Will-my-pc-run-Arma3? What cpu/gpu to get? What settings? What system specifications?

[Sneakson 1]

Hi i am currently working on a build so i can play this game. Will this be good enough to get good fps out of it?

ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

AMD Athlon II X4 640 Propus 3.0GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor ADX640WFGMBOX

PowerColor AX7750 1GBK3-H Radeon HD 7750 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card

8GB RAM

im just going to put my windows 7 Home Premium OS on it i guess

Don’t know much about AMD but it should run standard settings with a couple of kilometers view distance I guess. It will run and it will look nice but it won’t look great and the view distance will probably be pretty short. Should be okay really but it will be more like playing a 2010-2011 game than a 2013 game (ARMA3 doesn’t quite live up to a 2013 game on max settings in my opinion).

If you haven’t bought any of those components yet I would save a bit more until the game is actually out to get something a bit better and when the game could be better optimized (or not) depending on what sort of game experience you want really. It will be a lot nicer to look at for ARMA2 though that’s for sure! ARMA2 looks like a 2004 game hah…

Don't count on High settings.

@ Billz4money - BTW: You know Battlefield 4's game engine will be 64 bit only and can use more than 4 cores. It can use 6 cores or more. So again, you really need to do some research and see if others are able to build a solid 24/7 system - cpu, mb, ram and gpu setup that will run ARMA 3 and Battlefield 4 at 60 FPS before you even buy it.

I bet you will need to upgrade the cpu and mb even if you buy the best now.

For ARMA, it is all about the highest possible clock speeds. For Battlefield, it is about more cpu cores. To have both, the cpu alone can cost as much as your budget.

For a gpu, I usually recommend the 2nd best video gpu from Nvidia or AMD. I never recommend any less to anyone despite their budget because they will come back and say the game performs terrible due to having an inadequate system, especially when most gamers will keep their systems for at least 2-3 years. Why put up with a bad gaming experience because you tried to save 100 USD? Just work harder or another week or give blood or whatever and get something that is a little more than you need now so it can keep up with future games.

Nice charts! No 700-series cards though. And that's on VH settings which is a lot more than I would run using for example the 560.

By the way will Battlefield 4 require a 64-bit OS and components really? I strongly doubt that… if that’s what you’re saying. They would block out many, many gamers and all they would accomplish is Microsoft selling a ton of 64-bit licenses. I’m still on 32-bit and don’t get the fuzz over 64-bit when all that improves is multi-tasking for most gamers.

Also the system I recommended to him should be nice enough except 8GB RAM could be better and a GTX770 would be worth the extra $150 if he can go over the budget by some amount but it's only 20% faster at 50% more cost.

I see the Alpha requires 64-bit by the way... so nasty.

Anyways I absolutely don't agree a new CPU or motherboard will need upgrading in the near future but definitely agree on spending an extra $150 on a GTX770 instead of GTX760.

Most games are only 2-3-core… some are 4-core nowadays (Battlefield) I guess but it should be a while until 6-core is standard. Also doesn’t hyper threading offset the need for more cores somewhat?

Edited July 14, 2013 by Sneakson

[Valken 622]

By the way will Battlefield 4 require a 64-bit OS and components really? I strongly doubt that… if that’s what you’re saying. They would block out many, many gamers and all they would accomplish is Microsoft selling a ton of 64-bit licenses. I’m still on 32-bit and don’t get the fuzz over 64-bit when all that improves is multi-tasking for most gamers.

Check the link below from Dice, makers of the Frostbite Engine and the Battlefield series:

http://www.techspot.com/news/48676-dice-says-some-upcoming-frostbite-2-games-will-require-64-bit-os.html

Also 64 bit OS brings a lot of advantages - the main one being able to allow programs to natively address more than 4 GB of ram for itself. That in itself brings more fidelity - more sounds, higher textures, bigger worlds and lets you access gpus with more video ram.

Windows 32 bit caps off at 4 GB total... total for the application and OS! that is holding back building bigger game worlds with more fidelity, not raw cpu, gpu or sound processing power.

Anyways I absolutely don't agree a new CPU or motherboard will need upgrading in the near future but definitely agree on spending an extra $150 on a GTX770 instead of GTX760.

Most games are only 2-3-core… some are 4-core nowadays (Battlefield) I guess but it should be a while until 6-core is standard. Also doesn’t hyper threading offset the need for more cores somewhat?

