newer cpu´s are the lower overclocking abilities. Would be interesting whats the thermal paste between core and heatspreader. Is it possible to delete the heatspreader of the broadwell or skylake? My watercooled ivybridge wasn´t able to reach the 4.5GHZ with heatspreader. Without i am able to reach 4.9GHZ.

Nice new info for me. I just read about that with Skylake http://www.techspot.com/news/61697-tiny-die-underneath-intel-skylake-cpu-heat-spreader.html and 20C improvement is possible.

[M. BlackBeard 26]

Convincing. #Ordered

[sodien 15]

vasudan,

 

Are these averages with Steam overlay off and the Arma 3 process running on high priority? (and ofc shadows on high or more.)

 

 

ps. nice FS nick