Close
Page 1 of 3 1 2 3 LastLast
Showing results 1 to 10 of 25
  1. #1

    Default Building a new box for 5 mans!

    So I have read through alot of the threads here about hardware but no one seems to be able to lock down the minimum to run 5 WoW accounts on low settings. I am sure people know but not sure if its ever been documented maybe?

    I do not have $1000 to spend on a PC that really only has one purpose, boxing WoW. I am thinking of getting my own parts and putting it together myself over a few months maybe?

    I have been looking at the "Logical Increments" site and thinking of the "Good" build as a minimum. Thoughts?

    Please keep Legion in mind if there are hardware requirement changes/challenges expected there.

  2. #2
    Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    Arkansas
    Posts
    446
    Blog Entries
    2

    Default

    In terms of minimum spec rig, I'd probably aim for something like this:

    PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

    CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor ($105.98 @ Newegg)
    CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($19.99 @ Newegg)
    Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($61.98 @ Newegg)
    Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($27.88 @ OutletPC)
    Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($27.88 @ OutletPC)
    Storage: Kingston HyperX Fury 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($42.99 @ Adorama)
    Storage: Hitachi Deskstar 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($44.00 @ Amazon)
    Video Card: Sapphire Radeon RX 480 4GB Video Card ($199.00)
    Case: NZXT Source 210 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($36.99 @ SuperBiiz)
    Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($70.98 @ Newegg)
    Total: $626.67
    Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
    Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-07-05 17:40 EDT-0400

    You could come in under $600 if you've got a case, or hard drive laying around to use. You're also not going to be using the best settings on your five box team like this, but I think for people looking to box on a budget, this is probably a foregone conclusion. You can also get a little extra bang by shopping used. For regular 1080p gaming this should also work just fine actually.

    I haven't seen Logical Increments before, but it's a nice little reference. Though, it points out one problem I have with similar listing sites, it's all using the price from Amazon. Because affiliate links.

    Which means, you're not getting the best deals on your parts, but the guy who's getting click revenue probably is. I was really hesitant to post on this, because we don't really have a budget here, just a minimum for boxing question. And pinning that down is almost impossible without more information. Like the size of the monitor you'll be using, what graphical settings you're hoping to use, addons, etc. All those things can contribute in a big way to making the whole thing work/not work.

    If you are willing to build on a slightly looser budget over time, I would suggest something a bit beefier in general. Especially in the processor department. But, that's the real question. What are you willing to compromise on? Do you want it fast? Do you want it cheap? Do you want it powerful? Can't really have all three, depending on where you're willing to compromise the holy trinity is where a build like this will land.

    Also, I'd recomend scouting Newegg and other sites daily for those daily deals/flash deals. You can pick up some good stuff cheap. I grabbed 2 sticks of ram free with my SSDs that way. Saved me a good chunk of cash.
    My Blog: SRS Business

  3. #3

    Default

    Thank you Hor. This is along the lines I was hoping for in a reply.

    Monitor is another question, right now I run a crap tv/monitor thing because all I have a dedicated rue monitor is a old 19in model. Running 5 accounts on that thing sucks...

    How big of an impact will the monitor quality have on performance, I dont care about looks. I cant afford too really...

  4. #4
    Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    Arkansas
    Posts
    446
    Blog Entries
    2

    Default

    As far as monitor goes, I would recommend something like this

    http://www.ebay.com/itm/Perfect-Pixe...item4ac52ae4aa

    Having said all of that, I would add one more thing. If you're willing to delay gratification, I would recommend spending more in the CPU/Motherboard department. I'm confident the 6300 listed above can handle wow and other games you throw at it. However, with a couple hundred more you could get into an Intel based solution that would be newer, better feature set in general. IE it's not going to feel old in a hot minute. In which case, I would recomend something like this...

    PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

    CPU: Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($297.99 @ SuperBiiz)
    CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($19.99 @ Newegg)
    Motherboard: MSI B150M MORTAR Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($83.88 @ OutletPC)
    Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($28.99 @ Amazon)
    Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($28.99 @ Amazon)
    Storage: Kingston HyperX Fury 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($42.99 @ Adorama)
    Storage: Hitachi Deskstar 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($44.00 @ Amazon)
    Video Card: Sapphire Radeon RX 480 8GB Video Card ($249.00)
    Case: NZXT Source 210 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($36.99 @ SuperBiiz)
    Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($70.98 @ Newegg)
    Other: X-STAR DP2710 LED 2560x1440 Samsung PLS 27" Monitor "Glossy" ($189.90)
    Total: $1093.70
    Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
    Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-07-06 12:27 EDT-0400

    This one comes in just over 1,000 total including the monitor. Additionally, there's plenty of room to upgrade later, grab a second 480 for example or add more ram/storage if you so desire. You won't be overclocking on this, but for the price you should have a pretty good experience in normal 1440p gaming as well as 5 boxing. As with the first list I provided, you can get it a little cheaper if you don't need certain things (hard drives, case, etc). When on an extreme budget, recycling can come in handy for those and save you a hundred bucks or so.
    My Blog: SRS Business

  5. #5

    Default

    I was going to confirm that if I had more cash to throw at this would CPU/GPU be the best please, which you just confirmed. I think I can make that updated system happen by 8/30 but I will have 4 accounts to upgrade too now....

