Upgrading my rig with DayZ in mind - AMD or Intel?

[ZomboWTF 527]

Hey there, i am thinking about Upgrading my rig for about 500 bucks,

 

either i will get myself an Intel I5 4690, or an AMD FX8350, with appropriate Motherboard and some decently fast RAM

 

the I5 has less points on benchmarking (about a fifth less than the AMD CPU), additionally it costs about 50€ more

 

I wanted to try out if Intel really is better than AMD, since until now i really only bought myself AMD CPUs due to the better "bang for your buck" everyone is telling me

 

however, i also heard that DayZ, due to it being rather unoptimized, just like Planetside 2 (which i play sometimes as well), a better single core performance, namely intel, is better

 

can anyone report from his own experience if Intel really is better for DayZ? thanks in advance

Edited June 8, 2015 by Zombo

[kichilron 8550]

Alright, so here we go:

 

 

I have an FX-8350 massively overclocked and watercooled and my performance is just fine. A lot of people are doing it wrong by lowering their graphics-settings - but by doing that they're offloading their GPU and thus the CPU has to handle more. I am currently running DayZ at maximum resolution (and 200% overscaled) on a 21:9 monitor with my FX-8350 and a 7970. GPU is @ 100% and I get decent frames (everywhere).

 

People that are still claiming that DayZ only utilizes 1 core live in 2012 and have picked up what others said on the interwebs. Performance is totally fine if you spend more than the average attentionspan of a gamer (12 seconds) to optimise your settings. The game has also been optimised a lot recently. If one's not as thick as a tree (or trolling) one would have noticed.

 

 

 

Now - I have a disclosure to make:

 

I bought this setup with productivity in mind and I will be switching soon enough. I am not a video-guy - but I have other things that I'm doing with my computer that require heavy multitasking. This does also mean that my PC is under heavy load pretty much all of the time. This lead me to a decision I am currently saving up to.

 

I will keep my 8350 and a cheap-ass GPU that can run my 4 screen setup for productivity and I will get myself another PC (I will be up to 4 @ my desk then) that'll run a 4690K and a GPU (until I get a new one I shall still be sporting my 7970).

 

The Intel-based PC will only run a single screen for gaming, whilst I can still have my main rig running my productivity-workload.

 

This'll not happen for about another month or so, because of different things I have going on, so I'll not have much time anyway. But in 1 month I will be able to tell you with 100% safety whether it's worth switchting platforms or not.

Edited June 8, 2015 by kichilron

[ZomboWTF 527]

*snip*

this would be very helpfull, thank you^^

 

edit: i will try putting more load onto my GPU today, thanks for the tip

Edited June 8, 2015 by Zombo

[industria 37]

 

I have an FX-8350 massively overclocked and watercooled and my performance is just fine. A lot of people are doing it wrong by lowering their graphics-settings - but by doing that they're offloading their GPU and thus the CPU has to handle more. I am currently running DayZ at maximum resolution (and 200% overscaled) on a 21:9 monitor with my FX-8350 and a 7970. GPU is @ 100% and I get decent frames (everywhere).

 

What is 'decent' frames? 10-20-30-60-120?

I would like to read detailed information about your dayz settings configuration, cause i'm expierincing bad fps at intel i5 3570k (overclocked to 4.3 / watercooled) and gtx 970. Dayz doesnt use more then 50% of CPU resources (regarding task manager), same applies for the GPU (30-60%).

 

p.s. going to try set all settings to max with 200% resolution, lets see how it works.

Edited June 8, 2015 by industria

[industria 37]

Well,  just recorded some video with msi overlay showing following information.

 

GPU LOAD / TEMP

CPU LOAD / TEMP

ram usage (isnt important)

video ram usage (3.5 gb gtx 970)

FPS

 

Video settings:

Resolution: 1920x1080

Render res: 200%

 

Quality: Objects, shadows, clouds, terrain - max settings.