Check the graphs again for raw cpu power and how it affects ARMA 3 -

High Quality - the top cpu has a minimum of 37 FPS up to 52 FPS, WITH an Nvidia 690 (680 SLI setup)

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2306250

Ultra Quality - the top cpu has a minimum of 20 FPS up to 36 FPS, WITH an Nvidia 690 (680 SLI setup)

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2306250

Lastly, Battlefield 3 right now supports up to 8 threads with 3 main threads taking up 80-90% cpu time on 3 cores, with the rest spread out among the remaining cores.

Intel 2, 4 and 8 core comparison for BF3:

http://gamegpu.ru/images/stories/Test_GPU/Action/Battlefield%203%20End%20Game/test/bf3%20EG%20INTEL.jpg

AMD 2, 4 and 8 core companrison for BF3:

http://gamegpu.ru/images/stories/Test_GPU/Action/Battlefield%203%20End%20Game/test/bf3%20EG%20AMD.jpg

The full BF3 GPU and CPU article.

http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/battlefield-3-ehd-game-test-gpu.html

Back to Billz4money, if you want 60 FPS at MAX - ultra quality for ARMA 3 AND BF4, you will need at least a Quad core cpu at ~ 4.9-5.0+ GHZ AND a video card faster than an AMD 6990 CFX or Nvidia 690 SLI type card.

I recommend you wait to find out if Haswell or the upcoming Ivy Bridge E (late 2013 refresh) or even the newer Haswell E (mid - 2014) cpus can hit ~ 5+ GHZ and then buy the fastest video card you can afford then. The only single GPU card that I know that keeps up with either AMD 6990 or Nvidia 690 is the Nvidia Titan and that card is almost your entire budget. The Nvidia 780 is fast, but not faster than a single AMD 6990 or Nvidia 690. But you can have two 780 in SLI or two AMD 7970 CFX for even better performance. Thats nearly 800-900 USD just for video cards.

Last graph: AMD 6990 and Nvidia 690 in BF3 at 1920x1080 at MAX settings. Note the cpu they used again is a 4.9 GHZ Ivy Bridge, not Haswell. So far those Haswell has been hit 4.5 GHZ but not much... should wait until the next generation to have better OC headroom.

http://gamegpu.ru/images/stories/Test_GPU/Action/Battlefield%203%20End%20Game/test/bf3%20EG%20UQ%201920.jpg

[Sneakson 1]

Back to Billz4money, if you want 60 FPS at MAX - ultra quality for ARMA 3 AND BF4, you will need at least a Quad core cpu at ~ 4.9-5.0+ GHZ AND a video card faster than an AMD 6990 CFX or Nvidia 690 SLI type card.

I recommend you wait to find out if Haswell or the upcoming Ivy Bridge E (late 2013 refresh) or even the newer Haswell E (mid - 2014) cpus can hit ~ 5+ GHZ and then buy the fastest video card you can afford then. The only single GPU card that I know that keeps up with either AMD 6990 or Nvidia 690 is the Nvidia Titan and that card is almost your entire budget. The Nvidia 780 is fast, but not faster than a single AMD 6990 or Nvidia 690. But you can have two 780 in SLI or two AMD 7970 CFX for even better performance. Thats nearly 800-900 USD just for video cards.

Last graph: AMD 6990 and Nvidia 690 in BF3 at 1920x1080 at MAX settings. Note the cpu they used again is a 4.9 GHZ Ivy Bridge, not Haswell. So far those Haswell has been hit 4.5 GHZ but not much... should wait until the next generation to have better OC headroom.

http://gamegpu.ru/images/stories/Test_GPU/Action/Battlefield%203%20End%20Game/test/bf3%20EG%20UQ%201920.jpg

Seems Battlefield does utilize many cores well, impressive. It's still one of the few games though.

By the way the Intel core chart does show significant improvement with 4 cores over 2, or 5 or 6 over 4... how 3 is worse than 2 and 5 better than 6 though? And why is hyperthreading all at 0? Any idea?

Regarding 5 GHz processors and Titans or 770s etc in SLI that goes a long way over a Titan I think that's very much out of budget here anyways.

I’m thinking of going up to about 4.2 GHz and one 770 now and another 770 when their prices drop nicely so by then I guess I’ll come close… then again I don’t really wanna run them on absolute max settings in 60 fps. High or Very High and screentrearing-free 50 is always nice enough for me.

