New Build Advice for 5 Boxing

[Hor]

Yeah, I always do 1 stick of ram when I first set up a new rig.

I ran the numbers, and it just doesn't make sense to go with the Intel proc I was looking at. Only way I could do it would be to not get a video card or the cooler, then it would be the same price as just getting the 6350. Annoying, but it is what it is.

[Hor]

All right Ug, after some serious consideration here's what I'm thinking. I'm trying to iron everything out before I order the remaining parts today from the various places that have what I need.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant


CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($219.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($26.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: MSI Z97-G45 Gaming ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($124.99 @ NCIX US)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (Purchased For $0.00)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (Purchased For $0.00)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (Purchased For $0.00)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (Purchased For $0.00)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (Purchased For $0.00)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (Purchased For $0.00)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive (Purchased For $0.00)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB TWIN FROZR Video Card ($128.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: NZXT S340 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($62.10 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: XFX XTR 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (Purchased For $0.00)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($86.88 @ OutletPC)
Other: NZXT AC-GRIDP-M1 GRID+ Digital Fan Controller ($29.99)
Total: $679.93
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-05-20 12:18 EDT-0400

After a long think, I realized that going to the Intel side would leave me open to upgrade to an i7 down the line if I'm so inclined. Which will probably happen after the new hotness is released and the price of the i7 chips comes down a bit. I do wonder about the 1866 ram on this board, but I had plans to upgrade these stick later anyway. Any thoughts before I start clicking buy would be appreciated.

[Hor]

I decided to pull the trigger, grabbed everything except the video card. I might actually be able to pick up a 700 series card for cheaper off of a friend (a 780 for $75). So, yay me.

[MiRai]

It might be too late, but I'll mention that a 550W PSU isn't really all that much if you're looking to power close-to-current-generation GPUs. For instance, nVidia recommends that the 780 has 600W system wide. You can probably get by on slightly less than that since the minimums are usually set a bit high, but if you run into issues with the system I might suspect that the PSU doesn't have the juice to power everything efficiently.

In addition, if you skip the 780 and go with the 750 Ti, it's probably not going to get you the performance that you desire—Especially once you reach Pandaria or Draenor where textures increase in quality. However, I really have no factual data on that, just my hardware/performance-related gut feeling. The GPU itself is almost 1.5 years old, and when it launched it was meant to contend with very low-end/low-power GPUs. Anandtech's review shows that it struggles to hit 60 FPS on games at 1080 using low settings, so I can't imagine how good it's going to be when trying to run multiple WoW clients now that the new engine is more GPU intensive than ever before.

I don't know what resolution you find acceptable to use while multiboxing, but I'm guessing you won't be able to do 1080 x5 without a bit of struggle, and you'll likely have to drop it down to something like 1600x900 or 1280x720 in order to gain a good bit of performance. You can always "un-sync" the resolutions (assuming you're starting out with ISBoxer), but then you tend to lose accurate mouse broadcasting.

This is just my take on everything at the moment.

[Hor]

Thanks MiRai,

Currently I consider the PSU to be temporary, once I upgrade the video card I'll be upgrading to the larger XFX XTR PSU (the 750w) which should, I hope be sufficient for a mild overclock. Over the next month or two I'll be doing individual runs with my characters, they've been sitting at 91 in their Garrisons collecting rested and I already bought a full year of time with gold. I'll be using a 560 Ti from my old machine until I finish the upgrades (I'll be upgrading from 8g of RAM to 16 in that time as well). Currently, I'm on a single 24 inch screen, I tend to run my tank larger resolution with my DPS and heals running small.

Once the upgrades are finished, the PSU will be going to my File Server and I'll be working on a second, stripped down version of my main rig to offload some of the boxing duties. I'll be running on 3 BenQ 24 inch panels at that point. When boxing, I'll be turning my settings down for performance, when solo I'll be running more aggressively pretty settings. I imagine I'll be doing quite a bit of tinkering meanwhile.

[Hor]

Also, I'm tinkering with the idea of running 4 apu based systems for the dps and heals. Assuming they run smoothly, that's possibly the cheapest way to go.

[MiRai]

Also, I'm tinkering with the idea of running 4 apu based systems for the dps and heals. Assuming they run smoothly, that's possibly the cheapest way to go.

Is there a reason why you don't want all of the game clients on the same machine? Or are you just trying to make the cheapest possible multiboxing build(s) you can? Your second set of parts come in at under $700, but how is building five separate machines going to be cheaper than that?

In addition to that, are you going to want several monitors on your desk? Do you have the room for that? What are the other four machines going to be doing when you're not multiboxing? Doing nothing and taking up space? And, if you're using ISBoxer and ever want to utilize VideoFX, then you can't do that over multiple machines.

First an AMD build, then an Intel build, and now five separate machines with four of them using an APU. I thought you bought most of the parts for this build already, no? I'm so confused.