Textures: very high - max settings

Rendering: AA (disabled, not needed since render on 200%), Alpha to coverage (disabled, doesnt work with disabled AA), Edge smoothing (enabled, low settings, doesnt blur the picture like higher quality setting), HDR (enabled, low is the max allowed quality), Ambient occlusion (disabled, unfortunately doesnt work without postprocessing), postprocessing (disabled, unfortunately it has has build in 'blur' starting from the 'low'. Very low doesnt allows to turn the ambient occlusion, most weird settings i ever seen) - custom settings for sharper picture.

 

Result: GPU / CPU load, 30-50%. FPS: 10-30.

Lowering settings: doesnt boost FPS a lot, almost no effect at the town.

Most useful hint to increase FPS (outside cities or overloaded places) = objects. Decreasing this to the very low will give a significant boost to the fps, however it doesnt affect CPU load like it says in forum guide.

 

Objects - decrease it if you haven't got a powerful CPU, Very low should be ok for 2-4 cores Amd Cpus and 2 cores Intel Cpus (2 Threads), low and normal for 2-4 cores Intel Cpus (4 Threads) and 6 cores Amd Cpus, high for 8 cores Amd Cpus and 4 cores Intel Cpus (4-8 Threads) and very high for 4+ cores Intel Cpus (8+ Threads).

 

As you can see on the video - this is not quite truth (means objects doesnt really affect the CPU load, however i would recommend to decrease this option if you're expiriencing fps issues).

VIDEO:

Edited June 8, 2015 by industria

[ScipioII 176]

I Have just upgraded my rig from an old Opteron setup with DDR ram and a R9-280X vidcard. So I needed mobo, proc and RAM.

Price was my biggest deciding factor. I started looking about 2 months ago until a good deal showed up and then jumped on it.

I like AMD because the motherboards is way cheaper than Intel. I went with the FX 8350 because it will do what I want it todo with power to spare and play a good game. If I want I can overclock higher but I don't need that for now.

 

This is the deal I got at newegg: The 8GB RAM stick was FREE!! (a sweet deal indeed!!)

 

 

 

Sales Order Date:        5/22/2015 7:35:48 AM
Shipping Method:         Super Eggsaver (4-7 bus. days)
 

1 x ($169.99) AMD FX-8350 Black Edition Vishera 8-Core 4.0GHz (4                         $169.99

1 x ($89.99) GIGABYTE GA-970A-UD3P AM3+ AMD 970 6 x SATA 6Gb/s                                       $89.99

1 x ($57.99) HyperX FURY 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 Deskt                 $57.99

1 x (($18.00)) DISCOUNT FOR COMBO #2341886                                                  ($18.00)

1 x (($57.99)) DISCOUNT FOR AUTOADD #138345                                                ($57.99)

Subtotal: $241.98

Tax: $0.00

Shipping and Handling: $3.99

Total Amount: $245.97
 

(edit: removed links)

Edited June 8, 2015 by pcs305

[Baker. 1484]

Hey there, i am thinking about Upgrading my rig for about 500 bucks,

 

either i will get myself an Intel I5 4690, or an AMD FX8350, with appropriate Motherboard and some decently fast RAM

 

the I5 has less points on benchmarking (about a fifth less than the AMD CPU), additionally it costs about 50€ more

 

I wanted to try out if Intel really is better than AMD, since until now i really only bought myself AMD CPUs due to the better "bang for your buck" everyone is telling me

 

however, i also heard that DayZ, due to it being rather unoptimized, just like Planetside 2 (which i play sometimes as well), a better single core performance, namely intel, is better

 

can anyone report from his own experience if Intel really is better for DayZ? thanks in advance

For DayZ and BIS games in general, whatever CPU offers better per core performance which at the moment is Intel.

[danfinger (DayZ) 14]

you forgot one: SSD !

 

Made a huge difference for my AMD (FX-8150 Zambezi 8-Core 3.6GHz) + GTX550Ti machine.

[hleVqq 139]

Here is some info which may or may not help you:

 

SSD had little impact for my DayZ experience (coming from 5200 RPM HDD), I believe the world loads a little faster but that's it.

You should have 8GB RAM. 4GB is too little and I have friends experiencing issues with 6GB (though have not confirmed it's completely due to lack of RAM).

I have an outdated GPU (Radeon 6870 OC) and because of that lowering settings actually benefits me.