[Miggel 10]

CPU:AMD phenom ii x6 1055

GPU:2gb gtx 650ti

RAM:16gb

Is this enough to run medium settings at or above 30fps?

With my current setup I get 25-30fps at the lowest settings...when I'm looking at the ground

CPU:same as above

GPU:GT220 1gb

RAM:6gb

[Ezcoo 47]

CPU:AMD phenom ii x6 1055

GPU:2gb gtx 650ti

RAM:16gb

Is this enough to run medium settings at or above 30fps?

With my current setup I get 25-30fps at the lowest settings...when I'm looking at the ground

CPU:same as above

GPU:GT220 1gb

RAM:6gb

8 GB RAM is more than enough for normal gaming PC, I have 16 GB and I believe I have never exceeded 8 GB in other than extreme use that regular gamer would never do. If you can, you could try to upgrade to eg. LGA1155 motherboard with i5-2500k or i5-3570k or LGA1150 motherboard with i5-4670k. Arma is really CPU-dependent game, and unfortunately Intel is superiour especially in Arma, where single core performance is much, much more important than the number of cores.

If you're on budget, I'd look for secondhand LGA1155 + i5-2500k or i5-3570k combination, 8 GB RAM and GTX 760, price/performance ratio would be very good with those. Replace the GTX 760 for example with secondhand GTX 650 Ti if you can't afford GTX 760 (I highly recommend GTX 760 though, it has great price/performance ratio even though it's very new model). If you want to squeeze every drop of performance out of your CPU and get noticeably better FPS, make sure that the motherboard can handle overclocked CPU, get aftermarket cooler and OC the CPU to about 4,2-5 GHz – it's not that hard if you follow the step-by-step tutorials found in the internet.

Edited July 16, 2013 by Ezcoo

[Sneakson 1]

CPU:AMD phenom ii x6 1055

GPU:2gb gtx 650ti

RAM:16gb

Is this enough to run medium settings at or above 30fps?

With my current setup I get 25-30fps at the lowest settings...when I'm looking at the ground

CPU:same as above

GPU:GT220 1gb

RAM:6gb

I would surely say so.

Your graphics card is 10% weaker than mine. However CPU is what matters in ARMA and yours is a nice chunk better than mine not to mention you can probably overclock up to about 4 GHz which I have never done because heat is already an issue in my setup. Out of the box you should do better than my settings and with overclocking a lot better if you’re willing. So you’re definitely going to be able to play standard settings with a short visibility on high fps or a somewhat better visibility on much lower fps. It’s not an ideal build but if it’s really cheap it’s worth it.

My framerate dips to 30 on maps with lots of ai which is worth noticing and currently multiplayer is a lot worse than singleplayer and all so overall you’re looking at playing the game at standard-high settings probably around 30-60 fps but as I said it’s not ideal.

However 16GB RAM is too much for gaming… 8 is enough. I sure hope you’re using 64-bit Windows and at least a 1920x1080 monitor because that’s much more important.

Edit: I agree with everything Ezcoo said.

[blaskowitz 10]

Greetings,

New and excited ARMA player here.

Inspired by dslyecxi to become serious and skilled player, currently getting the feel for the controls in ARMA 2/3.

Computer needs upgrade. A store suggested I get the following upgrades:

-I5 Processor ($285.00 CAD)

-Z87X-D3H Motherboard ($180.00 CAD)

-8GB DDR3 1600mhz ($95.00 CAD)

-Labour ($100.00 CAD)

Current specs:

-GTX 560

-AMD Phenom II x4 840T Processor 2.90 GHz

-6.00 GB

-64 Bit

-1 terrabyte hardrive.

Is this a fair shake or is the guy ripping me off?

[Miggel 10]

Thanks for the replys.

30fps at standard to high settings, I've never seen past 1000m anyway so it sounds good to me.

I'm upgrading two computers and I have a $900 budget, I know intel CPUs are better but Intel is so damn expensive so i cant do that but i might be able to do the over clocking depending on how much the extra cooling costs, I've never over clocked anything on my computer but before I do ill look up my motherboard and make sure it can do it. Any advice on what cooling I'd need?

I did look at the GTX760 but it blows my budget so its out of the question for me.

I have 64bit windows7

[Leon86 13]

Thanks for the replys.

Any advice on what cooling I'd need?

