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

[warlord554 2065]

1 hour ago, GuthixAwesome said:

Do you think a Corsair Hydro Series H100i V2 240mm would work?

I use this one and it has worked perfectly (highest oc I've done so far is 4.5ghz on my 8 core)

[Gunter Severloh 3948]

2 hours ago, GuthixAwesome said:

Thanks, so say if I were to join a gaming community that uses a lot of mods I should have no problem?

Thats depends on the mods, the mission being played and server, overall you should be alright.

No good computer that is built/bought or ideal is still susceptible to the issues that everyone else deals with such as lag, game performance, crashes, ect,. as suggested it comes

down to what you are playing.

On another note, you can and will expect more performance because your computer isn't struggling to run the game itself, the stresses and cause of conflicts in this game is mod conflicts,

unoptimized servers/scripts, and buggy missions, you should be able to get around most, just dont get it in your head that your computer is immune to stupid shit,

it will just handle it alot better then the average player.

 

To give you an idea for what i play which is rather light compared to most gungho ton of mods, and crazy missions like altis life or the sort, most missions i play whether i host them myself, or on my own server

(i dont do public servers, prefer to rent my own) but most i ever dealt with was mod conflicts with things not working, so nothing related to my computer, other things was lag, lag i got was from walking

into an area in an unoptimized or congested map Tanoa for example, my FPS went from 90 to like 34 in certain spots, thats not to say that its my computer its saying the map in those parts are well...

farked if that says anything, and there was nothing on the map in terms of units, or vehicles, objects etc,.

 

In another example, recently was hosting a mission, and i had a 2 sec freeze in a couple of areas, fps dropped a little ramped back up, so from that its mission based, yes it effects the computer,

but it just tells you if the same mission had a different setup in terms of code then it might be possible that i would have never ran into those issues,

none the less thats jut minor stuff, 98% of the time its 80-210fps almost all the time.

 

On another note for cooling, for a high end spec computer, its is very crucial you keep your rig cool as possible, this will mean imo space, and lots of it in between parts

so that they have room to breathe, and allow any heat they are producing to be easily ventilated, blown out, ect,.

1. Space/room = ventilation

 

2. Fans - big fans and alot of fans is a must, if you can do water cooling do it, but for fans, have fans blowing in, and fans sucking out.

      CPu fan use an Offmarket cpu fan, not the regular everone else uses small fan, cpu cooling is a must especially for your cpu, see my vid linked below.

 

3. Full Tower - this goes with part 1 a full tower allows the space for all parts to breathe, when shits congested and packed in together, each part is eating another parts heat plus dealing with their own.

T o give you an idea what i've done for my own case, which tbh i find a tad congested but still works is good fans especially an off market cpu fan:

my current build thanks to OldBear and others and my close bud, but look at the fans i have an the cpu fan i use as example

 

4. Regular maintenance - I learned from a close friend whom is a computertech, does nothing but build, repair, upgrades computers, taught me a regular schedule of maintaining your computer this includes the following

    - dusting - yes dusting, open the case and remove the dust off parts, dust acts like an insulator and will trap heat in if theres to much of it, 1-2 times a month should be sufficient to keep your rig running smooth.

    - performance - this deals with using programs, and not using programs that hog your performance, so run programs such as system mechanic, CCleaner, to keep things smooth and optimized, be on the lookout

for programs that hog resources while you game, something like norton antivirus is a real resource hogger.

Good way to check is to go to taskmanager while ingame watch your fps, and then look at the programs you have running and look at the performance cpu/ram demand for each, shut them down

(not system required ones tho so pay attention).

 

Hope that helps. :)

[HaseDesTodes 62]

9 hours ago, GuthixAwesome said:

Back to the original topic, do all of my specs look fine?
 

Motherboard: MSI Z370-A PRO
CPU:  I7-8700K 3.70 GHZ

GPU: GTX 1080 8GB

16 GB [8 GB x2] DDR4-3200 Memory Module - GSKILL Ripjaws
PSU: 750 Watts Platinum
HD: 500GB SSD and 1TB.
Monitor: Sceptre E248W-19206C LED
Fans: 3x 120mm case fans

 

 

CPU, GPU, PSU, HDD, SSD are all good.

 

RAM: i guess if you get your PC built you can't specify if more than that, so it will have to do.

there are some variants of that memory i saw, that are not listed on the QVL, so it's not ensured to be fully compatible. nevertheless it should cause no troubles, as the builders should be smart enough to only use compatible parts in order to minimize compatibility issues = work for the customer support.