The CPU is i5-2500 non-K at 3.4GHz, by the way. Can't OC it to get some higher frames.

After playing with the configs a little I don't see my frames go below 30 all too often, even in cities.

Edited June 12, 2015 by Powerhouse

[ColdAtrophy 1850]

My Rig:

Intel i5-4690K @ 4.5ghz w/ Corsair H60

Gigabyte GTX 970

Asus H97i-Plus

2x8GB DDR3 @ 1600mhz

Crucial MX100 256GB SSD

 

I spent two weeks running Rivatuner OSD while playing the game and watching load change in real time on my GPU and my CPU. I absolutely positively cannot stay above 30FPS at all times unless I change a couple of settings in the cfg file which makes any buildings and vehicles render in low res and flip flop back and forth for a second as I move forward between low res and high res. 

 

My In-Game Settings:

Objects: Very Low (Any higher and I lose 5-15 FPS, depending on how much higher)

Terrain: Very High

Clouds: Very High

Shadows: Very High

 

Video Memory: Auto

Texture Detail: Very High

Texture Filtering: Very High

 

Antialiasing: Very High

Alpha to Coverage: All Trees + Grass

Edge Smoothing: FXAA High

HDR Quality: Low

Ambient Occlusion: Enabled

Post Process Quality: Very High

 

No matter what combination of settings I use, if Objects are set higher than Very Low, I lose frames in large cities to the point of unplayability. I'm talking like 18 FPS in Novo. However, I can crank up all other settings and my FPS seems to hardly be affected. If I set everything to the Lowest settings, CPU 0 sits around 40-60% usage, the others much less. If I set everything to the Highest settings, I see the same thing. My GPU seems literally incapable of affecting my minimum framerate. The only thing that does affect my minimum framerate is messing with Object settings, View Distance, and Shadow Distance in the cfg file.

 

With the new renderer will come DirectX 11 and eventually DirectX 12 support. DX 12 should make AMD an excellent choice for this game as it helps to spread the load out among all cores. Until then, Intel is the only way I'd even bother. 

[kichilron 8550]

Here is some info which may or may not help you:

 

SSD had little impact for my DayZ experience (coming from 5200 RPM HDD), I believe the world loads a little faster but that's it.

You should have 8GB RAM. 4GB is too little and I have friends experiencing issues with 6GB (though have not confirmed it's completely due to lack of RAM).

I have an outdated GPU (Radeon 6870 OC) and because of that lowering settings actually benefits me.

The CPU is i5-2500 non-K at 3.4GHz, by the way. Can't OC it to get some higher frames.

After playing with the configs a little I don't see my frames go below 30 all too often, even in cities.

Weell. You really shouldn't try to play any game with 4GB of RAM, to be honest.

[killerpixel 49]

Weell. You really shouldn't try to play any game with 4GB of RAM, to be honest.

 

Why? 4GB is, still, more than enough for any of today's games. Unless of course you're completely trashing your OS and have 5 dozen programs running in the background at all times, hogging the RAM.

 

As for the question at hand: Intel, hands down. AMD cannot, with any of their current CPUs, even come close. Especially in DayZ, or any game based on Bohemia's Real Virtuality Engine, even "slower" Intels are running circles around the AMDs.

 

And by the way: the "bang for the buck" of AMDs hasn't been better than Intels since the times of the Athlon64. They're cheaper, yes (also they are hotter and consume more power...), but the Intels are generally so much faster, that the price/performance is near identical. Intel has overtaken them with the Core2Duo and now, with every new i-Generation, is just extending the lead. I've been an AMD fan for a long time, I still wish they would bring out something that's at least competetive, because Intel can just do whatever they want, but it's gotten so ridiculous that I switched to Intel a year ago, and haven't regretted it. It's easier to cool, way easier to clock if you're into that and just FASTER.

Edited June 25, 2015 by Pixel1191

[hekp 223]

 

No matter what combination of settings I use, if Objects are set higher than Very Low, I lose frames in large cities to the point of unplayability. I'm talking like 18 FPS in Novo.