I'd get a decent ~ $30 aircooler with 120mm fan like the gelid tranquillo Rev2, scythe mugen 3 or cooler master hyper 212 evo. those get you the best bang/buck and powerful enough for any sensible overclock.

[Ezcoo 47]

I'm upgrading two computers and I have a $900 budget, I know intel CPUs are better but Intel is so damn expensive so i cant do that but i might be able to do the over clocking depending on how much the extra cooling costs, I've never over clocked anything on my computer but before I do ill look up my motherboard and make sure it can do it. Any advice on what cooling I'd need?

I did look at the GTX760 but it blows my budget so its out of the question for me.

I'd look for secondhand motherboards + Intel quadcore CPUs, like those that I mentioned above. If other parts are not bottlenecking, people often at least double their FPS by changing from AMD to Intel CPU. If you get secondhand GPUs as well, I'm absolutely sure that you can get those with that budget. Leon86 listed nice coolers, also HR-02 Macho is great (I have it myself) and it's really, really cheap but it's huge, so if you get it, make sure that it fits your case :p

Greetings,

New and excited ARMA player here.

Inspired by dslyecxi to become serious and skilled player, currently getting the feel for the controls in ARMA 2/3.

Computer needs upgrade. A store suggested I get the following upgrades:

-I5 Processor ($285.00 CAD)

-Z87X-D3H Motherboard ($180.00 CAD)

-8GB DDR3 1600mhz ($95.00 CAD)

-Labour ($100.00 CAD)

Current specs:

-GTX 560

-AMD Phenom II x4 840T Processor 2.90 GHz

-6.00 GB

-64 Bit

-1 terrabyte hardrive.

Is this a fair shake or is the guy ripping me off?

The suggestions of store are actually pretty good. Make sure that the CPU is i5-4670k if you're not doing much stuff that would benefit from HT (Hyper-Threading), like video editing or rendering. HT costs about $100 or a little more but games can't really use it. That CPU can also be overclocked pretty well, it runs quite hot though but with proper cooling (see suggestions above) you can get pretty nice clocks though. With those specs your build is screaming for SSD though – hard drives are nowadays the real bottleneck of PC performance – if you want cost-effective disk, I'd get Kingston V300 120 GB, but if you want top quality and speed, get Samsung 840 Pro (not Samsung 840). 64 GB is too small for both OS and games, 120-128 GB is cost-effective choice, while 256 GB model might be the best choice for demanding user. If you get SSD, install Windows, programs and most important games (like Arma 3!) on it, but keep the media (like movies, photos, music) on the "normal" hard drive HDD.

I'd recommend everyone getting new PC or parts to get SSD, the speed increase is something amazing. I got my first one almost a year ago and I still enjoy it that the PC is ready to use only seconds after pushing the power button of the case... :)

[maatz 1]

Had to switch it up , the store that had the Y510p ran out , So after 2 days of being pissed off I found this one :

http://www.komplett.se/k/ki.aspx?sku=781359#extra

MSI GE70 17.3" Full HD

--------------------------------------------

Intel Core i7 4:e gen. 4700MQ

4 cores

8 GB RAM

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M - 2 GB GDDR5 SDRAM

Windows 8

Seems better then the one I picked befor and only 100 euros more , I can pop in more RAM if needed easy . GFX card is better too . And after finaly figuring out how to messure computere screeens Im happy with 17,3" hah .

Let me know how the Y510p works Maatz , and thanks for all the help

Hi Khabbi,

finally had a chance to try out the Beta on the Y510p (GT750 SLI and 16GB Ram) and it looked really good to me. You have to know I come back to pc gaming from like 6 pr 7 years of gaming on consoles, so everything looks good to me :D I may have to play with the settings a little but my framerate didn't drop below 30fps, which I am totally Ok with.

My settings so far:

1920x1080 (16:9)

Sampling: 100%

Texture and Objects: High

Terrain: High

Shadow: Low

Particles: Standard

Clouds: Disabled (I'm not into flying, so...)

Pip: Disabled (else consumes a lot of frames, e.g. when driving)

HDR: Low

Dynamic Lights: Low

Visibility: Overall: 1600, Obejct: 1300, Shadow: 100 (never touched those yet tbh)

Radial Blur, Rotation Blur, Depth of Field, SSAO and Caustics: Off

Antialising, AToC: Disabled

Anisotropic Filtering: Very High

I will have to play around a little in the coming weeks. Somehow only one of my two GT750M is used till now. The other one is not doing anything :D Is there already SLI support for the beta?