If you had the choice you should (at least) go for 3600MHz modules. The price differences i found for modules listed on the QVL was like 10-15€.

(there was  even a discussion about RAM impact on the top of this/the last page:

https://forums.bohemia.net/forums/topic/187603-will-my-pc-run-arma3-what-cpugpu-to-get-what-settings-what-system-specifications/?page=140

 

 

Cooling: 3 case fans are good. more interesting would be your CPU cooling.

anyhow you might want to get some dust filters for all sucking fans (if not included). they should ensure that not to much dust gets into you case.

you will still have to clean it from time to time as Gunter has mentioned already. especially the filters will need regular maintenance. otherwise the airflow can get significantly reduced.

 

 

Monitor:

I don't think a 100$ monitor would be a good long term investment. But since you already mentioned, that you want it only as a temporary solution, i'd say it might do the job.

you should still expect pale colors, an unfirm case and generally a bad quality.

[Groove_C 267]

I wouldn't recommend you to buy this very cheap MSI Z370APRO board.

MSI and GIGABYTE are far behind ASUS and ASRock at least for Z370 boards in things like quantity, quality and temperature of parts, delivering current to the CPU.

Also BIOS options available for overclock and memory QVL list + max supported frequency are not that great on MSI. Buying a board for 100 € to pair it with 400 € CPU and 500 € GPU and fast RAM is not the best choise.

I woul suggest you to buy at least an ASUS PRIME Z370-A board with more CPU power delivery parts to evenly spread the load among them and lower the temperature of those. Especially when watercooling, these parts are not ventilated and heat even more.

And you also get a BIOS with a lot of features to overclock + final voltage and temps on this board will be lower as well.

[Tankbuster 1733]

Eh? Are you sure you got that right? Asus and Gigabyte are what I'd call the better manufacturers. MSI and Asrock are the cheap ones to avoid. And no,  Asrock and Asus haven't been the same thing for 16 years.

[GuthixAwesome 5]

5 hours ago, HaseDesTodes said:

 

RAM: i guess if you get your PC built you can't specify if more than that, so it will have to do.

there are some variants of that memory i saw, that are not listed on the QVL, so it's not ensured to be fully compatible. nevertheless it should cause no troubles, as the builders should be smart enough to only use compatible parts in order to minimize compatibility issues = work for the customer support.

If you had the choice you should (at least) go for 3600MHz modules. The price differences i found for modules listed on the QVL was like 10-15€.

(there was  even a discussion about RAM impact on the top of this/the last page:

https://forums.bohemia.net/forums/topic/187603-will-my-pc-run-arma3-what-cpugpu-to-get-what-settings-what-system-specifications/?page=140

For now, I tend to keep at 16GB and upgrade in the future.
CPU Cooling is the Corsair Hydro Series H100i V2 240mm.

[GuthixAwesome 5]

5 hours ago, Groove_C said:

I wouldn't recommend you to buy this very cheap MSI Z370APRO board.

MSI and GIGABYTE are far behind ASUS and ASRock at least for Z370 boards in things like quantity, quality and temperature of parts, delivering current to the CPU.

Also BIOS options available for overclock and memory QVL list + max supported frequency are not that great on MSI. Buying a board for 100 € to pair it with 400 € CPU and 500 € GPU and fast RAM is not the best choise.

I woul suggest you to buy at least an ASUS PRIME Z370-A board with more CPU power delivery parts to evenly spread the load among them and lower the temperature of those. Especially when watercooling, these parts are not ventilated and heat even more.

And you also get a BIOS with a lot of features to overclock + final voltage and temps on this board will be lower as well.

 

1 hour ago, Tankbuster said:

Eh? Are you sure you got that right? Asus and Gigabyte are what I'd call the better manufacturers. MSI and Asrock are the cheap ones to avoid. And no,  Asrock and Asus haven't been the same thing for 16 years.

ASUS TUF Z370-PRO GAMING Does this seem better for now?

[Tankbuster 1733]

Usually, I'd avoid anything with 'gaming' or 'rgb' in the title because the addition of these adds 10% to the price for no real gain :), but yes that's a good, if expensive, choice.  

 

The Asus prime Z370 P will be plenty good enough and rather cheaper.

[GuthixAwesome 5]

Just now, Tankbuster said:

Usually, I'd avoid anything with 'gaming' or 'rgb' in the title because the addition of these adds 10% to the price for no real gain :), but yes that's a good, if expensive, choice.

Hmm, I didn't select it for the Gaming, lol, but what about the ASROCK Z370 EXTREME4, GIGABYTE Z370XP SLI or MSI Z370 SLI PLUS, just going to name some Motherboards and you tell me which ones I should get over another.

