ArmA 3 System Requirements

[Old Bear]

SSD is as safe as all rest of the paraphernalia you get in the box. Since I use SSDs, more than 1 year ago, I have killed 1 Maxtor 100GB, 1 P7P55D-E Pro, 1 Seasonic SS-750 KM and 1 XMS3 2Go Corsair in various incidents ... and my small 80 GB Intel SSD is still working, I had to reload 7 four times, I use Intel SSD Toolbox on a regular basis and well ...

I had many doubts about SSDs years ago, but atm, those products are mainly mature ones.

I am using 2 SSDs a bit by accident, because there is not enough room on the 80 GB Intel SSD for System AND all the mods and addons I am testing/using, so I had bought a 2nd one -a Crucial M4 128- and due to laziness it has been more easy to let Seven alone on the small one and dedicated the new one to BI games.

[PuFu]

I'm looking up upgrade my CPU, Mobo and RAM with Arma III in mind but also for now so I can play Iron Front properly.
My Phenom II X4 always struggled with large numbers of AI units in Arma II and now Iron Front.

Will Arma III take advantage of multiple cores (6 or 8 or more?) or any game for that matter? Some internet people say games will never use more that 4 cores, but I don't know how true that statement is.

Money isn't that big an issue, but I'd rather not spend more than I have to. Everything I do on my PC my current CPU handles no problem, so it's only really for Arma or any future CPU intensive game I'm upgrading.

Current specs:
Phenom II X4 965 3.4GHz
4GB DDR3
Geforce GTX 570

Here are some options, what would you choose?

AMD FX-8150 8 Core 3.6GHz: €183.70
ASUS M5A78L, Sockel AM3+, ATX : €59.15
8GB-Kit G.Skill RipJaws-X PC3-10667U CL7 : €46.97
Total : €289.82

Intel Core i5-3570K 4 Core 3.4GHz : €212.12
ASRock P67 Pro (B3) Sockel 1155, ATX : €74.46
8GB-Kit G.Skill RipJaws-X PC3-10667U CL7 : €46.97
Total : €333.55

Intel Core i7-3770 4 Core 3.4GHz : €283.17
ASRock P67 Pro (B3) Sockel 1155, ATX : €74.46
8GB-Kit G.Skill RipJaws-X PC3-10667U CL7 : €46.97
Total : €404.60

safest move would be to wait for he after-e3 alpha before making a call. If 100Eus is not a problem for you, i would go for the i7 instead of i5. Just more raw power

[Old Bear]

Of course I have nothing against the Intel Core i7-3770, I just bought one in my main rig rebuild ^^

[Horus]

@Fergal listen to what PuFU said.... wait for A3 alpha and if you have problem to have satisfying FPS first try to OC that CPU to 4GHz.

[Kernriver]

I have a question about graphics card.

I have GeForce GTX275 896MB, what possible DX11 features would I be missing? (if there will be dx11 support)

Intel Core i7-3770 4 Core 3.4GHz : €283.17
ASUS M5A78L, Sockel AM3+, ATX : €59.15
8GB-Kit G.Skill RipJaws-X PC3-10667U CL7 : €46.97

Motherboards are not that important. The i7 cpu will get you ready for the next few years. 8gb ram for 46.97 euro sounds excellent. But make sure your motherboard has the required space for it. Is it 4 x 2gb ram or 2 x 4gb? Big difference.
...

That CPU won't go into that socket.

[tremanarch]

What do you guys think has more impact on FPS in ArmA III based on your knowledge on ArmA II:

CPU or GFX?

[Leon86]

What do you guys think has more impact on FPS in ArmA III based on your knowledge on ArmA II:

CPU or GFX?

CPU, if you have a scenario with lots of soldiers and vehicles all over the map the cpu has to work hard. The gpu only has to work for the things that are actually on screen, if it doesnt manage you can always reduce settings a bit and fps will recover. CPU has to work at everything that's happening beyond visual range as well.

safest move would be to wait for he after-e3 alpha before making a call. If 100Eus is not a problem for you, i would go for the i7 instead of i5. Just more raw power

I would advise to just get an i5 3570K with a Z77 board, no game really benefits from hyperthreading, even in video transcoding the benefit is only 30% or something and that's a pretty ideal situation. Even battlefield 3, which multithreads really well doesn't gain more than a couple % form hypertheading and for some causes the well known stutter it caused in the early arma 2 versions.

Performance per core and number of real cores is important, the 3570K is near the top in that league and is great value.

[Munkee(GBR)]

I too am really excited and can't wait for Arma 3 which has got me researching for an ideal PC spec in readiness.

I really want to be able to enjoy Arma on high visual settings and from what I've read, there are a lot of things to consider, but as far as I can tell, there are two major factors; AI drain on CPU = low frame rates and insufficient power and speed of GPU and RAM to give smooth texture and LOD display at high draw distances with high settings. I personally like post process and AA as they add to the immersion.

AI drain
Because I like smooth gameplay and lots of AI, I will need a great CPU. To that end and considering what I've read, I've pretty much decided to wait for Intel's new CPU architecture for the clock speed and caching speed increases, March to June 2013 for the Haswell CPU and March to June 2014 for the Broadwell CPU.

GPU
A high end GPU or two in SLI, but more importantly I aim to set up a big Ramdisk with SSD to alleviate texture popping and LOD drawing issues.

I'm sure a current i7 set up will deliver great results, but because the AI causes such low FPS, I'm gonna hold out until 2013/2014, by which time I suspect further patches will have been released to further optimise gameplay.

I think trying to buy a machine prior to the release of the new CPU architecture in a years time could be a bad move as (a) existing CPUs should have dropped greatly in price as new CPU architecture is available (Haswell) and (b) why spend out on a top of the line CPU now when you can wait a year (6 months after Arma 3 released) and get a better CPU when the Haswell is released.

If anyone is interested in the forthcoming intel chips, google "intel roadmap" or "intel tick tock"

[ruhtraeel]

I would advise to just get an i5 3570K with a Z77 board, no game really benefits from hyperthreading, even in video transcoding the benefit is only 30% or something and that's a pretty ideal situation. Even battlefield 3, which multithreads really well doesn't gain more than a couple % form hypertheading and for some causes the well known stutter it caused in the early arma 2 versions.

Performance per core and number of real cores is important, the 3570K is near the top in that league and is great value.

I would be wary of getting an i5 3570k over an i5 2500k. Intel cheaped out on thermal compound, which according to Wikipedia makes the Ivy Bridge processors run 20 degrees hotter than Sandy Bridge ones, which means less overclock.

[CameronMcDonald]

Lap the shit out of it, apply some aftermarket compound and an aftermarket cooler. Problemo solvedo.