[Miggel 10]

I'd look for secondhand motherboards + Intel quadcore CPUs, like those that I mentioned above. If other parts are not bottlenecking, people often at least double their FPS by changing from AMD to Intel CPU. If you get secondhand GPUs as well, I'm absolutely sure that you can get those with that budget. Leon86 listed nice coolers, also HR-02 Macho is great (I have it myself) and it's really, really cheap but it's huge, so if you get it, make sure that it fits your case :p

I'd recommend everyone getting new PC or parts to get SSD

The secondhand market sucks in my area but ill give eBay a try, I only have $150 worth of wiggle room on my budget left so if I do go intel it won't be fancy.

Thanks Leon86 and Ezcoo for the cooler suggestions most of them fit my budget all that's left to do is research on them, my brother offered to get water cooling for me i cant remember the name of it but he said he puts it together and installs the kit himself, it sounds a bit sketchy to me but he said he'd buy a new processor if it screws up still deciding weather to take him up on it or not.

A kingston 120gb SSD was originally on my list but ARMA3 came out and my graphics card almost caught fire and my monitor blew out so I had to drop the SSD in favour of a new GPU and monitor.

[BlackTiger416 10]

Hi gang, this is my first post, but I'm a "old head" gamer.

I'm looking to make some modest upgrades to my once mid-range gaming rig, starting with my video card. I currently have the Geforce GTS 240 with 1gb GDDR3 ram. I've played the ARMA series since it was initially the Operation Flashpoint. Right now I'm playing ARMA 3 beta on low settings with ~ 20-25 FPS. My goal is to increase this to high settings at about 45-60 FPS. I want to spend ~$100- $150 for the video card.

Any suggestions?

Dell XPS 630i

Core 2 Quad 9400 2.66GHZ~2.7GHZ

6gb Ram

DirectX 11

Geforce GTS 240 GDDR3

750 Power Supply

[killerwhale 1]

need more $$$ for modern good video card. at least $350

[byku 13]

Unfortunately you might get boost in sp, but in mp, you will need to upgrade you cpu also.

[euly 0]

Take a look at this EVGA 650TI from TigerDirect. It's at the top of your budget (actually a little over at $159). The card should get the job done and it's EVGA, so you'll have a life-time warranty.

You do need to upgrade your processor, though. This video card will somewhat alleviate your system's sluggish performance, but then the CPU will be the bottleneck, which means you'll need a new motherboard, which will need new memory, possibly a new PSU. Replacing those properly, you'll want to reformat the hard drive.

[BlackTiger416 10]

Hi gang, this is my first post, but I'm a "old head" gamer.

I'm looking to make some modest upgrades to my once mid-range gaming rig, starting with my video card. I currently have the Geforce GTS 240 with 1gb GDDR3 ram. I've played the ARMA series since it was initially the Operation Flashpoint. Right now I'm playing ARMA 3 beta on low settings with ~ 20-25 FPS. My goal is to increase this to high settings at about 45-60 FPS. I want to spend ~$100- $150 for the video card.

Any suggestions?

I appreciate the suggestions. I'm willing to settle for mid range settings @30-45 fps. I notice on pricewatch.com the PowerColor AMD Radeon HD 7850 1 GB GDDR5 has dropped below $150. With my current specs, will this give me the desired results?

Upgrade my Video Card

Dell XPS 630i

Intel Core 2 Quad 9400 2.66GHZ~2.7GHZ

6gb Ram

DirectX 11

Geforce GTS 240 GDDR3

750w Power Supply

Edited July 19, 2013 by Maio

[Sneakson 1]

So many new posts... banzai!

In no particular order: (Sort of sloppy answers but I'm a bit tired anyways)

The secondhand market sucks in my area but ill give eBay a try, I only have $150 worth of wiggle room on my budget left so if I do go intel it won't be fancy.

Thanks Leon86 and Ezcoo for the cooler suggestions most of them fit my budget all that's left to do is research on them, my brother offered to get water cooling for me i cant remember the name of it but he said he puts it together and installs the kit himself, it sounds a bit sketchy to me but he said he'd buy a new processor if it screws up still deciding weather to take him up on it or not.

