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

[oldbear 390]

Well here is the full display for the contest 😎

From my point of view the  R7 3700X is an obvious choice

 

 

[Groove_C 267]

Well, 3800X has 3x the cache of 9700K )))

 

3900X has even higher frequency and cache, but the price is in an other league.

And PCI-E 4.0, depending on the game, can give you 3-5 FPS more than PCI-E 3.0, which is always good for Arma.

[oldbear 390]

Sorry, but I don't understand how "PCI-E 4.0 can give you 3-5 FPS more than PCI-E 3.0" in Arma.

 

SSD is not giving more FPS

Expensive G.Skill NEO 3600 C 16 is giving 3/4 FPS over Corsair LPX 3200 C16.

RTX 2060 is giving less FPS than GTX 1060 in 1080p.

 

A R7 3700X on a  B450 Mobo featuring an updated BIOS hosting 16 GB (2x8 GB) Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200 C16 will do the job.

No room for overclock, out of the box set the RAM XMP profile, set the PBO on auto shut down the hood and boot 😎

[Groove_C 267]

If he has the money for 9700K, then he has the money for 3800X.

Same as more FPS with PCI-E 3.0 vs. 2.0 or vs. PCI-E 3.0 8x.

Depends on the game and on the GPU, of course.

But why buy PCI-E 3.0 mobo if 4.0 is more featureproof.

 

So he now will buy a mobo with PCI-E 3.0 and few years later will buy a really powerful PCI-E 4.0 GPU and PCI-E 3.0 slot will limit it.

Not a good idea.

[oldbear 390]

We are missing the full picture, we know nothing about the monitor and the GPU our friend is using ... so 🙄

[Groove_C 267]

Yes, but even if now he has an old GPU or it's not old, but only PCI-E 3.0, it doesn't mean, that in 1-2-3 years he won't upgrade it.

This is where PCI-E 4.0 will come in play.

 

It's same as if you were buying a mainboard with PCI-E 2.0, when there are boards with PCI-E 3.0 available.

People were saying, that one doesn't need such bandwidth and there is no noticeable FPS difference, when they had mainboards with PCI-E 1.0 and boards with PCI-E 2.0 came out. Same talks when PCI-E 3.0 boards came out vs. 2.0.

[Boomerang Trotter 1]

Sorry for not mentioning. GPU is GTX 1070. Monitor is 1440p 60Hz and that won't be changing any time soon.

 

Is the 3800X really on par with 9700K in ARMA? I'll be honest, although I know it's only anecdotal experience but I would prefer Intel. I had nothing but problems with my other Ryzen 1600 build. It probably doesn't mean much but I don't mind paying a bit more for Intel. If it's really the better option I will consider AMD. 

 

I think either one would be good enough as far as performance goes. It's just that if I'm upgrading I want something that is noticeably better than 2500K. But it seems you have to pay a huge premium for small increases in performance. For instance, 3600 MHz CL16 costs almost twice as much as 3200 Mhz CL16 RAM does over here which is think is pretty crazy. For the same reason I'm wondering if going with a more expensive mobo and overclocking is even worth it. To be honest I would prefer something I could set once and forget rather than tinker with it.

[Groove_C 267]

@Boomerang Trotter, 3800X is really a very very good CPU. And you will notice a difference, in Arma. Not only FPS-wise, but the game will feel/be more fluent. Not because of increased FPS itself, but rather because of more stable FPS vs. Intel, where FPS might be same, but not as stable/constant.

Ryzen 1600 had more threads, but it was first AMD's attempt, which wasn't the best.

It had not that much cache, its frequency was low, RAM frequency that it could accept was also max 3000 MHz or in some cases even less.

+ Windows 10 had troubles, to understand which cores of the CPU are best quality to clock them higher than the rest and give them the highest load.

Also was problematic for Win 10 to understand which processes to assign to which threads.

 

Now it's all solved.

3800X frequency is pretty high, out of the box, RAM frequency accepted goes even beyond 4000 MHz, a lot of cache, not as hot as Intel and thus no need for AiO water cooler and very high quality mainboard.

 

And!

You don't need to bother with overclock.

AMD CPUs have very intelligent management. Based on CPU temperature, load and cores quality, the CPU clocks itself to highest possible frequency, for each individual core, since not all cores are of same quality.

 

Intel can't do this. On Intel, you have to look yourself for highest frequency possible, which will be the one, that the lowest quality core can handle and it will be the same for the rest of cores.

