Zbyszko

I eventually got a response and was able to ask for help... unfortunately my mobo just doesn't allow the Xeon to OC, so my performance was actually worse with it since Arma is so CPU clock dependent. Arma doesn't offload much processing to the graphics card unfortunately so you need a fast-clocked CPU. From my readings and observations it doesn't use more than 4 threads so something like a 4690k is probably your best bet unless you run a lot of stuff in the background while you play, in which case, you may want to step up the 4790k. The new six core X99 CPUs will likely perform worse since they are clocked slower. I don't claim to be an Arma expert though so get some other opinions.

I've been trying to setup an account there since last week but apparently there's no one at the helm because it still has not been activated (I did confirm email account).

Well the X5670 does work.... but just at stock frequencies so I'm actually quite a bit worse off. :( Even playing with the voltages makes it fail POST. Not sure why this particular Mobo has an issue with OCing Xeons when OCing the i920 posed no issues. Seems to be the trend with this motherboard though. :(

Interesting - I thought Arma 3 only used 4 threads but yet I see an improvement with increasing number of cores.... perhaps it's due to the difference between 1 thread per core vs 2 threads per core? I wonder what would happen to performance if I turned hyperthreading off on the 4 core i920 I'm currently using.... might have to try that. BTW, I should be receiving the Xeon x5670 tomorrow. 1. I hope it works in the motherboard I have (it should from some emails I've exchanged), 2. I hope I can overclock it to 4GHz or quicker (that I'm more worried about). Have a good weekend. ...actually when I look at it closely more cores doesn't always equal better performance. Should have looked closer at the data first.

Yes, thank you! This was also very helpful and I certainly am willing to give this a try. Although I do have a x58 board, Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P to be exact, one problem might be is that that CPU is not listed as being supported by the mobo manufacturer: http://www.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/cpu-support-popup.aspx?pid=2986 But it is listed as supporting it here: http://www.pc-specs.com/cpu/Intel/Xeon/Xeon_Processor_X5650_/2111/Compatible_Motherboards Google pointed me to an old thread which gives some support to the info on the Gigabyte site (not compatible): http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1547036&highlight=ga+ex58+ud4p ...but another thread showed that an L5639 was able to boot up with a later,F11, BIOS version. Not sure which I should believe. I'd be willing to throw a $100 at this for one of the "newer" chips (X5670) but if it's a crapshoot, then I'm not so sure.

Hmm, I have no idea about Xeon CPUs... I thought that they were clock-locked and pretty much strictly for servers. Never seen them benchmarked for gaming. I don't know what the performance hierarchy looks like. Will have to research this.... Let me know if you have any additional advice!

Guys, I'm still running a first gen i7-920, overclocked to 3.8GHz with a couple of GTX670s in SLI. Was thinking of keeping the graphics cards and SSDs and upgrading CPU/mobo/RAM to the 4790k or the new 5820k but I found this CPU comparo and it looks like I'll only gain 5 FPS for my effort and $600 to $800 dependent on what upgrade parts I buy. Are those benchmarks really accurate? If the game is CPU dependent, then I would be expecting much more than a 5 FPS improvement. Any advice?

Can you tell me how? I only see "SLI rendering mode" in the options and I've tried both alternates but neither fixes the issue.