A kingston 120gb SSD was originally on my list but ARMA3 came out and my graphics card almost caught fire and my monitor blew out so I had to drop the SSD in favour of a new GPU and monitor.

Ebay is really nice usually. Stay safe though and test the item once it arrives.

Hi Khabbi,

finally had a chance to try out the Beta on the Y510p (GT750 SLI and 16GB Ram) and it looked really good to me. You have to know I come back to pc gaming from like 6 pr 7 years of gaming on consoles, so everything looks good to me :D I may have to play with the settings a little but my framerate didn't drop below 30fps, which I am totally Ok with.

My settings so far:

1920x1080 (16:9)

Sampling: 100%

Texture and Objects: High

Terrain: High

Shadow: Low

Particles: Standard

Clouds: Disabled (I'm not into flying, so...)

Pip: Disabled (else consumes a lot of frames, e.g. when driving)

HDR: Low

Dynamic Lights: Low

Visibility: Overall: 1600, Obejct: 1300, Shadow: 100 (never touched those yet tbh)

Radial Blur, Rotation Blur, Depth of Field, SSAO and Caustics: Off

Antialising, AToC: Disabled

Anisotropic Filtering: Very High

I will have to play around a little in the coming weeks. Somehow only one of my two GT750M is used till now. The other one is not doing anything :D Is there already SLI support for the beta?

Check out my settings for tweaking tips.

Textures: Very High doesn't cost much at all.

Objetcs and Terrain: High or higher draws a lot of juice.

Shadow: Change to HIGH immediately. For many users LOW cuts more framerate than HIGH does because of how the load is balanced between cpu and gpu.

HDR: Change to high. Otherwise the sky will be completely white and the colours will be all messed up.

1600/1300 visibility is good. Don't change Shadow. In my testing lowering it did not increase framerate and increasing it did lower framerate.

I would recommend all blur and depth of field on because they didn't impact performance for me and decrease temporal aliasing and even spatial aliasing to some degree.

SSAO should be off. Never found out what Caustics does though but I think it only works underwater.

Anisotropic filtering should be Ultra but it really doesn't matter... all that matters is on/off both for appearance and performance. It's a strange setting really.

I'd look for secondhand motherboards + Intel quadcore CPUs, like those that I mentioned above. If other parts are not bottlenecking, people often at least double their FPS by changing from AMD to Intel CPU. If you get secondhand GPUs as well, I'm absolutely sure that you can get those with that budget. Leon86 listed nice coolers, also HR-02 Macho is great (I have it myself) and it's really, really cheap but it's huge, so if you get it, make sure that it fits your case :p

The suggestions of store are actually pretty good. Make sure that the CPU is i5-4670k if you're not doing much stuff that would benefit from HT (Hyper-Threading), like video editing or rendering. HT costs about $100 or a little more but games can't really use it. That CPU can also be overclocked pretty well, it runs quite hot though but with proper cooling (see suggestions above) you can get pretty nice clocks though. With those specs your build is screaming for SSD though – hard drives are nowadays the real bottleneck of PC performance – if you want cost-effective disk, I'd get Kingston V300 120 GB, but if you want top quality and speed, get Samsung 840 Pro (not Samsung 840). 64 GB is too small for both OS and games, 120-128 GB is cost-effective choice, while 256 GB model might be the best choice for demanding user. If you get SSD, install Windows, programs and most important games (like Arma 3!) on it, but keep the media (like movies, photos, music) on the "normal" hard drive HDD.

I'd recommend everyone getting new PC or parts to get SSD, the speed increase is something amazing. I got my first one almost a year ago and I still enjoy it that the PC is ready to use only seconds after pushing the power button of the case... :)

Hold it! Why the Samsung 840 Pro and not Samsung 840? I would argue strongly against that. The 840 non-pro is a LOT cheaper and has equal reading speed which is what matters.

840 Pro has faster writing speed which doesn't matter as much and also "lasts longer" but we're still talking incredible lifelengths for both. The "Pro" version is for servers, not casual consumers.

Greetings,

New and excited ARMA player here.

Inspired by dslyecxi to become serious and skilled player, currently getting the feel for the controls in ARMA 2/3.

Computer needs upgrade. A store suggested I get the following upgrades:

-I5 Processor ($285.00 CAD)

-Z87X-D3H Motherboard ($180.00 CAD)

-8GB DDR3 1600mhz ($95.00 CAD)

-Labour ($100.00 CAD)

Current specs:

-GTX 560

-AMD Phenom II x4 840T Processor 2.90 GHz

-6.00 GB

-64 Bit

-1 terrabyte hardrive.