 

3200 MHz CL16 is fine, I would say.

 

be quiet! Pure Rock air cooler would be enough.

Thermalright HR-02 Macho Rev. B for slightly more, but temps are lower and it's also quieter.

Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite is all you need.

[Groove_C 267]

@Boomerang Trotter, @ 1440p your GTX 1070 is also a bottleneck, @ ultra settings.

But not nearly as much as your 2nd gen Intel CPU and DDR3 RAM.

 

The framerate @ 1440p is more than acceptable with a GTX 1070, but could be higher.

10-15 FPS difference is a lot, in Arma.

R7 3800X will improve the performance considerably, not only in Arma and not only in games.

 

A RTX 2060 Super can deliver virtually same FPS @ 1440p as RTX 2080 Ti, in Arma.

It's not in the list below, but its performance is higher than RTX 2060 and it has 8 GB vRAM 256 bit (448 GB/s) vs. 6 GB vRAM 192 bit (336 GB/s) of RTX 2060.

A RTX 2060 Super has same bandwidth and vRAM amount as RTX 2080 and only 128 Cuda cores less than RTX 2070.

 

But I wouldn't buy any GPU now.

In 2020 there will be new GPUs from nVidia, that will heat less, cost same or less for more performance.

[oldbear 390]

Here and now, from my point of view an i7-9700K is a good pick in order to play Arma3 along with 16 GB 3200 C16 DDR4 in 1440p using a GTX 1070, no such thing as a bottleneck here.

You will get a stable and efficient rig, probably not the most evolutive build, not the most flexible but a solution without surprises.

[Groove_C 267]

Yes, here and now, a i7-9700K is very good, especially in ArmA.

[Boomerang Trotter 1]

@Groove_C Thank you. I know the GPU could be better for this resolution but I don't mind lowering details a bit, I just don't play enough games or game enough to warrant a more expensive GPU as well.

 

I took a look at the prices over here and I'm surprised the 3800x would actually cost me more. To sum everything up, the 3800x would be a better buy because it is more "future proof" (more threads, PCI-E 4.0) while Intel would be a bit faster for games right now?

 

One disadvantage with Intel is that it is harder to upgrade down the road as the platform constantly changes but I'm not sure how much this bothers me considering by the time the 9700K would be too slow for me I would very likely be changing the mobo and memory as well.

 

I already own a Thermalright HR-02 Macho so I guess I wouldn't have to buy a new cooler for now if I was to go the Intel route.

 

@oldbear Do you think spending 50% more on a Gigabyte Aorus Elite is worth it over just buying the Z390 UD version and not do any overclocking?

[Groove_C 267]

@Boomerang Trotter if you don't simply choose the ultra preset in video settings, but make adjustments to it, you won't see any visual difference when moving/running, driving or flying.

Ultra settings are FPS-hungry, but to see the minimal difference (vs. very high), you have to make screenshots and search for differences and know where to look for.

 

It doesn't make any sense to buy R7 3800X for same or higher price than i7-9700K.

If you go this route, it's to later directly upgrade to new CPU, RAM and mainboard.

 

If only 3200 MHz CL16 RAM instead of 3600 MHz CL16, Intel delivers more performance with slower RAM as it's stock frequency all cores under load is 4.6 GHz.

 

Thermalright Macho HR-02 should be enough if you use the CPU stock.

 

I wouldn't recommend Gigabyte Z390 UD at all - to avoid!

Gigabyte Z390 Elite is what you should buy.

It has better onboard audio, better and cooler power delivery elements for the CPU, has a cooler for M.2 NVME SSD, has USB 3.1 ports.

 

Arma also prefers more real cores vs. just threads.

1 thread is like ~25% of 1 real core.

So 4 threads is like 1 real core.

[Boomerang Trotter 1]

I usually never consider low end boards but the Z390 UD supposedly has good VRMs. What would the reason to go with the Elite model? The UD has worse audio but I'm not going to use it nor do I need any of the additional features. Purely from the performance POV, in what way is the Elite better? For reference, it costs $90 more over here.

[Groove_C 267]

Its VRMs are lower quality than on Elite + VRMs cooling is also not great at all (very basic). So VRMs can get pretty warm and thus CPU's frequency will/can be lowered, even before CPU itself reaches 100°C, which it won't.