Honestly, that's good for novo..im anywhere from 9-20fps there so i just avoid it, unless im playing on my top pc. Svetlo is even worse (7-12.)

I would remove clouds & shadows alltogether if i were you and sacrifice it for anything better than "very low" objects.

 

edit: holy batman, your config should run this no prob. Also, do this; Disable shadows, clouds, SMAA and AA and postprocessing .. Set objects to very high.. then enable the "candies" back. Sacrifice AA/SMAA/PostProc or shadows to get performance, not objects. I was testing this with a friend who can run objects @very high and i can tell you he can spot me lying on the ground way before i can see him running on the middle of a road (in other words u dont stand a chance)

 

Do tweak your cfg with standard stuff like shadowZdistance=50, preferred drawdistance=1001m and objectdistance=1000m, maxframes ahead 0.(you did set it read only,right?) Update your drivers and dont trust that nvidia auto tweaking thingy u get(disable it). Set to optimal/max performance instead of quality if you havent yet aswell. Disable all the power saving features. Dayz doesnt save.

I can run this game with obj.&textures on very high, AA very high but with shadows & PP off and the game is very playable.I wouldnt say constant 30 fps, but it looks great,  runs smooth and doesnt leave me at a disadvantage.

 

I run like a few gen older i7 cpu with 3.5ghz and some 2gig radeon. You have a i-would-kill-4-ur-cpu, higher clock & gpu so i would expect it to run the game even smoother.

I know you did most of these already(sorry!), but still, something must be going on to effect your fps that much when touching objects..

 

btw, u will never get constant 30+ fps (imo) in alpha.

There's streamers with pcs i could afford in 5 yrs time and they still get the low fps drops.

Edited June 25, 2015 by halp

[ColdAtrophy 1850]

-snip-

 

I hear you dude, but I spent weeks messing with it. Other settings don't seem to impact my performance that much. Changing objects from Very Low to anything higher eats 20% or more of my GPU. Clouds and Shadows max eat like 10%. No other single change to my settings causes such a massive performance hit.

 

Any time I go below 30FPS I find it to be absolutely unacceptable. I also don't want to look at some grainy, aliased, choppy shit show either. If I was cool with that, I'd have spent $1100 less and got a console. These settings are the best balance for me.

 

You might expect the game to run much better on my rig, and I guess it probably does to some extent, but it still isn't very impressive. Of all the things that annoy me about DayZ Alpha, the ridiculously awful performance is the worst. Enabling occlusion culling alone would provide a massive performance boost to even the weakest of systems. Alpha is alpha though, so I try not to complain.

Edited June 26, 2015 by ColdAtrophy

[Knight_Solaire 4]

Sorry if I'm kind of hi-jacking this thread. But I had a few questions.

 

How do some of you guys that have these high-end desktops get such poor FPS in cities? 17-18 FPS in cities would be unbearable for me. 

 

I'm currently using a laptop (Hate on me if you will. "There's no such thing as a gaming laptop. Blah blah" But I honestly use a recliner as my computer chair and it works freakin' awesome (Comfort wise) with my wireless mouse and laptop (that sits on a cooling pad/platform to breath).

 

I'm no computer wiz, but here a my specs.

 

GTX 860M

Intel i7 4700 HQ @ 2.4Ghz.

16 GB RAM

1 TB HDD (EDIT) *Forgot that I have TWO 1 TB HDD with RAID 0 (?) Enabled. The one that makes them rune as if they are one unit. If it matters.

 

I paid the company to overclock my CPU / GPU settings. Since it was a brand new present to myself I didn't want to risk messing up it by listening to some random youtube video. I know the max overclock on the CPU is 3.4, though I forget if they set it that high.

 

I've been playing day z for some time now and have always set my graphics to the lowest settings. I get good FPS everywhere which is why I am confused. Why do you guys get shitty FPS in cities? I realize that you have your settings maxed out, but then if that is the case.. shouldn't you just lower them some? Also, should I, or COULD I run at higher than minimum settings? Im not sure if its something to be tweaked but I find it really annoying when I'm scoping in on a building and the texture constantly flips between high-res and basically no res (Proper terms?). Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

Edited June 26, 2015 by Knight_Solaire