[Hor]

I can absolutely understand the confusion MiRai. Originally I was building an AMD based system, I ordered the bare bones and ended up with a bum processor and motherboard. I RMAd them, Newegg wouldn't exchange the processor so I decided to switch to Intel after seeing how much more optimized Intel is for WoW than AMD. So, today I ordered the NEW motherboard, cpu, case, os, cooler, and fan controller. The price listed above is not correct, as it's only showing the parts I hadn't already purchased at that point. The actual price of the rig is at $1163 after Mail In Rebates.

So, now I'm thinking of how I want to expand, yes I'm okay having multiple monitors on my desk. I'll be moving out to my office/cave in a couple of months after I finish the furniture and cabling out there. So, space for monitors is not a concern at all. My main concern right now is do I do it all in one PC, all in 2, or all in 5. If you have suggestions for scaling this machine up for running 5 mans, I'm all ears. I haven't boxed at all since early Wrath, and then I was doing it on 3 computers rather than 1 with Keyclone. So, yeah I've got a lot to unlearn and relearn I'm sure. Ideally, I think I would like to have two capable machines and box across them with DPS and heals on the second machine. Possibly powerful enough to ten box with five on each once in a while. But mostly 4 on one machine and 1 on the other. In that scenario, I'd have the second machine for web browsing, music, etc when I'm running solo. Which would be handy imo.

As of right now, I'm focused on getting the main rig up and running, then messing around and finding what works for me afterward.

[MiRai]

The price listed above is not correct, as it's only showing the parts I hadn't already purchased at that point. The actual price of the rig is at $1163 after Mail In Rebates.

This is true. I didn't take that into account.

If you have suggestions for scaling this machine up for running 5 mans, I'm all ears.

In my opinion, it pretty much comes down to this...

If your game clients are being displayed in their full resolution, each on their own monitor, it's nice and easy to just look over to that monitor and see what they're doing, but where are these monitors going to be placed? Wherever they're placed, most of them are likely going to be outside of your immediate line of sight, or even your peripheral, and when you begin tunnel-visioning on your main character/screen you're going to have no idea what's happening on another character/monitor unless you physically turn your head away from your main and move your mouse cursor way over to another screen (assuming you have to interact with them in the heat of battle).

When all of your game clients are on one or two screens, they're just a quick glance away, as well as a fraction of the distance away in terms of the amount of pixels you have to move your mouse to get to them, and then back to your main.

Sure, a setup with a bunch of monitors looks cool in screenshots and in person when you show it off, but if you have to do so much head turning and mouse moving... well, that's only increasing your reaction time, and I would say that the game is a bit less forgiving than it was back in Wrath. Disclaimer: The end of that statement is dependent on many variables.

As for what hardware you should be using to run five game clients—I don't know, what's the budget? You're going to need a much better GPU, and in turn, a much better PSU to run it. If it's in the budget, you might as well just start off by getting an i7 with hyper-threading rather than an i5 without it. I would have said some of this in the beginning, but the thread started out as an AMD thread.

[Hor]

MiRai, thanks a lot for your feedback. You and Ug are both helping immensely. You've given me a lot to think about, so here's where I'm at.

First, I think I might need to boil things down to the most basic. I'd prefer to have everything contained on 2 machines, rather than 1. However, I actually totally get what you're saying. I will have three screens on my desk regardless of how I do all of this because of my own workflow needs. I would like to split my characters as follows: Tank and Heals on 1 machine, DPS on secondary machine. This would allow I think the most flexibility and quick response for when I need to do focused heals, etc.

I haven't decided on the software I'll use, but ISBoxer definitely looks promising, I just know nothing about it at this juncture. Does a 2/3 split across 2 machines like I have listed above sound reasonable? And are there any serious hurdles to be aware of in terms of the software? I have plenty of experience with KVM between multiple screens (I'm going to have 3 wide, with another mounted top/center for monitoring external systems like the server, streaming, etc).

Originally I had considered boxing on a single machine, however knowing that I need a second machine for work anyway, it seems best to try to make it work on two rather than 1 to utilize the resources I have.

A quick note on power/video, I'm definitely sticking with a single video card. And I've heard the criticism of using smaller PSUs on bigger cards before. It's understandable, however despite how power hungry video cards can be I've found that they haven't really risen as sharply in how much they require from generation to generation, (it's actually gone down in places) this is almost certainly due to advances in tech. For example taken directly from the NVIDIA website:

Minimum System Power Required for a GTX 970 or 980, 500w
Minimum System Power Required for a GTX 960, 400w

Minimum System Power Required for a 770 or 780 Ti, 600w
Minimum System Power Required for a 760 is 500w
Minimum System Power Required for a 750 Ti, 300w

I will be upgrading to a 750w PSU, next month most likely. So, I should have ample overhead for a solid card. Actually, after having done more research I'm pretty certain I'll be going for a 900 series card, which seems to be not only more powerful in general but less power hungry.