Is this a fair shake or is the guy ripping me off?

Which i5 is it?

The motherboard and RAM look good though.

Hi gang, this is my first post, but I'm a "old head" gamer.

I'm looking to make some modest upgrades to my once mid-range gaming rig, starting with my video card. I currently have the Geforce GTS 240 with 1gb GDDR3 ram. I've played the ARMA series since it was initially the Operation Flashpoint. Right now I'm playing ARMA 3 beta on low settings with ~ 20-25 FPS. My goal is to increase this to high settings at about 45-60 FPS. I want to spend ~$100- $150 for the video card.

Any suggestions?

I appreciate the suggestions. I'm willing to settle for mid range settings @30-45 fps. I notice on pricewatch.com the PowerColor AMD Radeon HD 7850 1 GB GDDR5 has dropped below $150. With my current specs, will this give me the desired results?

Upgrade my Video Card

Dell XPS 630i

Intel Core 2 Quad 9400 2.66GHZ~2.7GHZ

6gb Ram

DirectX 11

Geforce GTS 240 GDDR3

750w Power Supply

That card at that price does not look bad at all and with that processor I would guess you should have mid range settings 30-60 fps with the processor being the limiting factor. A little something like my settings I would guess though the graphics card on a very quick lookup seemed to be a chunk better than mine but then again ARMA runs on cpu and not graphics cards pretty much.

[Ezcoo 47]

Hold it! Why the Samsung 840 Pro and not Samsung 840? I would argue strongly against that. The 840 non-pro is a LOT cheaper and has equal reading speed which is what matters.

840 Pro has faster writing speed which doesn't matter as much and also "lasts longer" but we're still talking incredible lifelengths for both. The "Pro" version is for servers, not casual consumers.

My point was that Samsung 840 is overpriced. Kingston V300 offers at least the same quality with much cheaper price. 840 Pro is the high-end model that is simply the best (more durable, faster etc.), but it costs more. So I'd select Kingston V300 if I was on budget and Samsung 840 Pro if I wanted top quality with higher price. I don't see any reason why Pro version would be for servers only – it's just a SSD among others, it just happens to be the best but also more expensive.

Edit: Btw, it's the 4K write and read speed that matters. Windows and games need mostly 4K. I've tested it in practice, a SSD with higher 4K speeds but slower top speeds was faster in general than with SSD with lower 4K speeds but higher top speeds. Kingston V300 has relatively high 4K speeds – I installed one in PC of my neighbour, and the damn €500 machine booted, shut down and was in general much faster than my high-end gaming rig with Samsung 830 :p

Edited July 19, 2013 by Ezcoo

[Sneakson 1]

My point was that Samsung 840 is overpriced. Kingston V300 offers at least the same quality with much cheaper price. 840 Pro is the high-end model that is simply the best (more durable, faster etc.), but it costs more. So I'd select Kingston V300 if I was on budget and Samsung 840 Pro if I wanted top quality with higher price. I don't see any reason why Pro version would be for servers only – it's just a SSD among others, it just happens to be the best but also more expensive.

Edit: Btw, it's the 4K write and read speed that matters. Windows and games need mostly 4K. I've tested it in practice, a SSD with higher 4K speeds but slower top speeds was faster in general than with SSD with lower 4K speeds but higher top speeds. Kingston V300 has relatively high 4K speeds – I installed one in PC of my neighbour, and the damn €500 machine booted, shut down and was in general much faster than my high-end gaming rig with Samsung 830 :p

Oh okay. Well if 840 is arguably overpriced it makes sense to recommend 840 Pro which is even more overpriced? :p

Anyways I've only tried one Intel SSD and getting my second which benchmarks twice as high in a couple of weeks and I've been told I probably won't notice any difference other than switching my mobo from SATA2 to SATA3.

Samsung 840 120GB has a lower “average data rate†whatever that translates to in reality and I guess the 840 Pro 128GB is only slightly more expensive but the 840 250GB and 840 Pro 256GB differ nearly $100 in price where I live and do have nearly the same average data rate. I was told there’s no big practical difference and that the only thing that differs is the write speed and not the reading speed at least in the case of the 250GB vs Pro 256GB and there’s the TLC vs MLC thing which only extends the life of the discs that are going to last way longer than this technology will be desirable anyways.