[Tankbuster 1733]

I edited my above post while you were posting. :) 

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0764H6HC8/?tag=pcp0f-21

 

 

[GuthixAwesome 5]

1 minute ago, Tankbuster said:

I edited my above post while you were posting. :) 

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0764H6HC8/?tag=pcp0f-21

 

 

20-51$ Cheaper, thank you my good fellow.

[GuthixAwesome 5]

@Tankbuster For the fans would you recommend I upgrade them to a Raidmax NV-R120B 120mm or a Azza Hurricane 120mm? Or keep them as they are.

[Groove_C 267]

As I already said, MSI and GIGABYTE are to avoid for this generation of mainboards.

ASUS PRIME Z370-A it is!

ASUS TUF Z370-PRO GAMING costs more, has less power phases  = heats more (current flows through less phases - more load on each power phase and more voltage needed for desired CPU frequency).

ASUS PRIME Z370-P is really basic of the basic - wouldn't recommend at all.

ASRock Z370 Extreme4 has less board features and less BIOS OC features than ASUS PRIME Z370-A and costs a little bit more.

MSI Z370 SLI PLUS power phases are more inferior in quality (more heat and more voltage for desired CPU frequency), less board options/features and less BIOS OC features.

GIGABYTE Z370XP has less power phases than any of these boards and a shitty BIOS.

[GuthixAwesome 5]

I know you said that, however Tankbuster stated that Gigabyte is his preference, who do I believe, the contradictions.
For now, I think I'll stay with the ASUS PRIME Z370-P, and then upgrade it further down the line.

[Tankbuster 1733]

8 minutes ago, GuthixAwesome said:

@Tankbuster For the fans would you recommend I upgrade them to a Raidmax NV-R120B 120mm or a Azza Hurricane 120mm? Or keep them as they are.

Can't really express an opinion there. I'd rarely change case fans unless the supplied ones are known to be terrible.

[Groove_C 267]

GIGABYTE boards were good back when there were Z170 boards.

ASUS PRIME Z370-P is really not for OC with just a few power phases just enougth to run the CPU at it's default frequency.

[Tankbuster 1733]

5 minutes ago, GuthixAwesome said:

I know you said that, however Tankbuster stated that Gigabyte is his preference, who do I believe, the contradictions.
For now, I think I'll stay with the ASUS PRIME Z370-P, and then upgrade it further down the line.

A very quick look, and possibly entirely misleading I accept, seems to show the top 10 motherboards selling on Amazon UK have 3 Asus, 2 Gigabyte and a single MSI motherboard in their top ten. Groove_C does say that he's talking specifically about this particular generation, so figures for the 370 chipset may well be different.

[Groove_C 267]

What is selling better is really not an indicator of quality or knowledge of average users that pay more attention to the look and all the bling bling of the boards rather than measuring the different heat sources and their temps, most stressed parts of the board, their consumption or voltage required to run a specific CPU frequency.

[Groove_C 267]

McDonald's income is way higher than the one of a good restaurant, so what? McDonald's is better?

[Groove_C 267]

And ASRock shouldn't be associated anymore with rather cheap and bad quality boards.

At least starting with Z97 boards and newer.

 

The highest CPU frequencies @ lowest voltages @ lower temps are acheaved with ASUS and ASRock boards and nobody can deny it.

[Groove_C 267]

Show me at least one GIGABYTE or MSI board (if you see one).

[GuthixAwesome 5]

2 minutes ago, Groove_C said:

Show me at least one GIGABYTE or MSI board (if you see one).

Found one, under 5100 MHZ. 10th one down.

[Groove_C 267]

So as you can see it is only 1 and not capable of high frequency @ low voltage and high RAM frequency.

 

I hope you understand in general what I wanted to say.

It's not what an average user buys that can be taken as indicator of quality but what more experienced users buy and believe me - they have their reasons to do so.

[Groove_C 267]

The problem is that Z370 GIGABYTE boards' power phases heat more than 100-110*C and then CPU throttles it's frequency and they also heat nearby parts as well.

 

Maybe Z390 boards will be better.

[GuthixAwesome 5]

1 minute ago, Groove_C said:

So as you can see it is only 1 and not capable of high frequency @ low voltage and high RAM frequency.

I'm not good at all with Motherboards, I was just doing as you asked.  Anyhow, what about fans? Should default 3x 120mm fans be good enough? Speed for the default is 1000 +/- 200 rpm. Azza Hurricane is 800-1800 rpm.