Suggested i7 rig for ARMA 2

rordeb

Suggestions for a rig to play ARMA 2. Thinking an i7 system is the way to go. However this hardware land is very new to me - loved OFP years ago but have left the world of PC gaming Pass me by. The only reason for PC gaming will be arma 2. - will use PS3 for everything else.

ScumLord

It's a CPU intensive game so an i7 would be great but other than that it's not that demanding a game. A decent Graphics card will do the trick and you don't really need all that much ram.

I think a core 2 quad would be ample enough grunt to run the game but if you can afford to go i7 there's no reason not to.

Operation Flashpoint 2 might be a different storey though it looks much more graphically intense and if your going to be playing Amra2 you may like to play that game too.

rordeb

Thanks for that will only need it for ARMA 2. Will look to see how much it should cost - what graphics card and memory would you recommend

PogMoThoin

Arma 2 runs better on i7 pc with hyperthreading turned off, ie 4 physical cores, not 8 logical cores, so a Core 2 Quad (pref overclock to 3Ghz+) is what I'd recommend. The game is very cpu limited and won't use more than 2GB of ram (limit set by game itself) no matter how much ram You have, 4GB is the sweet spot for gaming pc's these days though, 4GB ram kits are dirt cheap

The 1GB 4890 is the best single graphics card for the game at the moment, see
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/windows_7_gaming/page3.asp
The game doesn't scale well in either Sli or Crossfire so You're better with a single gpu, I'm considering trading my 4870x2

As for Operation Flashpoint 2, its based on the GRiD engine and will run well on a single 4890 at any resolution.

rordeb

Thanks a mil for the very helpful responses guys!

requiem1

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Arma 2 runs better on i7 pc with hyperthreading turned off, ie 4 physical cores, not 8 logical cores, so a Core 2 Quad (pref overclock to 3Ghz+) is what I'd recommend.

I never knew that, is there any articles explaining that?

Thanks req:D

PogMoThoin

requiem1 wrote: »

I never knew that, is there any articles explaining that?

Thanks req:D

Hyperthreading has never given any improvements in gaming, with my old Pentium 4 I noticed a slight improvement with it turned off in the Bios. There have been several threads on Bohemia Interactive forums, like this one, the game uses four cores, but gets no benefits of more logical ones. There's also no point in buying an i7 and then disabling HT, especially when Core2's overclock so well and cost less.

Solitaire

If the only thing you're playing is ARMA2 then blowing tons of cash on an i7 super-system is just nuts. Get a cheap mid-range rig based around a decent CPU (X4-955BE, Q9550 if you have money to burn, X3-720BE if you're skint) then OC it (with all three CPUs you should be hitting 3.6GHz without much strain, and 3.9GHz if you push it a bit). IIRC the HD4890 is the best card for this game (faster than GTX285!) and you can OC that a fair bit too from its own control panel in Catalyst

But most importantly, make sure you run this game in XP or Win7. This game hates Vista. As in 20-25% fps penalty hatred, from what I've heard :eek: And what's up with that FiringSquad bench? Only place I've seen the Win7 performance mimicking the crappy Vista results