The i5 may be slightly better for DF, since DF isn't multi-core and thus doesn't benefit from multi-threading.
Hyperthreading doesn't
slow down singlethreaded apps though, at least not in any significant way. That's a myth that just refuses to die - it had some truth to it in the early days of HT, when it was less efficiently implemented and OSes weren't designed to handle it, but not anymore. The 2600K is a slightly faster version of the 2500K with some extra features (such as HT) that don't help DF, but it's still a faster cpu.
(A better explanation of HT than I can give, with pictures!)
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/308546-28-hyperthreading-affect-multithreaded-performanceNow you can definitely make the argument that the 2600K isn't cost effective compared to the 2500K for things like DF - you're mostly paying for extra features DF won't use, and you might not consider the small clock speed improvement worth the extra $100. Which is why I mentioned the 2500K, it's the better deal if cost is important, but it's certainly not going to beat a 2600K in absolute terms. For that matter the 2700K is a little better still (I've read they can consistently hit 5GHz+) if you want to spend more and can find one.
Oh, so - 'VBO' is one of the settings for PRINT_MODE in your init file (Dwarf Fortress\Data\init.txt). init.txt and d_init.txt contain a lot of useful settings, some of which affect performance, it should all be self-explanatory (Toady documented it well). I'm with you that it's not worth making the game less fun by turning off anything gameplay altering (temperature, weather) for the sake of fps, but there are some things in there that don't affect gameplay that
might help.
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Topic: Finally I have Dwarf Fortress going over 700fps (Read 7907 times)