Maybe you’re right but $100 isn’t an insignificant amount and you may as well spend it on a better chassis, more memory, a better mouse, another terabyte of HDD or maybe even save it for a better graphics card which I think will be a lot more bang for your buck than somewhat higher SSD write speed.

The Pro model will be more worth it if you're doing a lot of writing in other words installing and uninstalling a lot of programs and lasts longer but when either disk dies you're going to want a new one anyways because they will be stone age.

Edit: Actually according to SSDer.se you'll get most for your money if you buy 840 Pro 128GB but if you want 250GB you're better off buying the non-Pro. But best of all disks is naturally Pro 256GB.

Edited July 20, 2013 by Sneakson

[chrisb 196]

Hi gang, this is my first post, but I'm a "old head" gamer.

I'm looking to make some modest upgrades to my once mid-range gaming rig, starting with my video card. I currently have the Geforce GTS 240 with 1gb GDDR3 ram. I've played the ARMA series since it was initially the Operation Flashpoint. Right now I'm playing ARMA 3 beta on low settings with ~ 20-25 FPS. My goal is to increase this to high settings at about 45-60 FPS. I want to spend ~$100- $150 for the video card.

Any suggestions?

I appreciate the suggestions. I'm willing to settle for mid range settings @30-45 fps. I notice on pricewatch.com the PowerColor AMD Radeon HD 7850 1 GB GDDR5 has dropped below $150. With my current specs, will this give me the desired results?

Upgrade my Video Card

Dell XPS 630i

Intel Core 2 Quad 9400 2.66GHZ~2.7GHZ

6gb Ram

DirectX 11

Geforce GTS 240 GDDR3

750w Power Supply

I run it on a 5850 2gb at very high/max settings. I would try for a min 2gb card, mine is using 1400mb at the moment average for A3, so a 2gb might be worth aiming at.

Not sure regards your cpu, however the AI are silly at the moment and they tend to need lots of cpu to give tactics and whatnot, because they’re silly, they are not straining the cpu much. If they manage ever to get them thinking, the AI that is, then all cpu’s could be put under a lot more strain. Still doesn’t look like that is going to happen any time soon.

FPS & Settings: (Editor)

Town

Airfield

Country

AA x 4 now and SMAA on Ultra.

No PP, PIP, VD @ 1000-1500, V'sync off.

Other settings in pics.

[Sneakson 1]

Bah! I should start reading the news daily.

Samsung 840 Evo, new SSD in beginning of August and a MSI GTX 770 Gaming apparently available now which is a lot cheaper ($100) than the 770 I'm planning on buying in a week so I'm definitely going to have to look into this.

Edit: apparently the Gaming is just the Lightning little brother.

Not much annonced about the SSD but it will be available up to 1 terabyte and apparently be quicker than previous versions at least in some regards so we'll see soon I guess.

Oh and since this is a tech-related thread: Nvidia drivers now support ARMA SLI apparently.

Edited July 20, 2013 by Sneakson

[Berke 10]

Hi.Ä°m Buying myself a new pc. And i want to know that can i play arma 3 at ultra settings?.Here's the system on my mind;

ASUS GTX660 Ti DirectCU II GDDR5 2GB 192Bit Nvidia GeForce DX11 Graphic Card

GIGABYTE Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 Soket 1155 DDR3 2400MHz SATA 3.0 USB 3.0 DVI&HDMI Motherboard

Intel Core i5 3570K 3.4 GHz 6MB 1155p HD4000 VGA

CORSAIR 8GB Vengeance LowProfile DDR3 1600MHz CL10 Siyah SoÄŸutuculu Ram

Thanks for the help...

[kazenokizu 10]

ok so i have been having horrible fps issues with my system and i have a amd fx 8120 and a 7970. and im getting horrible fps with no matter what start up options i use or settings i change in game. as i can can run on low to ultra and see almost no difference in the fps. and i was going to see if any body could help out with this before i switch from being a amd guy over to a i7 4th gen k cpu and new motherboard

[Juicy87 1]

I'm not good at tweaking ArmA, but if you eventually switch over: an I5-4670K does the trick. I just bought it and it runs really really well on a mix of high/ultra settings.

Be sure to pick the right motherboard, with a good one you can clock that I5 over to 4.5 ghz ( I haven't even done that yet)