I was overdue for an upgrade so I jumped on Intel's new Sandy Bridge processors when they came out. An RMA, a few additional orders, and a few weeks later, and I'm finally ready to do some testing. Setup details in the spoilers.
System setup:
CPU: i5-2500k, 40 x 99.8MHz bus = 3.992GHz max clock
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-P67-UD3
RAM: 4gb DDR3 1333
Video card: GTX 460
This setup is stable to 43x multi (just under 4.3GHz) but I'm running it at 40x as it's a build for someone else and I'm targeting that speed. When I get the motherboard for my build replaced (again), I'll be able to test at 45x/~4.5GHz at the least.
Dwarf Fortress setup:
Lazy Newb Pack V.7.0 - DF 0.31.18
Sound off
FPS display on
FPS cap 0
First test: all other settings default
Second test: weather and temperature turned off
Unfortunately I haven't built any forts lately, so I grabbed a few succession game saves to test with a more realistic load. Namely, the latest saves (as linked to on DFFD from the OP of each thread) of Skyscrapes and Ardentdikes. Between the two tests, I reverted back to the downloaded copy of the save file.
Ardentdikes:
Dwarfpop: 45
Animalpop: 30
Fort status: Looks like a 3x3 map, lots of work going on, only 1-2 idlers at once, water flowing as well as lots of lava flowing, steam, and items being burned/temperature transfer, plus rain
Actions taken: none, there was already plenty going on!
Test 1 FPS range: 39-47 (mostly ~43)
Test 2 (weather/temp off) FPS range: 40-100 (almost always 70-80) (given that it was already raining, turning weather off won't have really helped AFAIK)
Skyscrapes:
Dwarfpop: 211
Animalpop: 35
Fort status: Looks like a 2x2 map but with lots of height. Not incredibly deep, but with caverns and the magma sea revealed. A surface river with a dam, so it doesn't appear there's any liquid flows in effect, though I'm not 100% sure of that. 40-60 idlers most of the time.
Actions taken: none again.
Test 1 FPS range: 11-12
Test 2 (weather/temp off) FPS range: 13-15
Ardentdikes was a lot more all over the place after dumping temperature, not too surprising considering the flowing lava. Skyscrapes seems to be more limited by population and size. I didn't get a chance to test on my previous setup so it's hard to react to these without having a basis for comparison. It seems to be doing fairly well, it not as great as I'd liked, but Skyscrapes in particular may just be a much more intensive fort that I'm used to running.