PC Upgrade? Asking Gurus for Guidance👳🔮

[Pacheco]

Good Morning Everyone,

Looking to buy a new graphic card but I need help before making any purchases.  I currently have on my PC a Gt730 which is what came with my PC normally when i purchased it, the PC I own is an atc-710-ur52  (Not the greatest but fair) here are the specs...


Intel Core i7 6th Gen 6700 (3.40 GHz)
16 GB DDR3L
2 TB HDD
Windows 10 Pro
10.4"
NVIDIA GeForce GT 730 2 GB

will a GTX 1060 fit in it? if so, can I just slap it on? or do I need any additional items like power supply and more etc?

Im looking to improve FPS to make things look alot nicer especially when I fly and on foot. If anyone can make a list of what I need would be greatly appreciated.

[CPT L. McCoy]

Well, one thing you should know off the bat is that Arma depends far more heavily on your CPU that it does your GPU. 

16GB of ram and anything over 3GHz for your processor should run arma fairly well (maybe not on ultra graphics, but whatever).   A common trick to help arma run better is to set the priority to "high" in your task manager every time you run the game, and also close any memory heavy programs you may have running in the background i.e. Chrome. 

The real test is when you get into a full-blown official op where there are 60 people on the same server.  Even people with top of the line PCs experience frame issues sometimes.  From what I understand this is the result of the server trying to prevent a massive de-sync, so it throttles people's frames so that the majority of things are lining up with each other, and people are seeing relatively the same thing at the same time.   That being said...

For most modern games you will want a graphics card that can handle heavier loads.  I can't say if you'll need a stronger power supply without knowing what you already have.  The most important things are to: a) do a google search to ensure that the PCIe slot on your motherboard is compatible with the GTX 1060.  b) see what power supply you have now and check to see that the power requirements of the new graphics card are equal to or below what you have already.  If not, then yes, you will need to upgrade your power supply. 

When it comes to arma it will probably take some tinkering with your graphics and view distance settings to find what works for your system.  Hope this helps.

[SPC (Ret) Zudel]

First: the whole CPU thing isn't totally true. Anything over high graphic settings is going to go GPU primary. It will still rely on CPU, but it will put a heavier burden on your GPU. Second: I would spend the little extra on the 1070, if you can afford it. The specs are a good bit better, and it'll last longer in terms of upgrades. Last: I would start setting money aside as soon as possible. I set money aside until I was able to upgrade. Once i did, i upgraded my motherboard to something compatible with DDR4 RAM and a little better CPU, some DDR4 RAM, a better CPU that is 4.2GHz, and an SSD. My Arma now runs smooth as fuck and I can stream or record seamlessly in 1080p while playing the game in 4k. It is up to you, but i would look into the 1070, and then start savijng to upgrade the rest.

[Pacheco]

Holy Crap that sounds insane!!!! Im just not so computer savy. I do have a PC store near by called Area51 Computers, Ill have them read this and see what they recommend. Thank You Both for your input!

[1st Lt (Ret) Hardman]

From what I've read, this varies a little setting-to-setting. For example I believe high shadows are CPU and low shadows are GPU. The secret to Arma optimisation is to balance GPU settings against your GPU muscle and the same with CPU.

For me personally, my GPU is a brand new 1070, while my CPU is 8 years old - so I run some settings lower just to get the GPU processed instead.

First: the whole CPU thing isn't totally true. Anything over high graphic settings is going to go GPU primary.

[D. Morris]

Not a computer wiz here but I was having fps issues on PubG, couldn't get better than 60 set as low as I could go. The guts of my computer are marginally good... SSD for Cdrive and 16g ram with sadly a locked I7 processor. I had a generic Graphics card and decided to pitch that pile of shit in the bin I bought a 1070GTX and took tin snips to my case. Now I get better than 100fps on high settings. It made a massive difference, well worth th money.