Also it's good to know that such VRMs can allow to overclock the CPU later, when it will start to be a bottleneck, to like 5.0 or 5.1 GHz, with another cooler.

[Groove_C 267]

My mainboard is also gradually/progressively dying.

I hope it will last me until Intel 10th gen or Ryzen 4xxx.

Otherwise it will also be an i7-9700K.

 

On Intel CPUs one can also manually overclock each core separately, since like I said before, they're not all of same quality.

So some cores can handle 100-200 MHz than others. It will look odd for sure, but it's a good approach, despite it being more time consuming than traditional OC with same frequency for all cores.

[Boomerang Trotter 1]

OK thank you, I will go with the Elite then if I choose the 9700K. 

 

My PC freezes at least once a day. I kind of accepted it as I knew the timing wasn't ideal for upgrade but recently it has started not booting up. Completely unacceptable as I use this PC for work also. Stability is more important than performance on this machine which is why I'm leaning towards Intel. Does that hold any water in reality I'm not sure but it sort of gives me a peace of mind.

[SearchAndRescue 0]

So I got a question I used to have a PC 2 or so years ago Specs were i7 4790k with a gtx 970. Ended up selling it but I now am currently trying to decide between buying a i5 9400f or the Ryzen 3600. I am buying a gtx 1660ti graphics card for the build just trying to decide on the CPU. Any opinions are helpful just tryin to get back into the game at decent settings.

[Groove_C 267]

@adamsean01 what's the resolution of the monitor?

100% R5 3600, since it has higher frequency all cores than i5-9400F and more threads and cache.

[SearchAndRescue 0]

13 minutes ago, Groove_C said:

@adamsean01 what's the resolution of the monitor?

100% R5 3600, since it has higher frequency all cores than i5-9400F and more threads and cache.

Just lookin for 1080p also have the i5-9400k in the mix bc it’s just $50 more and boosts to 4.6 ghz

[Groove_C 267]

@SearchAndRescue no, it's not correct at all. It has stock frequency of 2.9 GHz, max boost frequency of 4.1, but it's not for all cores. All cores frequency is 3.7 GHz only.

R5 3600 has stock frequency of 3.6 GHz, max boost frequency of 4.2, but it's not all cores. All cores frequency should be around 4.0 GHz or slightly more.

4.6 GHz boost is for i5-9600K and again, it's not for all cores.

 

One can probably OC the i5-9400F to have all cores boost of 4.1 GHz, but depends on motherboard + AMD at same frequency will be faster, because more cache and also has double the threads.

Intel can only marginally overtake AMD only by it having much higher frequency than AMD.

[Tankbuster 1747]

Other CPUs are available and very nice.  Just because one knowledgeable user here seems to be keen on AMD parts and say they outperform a given Intel part, it doesn't mean Intel won't be best in some instances.

 

Likewise, watercooling is widely used, yet Groove will tell you it kills kittens. Your kitten mortality may vary.

 

[Groove_C 267]

@Tankbuster you better attentively read what I write, before you comment.

After latest Windows and BIOS updates to patch most of 77 security holes (not even all), Intel CPUs lost up to 10% performance because of this, when the perf difference vs. AMD was already sub 10%, despite much higher frequency on Intel CPUs.

+ AMD has released several BIOS updates to further increase CPUs' frequency + all the Windows updates, which favor a lot AMD CPUs.

So the difference at the moment is only marginal/measurable, but no real difference. And this is at much higher frequency.

Intel CPUs at same or lower frequency than current gen AMD CPUs, perform worse.

It's a fact.

I myself have 2 Intel CPUs, but I'm not a blind fanboy.

I buy what is best at a given moment, regardless of brand and regardless of (long term) personal experience with a certain brand.

[Tankbuster 1747]

Other people hold other views, you seem intolerant of that and them.

Just because you say something is a fact, it doesn't make it so. A brief browse (I'm not currently in the market for a new CPU) of the tech news websites doesn't turn up anything that is recognisably the same fact you state here. You appear to be claiming, by proxy, that AMD CPUs have no security problems and that seems unlikely.

Note that shouty youtube 'personalities' waving their arms about doesn't count as 'fact'.

[Groove_C 267]

I see you constantly liking positive comments only about Intel CPUs, which is pure non-sense.

You know, sometimes manufacturers change the lead. It happens. Nothing dramatic.

It's actually beneficial to consumers to have competition between manufacturers, for better price, performance and progress.