    /sigh

  6. #6
    Multiboxologist MiRai's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    Winter Is Coming
    Posts
    6815

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by kalos72 View Post
    So I have read through alot of the threads here about hardware but no one seems to be able to lock down the minimum to run 5 WoW accounts on low settings. I am sure people know but not sure if its ever been documented maybe?
    The problem with this is how do you define "low" settings? Are you referring to the lowest possible settings in game, or something that falls somewhere near low-ish? No matter your answer, we can ask another person the same question, and their answer is likely going to vary, and that's because there are literally tens of thousands of combinations of video settings (if not way more than that) which you can choose from.

    Quote Originally Posted by kalos72 View Post
    I have been looking at the "Logical Increments" site and thinking of the "Good" build as a minimum. Thoughts?
    That site is built around giving advice on people playing solo, not multiboxing. So, if you don't choose a higher-end build from the site, you could easily be disappointed in the results when you're trying to run five game clients on a machine which was recommended for one game client.

    Quote Originally Posted by kalos72 View Post
    Please keep Legion in mind if there are hardware requirement changes/challenges expected there.
    The minimum system requirements for the game have gone up every single expansion, and Legion is no different.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hor View Post
    I haven't seen Logical Increments before, but it's a nice little reference. Though, it points out one problem I have with similar listing sites, it's all using the price from Amazon. Because affiliate links.

    Which means, you're not getting the best deals on your parts, but the guy who's getting click revenue probably is.
    Everyone should be encouraged to shop around, but I personally prefer bundling as many items as I can from a single retailer, even if it means I'm paying just a little bit more, because it usually minimizes any potential headache of dealing with multiple sites if returns need to be made. So, while I use PCPartPicker a lot to piece things together and give general estimates, I always take its quoted price with a grain of salt because I'm assuming that it's going to be a bit more since I do have my preferred sites which I buy from.

    Also, people who are buying online should take into account which sites charge them tax, and which do not, because this could easily save you hundreds of dollars if the hardware you're looking to buy is expensive.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hor View Post
    I was really hesitant to post on this, because we don't really have a budget here, just a minimum for boxing question. And pinning that down is almost impossible without more information. Like the size of the monitor you'll be using, what graphical settings you're hoping to use, addons, etc. All those things can contribute in a big way to making the whole thing work/not work.
    I agree, because everyone defines "playable" or "tolerable" or "low" as something different.

    1280 x 720 (x5) @ 60/20 FPS @ Good
    1440 x 900 (x5) @ 45/30 FPS @ Fair
    1920 x 1080 (x5) @ 30/15 FPS @ Fair
    2560 x 1440 (x5) @ 60/60 FPS @ Low

    Everyone would define each of these examples differently, and we're barely taking video settings into account outside of some general presets.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hor View Post
    Also, I'd recomend scouting Newegg and other sites daily for those daily deals/flash deals. You can pick up some good stuff cheap. I grabbed 2 sticks of ram free with my SSDs that way. Saved me a good chunk of cash.
    Slick Deals is a nice site to find deals on, and Amazon Prime Day is next week too.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hor View Post
    As far as monitor goes, I would recommend something like this

    Video Card: Sapphire Radeon RX 480 8GB Video Card ($249.00)
    Other: X-STAR DP2710 LED 2560x1440 Samsung PLS 27" Monitor "Glossy" ($189.90)
    I'm not entirely confident that an RX 480 will be able to drive five game clients at 2560x1440. If OP was to resize their game clients down to 1920x1080 then I'd say it's do-able, but then they should probably just go with a 1080 display to begin with.


    Quote Originally Posted by Hor View Post
    Additionally, there's plenty of room to upgrade later, grab a second 480 for example
    A second AMD GPU would not be useful for CrossFire, as CrossFire does not work in windowed mode. It would be useful for splitting the load of the game clients across multiple displays, but that's not normally a route I'd tell people to plan ahead for. SLI works in windowed mode, but then people have to pay a premium for nVidia GPUs.

    Anyway, OP it's difficult to operate without a budget because not only are everyone's expectations different when it comes to a playable or tolerable multiboxing experience, but the expansion is literally weeks away from releasing and requirements to multibox are most likely going to increase (as they always do).

    It's very difficult to create a "budget" build when people wait years to upgrade their machine because they're stuck having to buy all new hardware since almost nothing can be carried over to the new build, and this all becomes very expensive. If you decide to go with a build that can only handle the lowest possible settings right now, then what happens next expansion? You now have to upgrade the motherboard, CPU, and GPU again, all of which are the most expensive components.

    It might help if you could tell us what you consider to be a playable experience, but my guess is that if you're willing to drop your resolution down to 1280x720 or 1440x900 right now, that that would increase your performance by a lot (but now your windows are a bit smaller). You can also, assuming you're using ISBoxer, disable Instant Swapping in your Window Layout. Adjusting this setting will remove your ability to utilize the 1:1 mouse broadcasting feature of ISBoxer, but you can sort of work around that by adjusting some settings in your Repeater Profile. However, disabling Instant Swapping might also mess with your characters' interfaces depending on the resolutions you've chosen to run.
    Do not send me a PM if what you want to talk about isn't absolutely private.
    Ask your questions on the forum where others can also benefit from the information.

    Author of the almost unknown and heavily neglected blog: Multiboxology

  7. #7
    Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    Arkansas
    Posts
    446
    Blog Entries
    2

    Default

    You make a very excellent point about Crossfire, and I should have clarified that in my original post. When I suggest that one could get a second card later, my intent was for playing 1440p titles like Witcher or something.

    Additionally, I would clarify my intent with my suggested build more clearly. When I think of someone getting into boxing, I don't think of them doing a lot of character switching. I don't, and I started boxing a long, long time ago. I suspect most people getting started will run similar to what I do, with a large 1080p window for the tank, running at 60+ FPS at high settings. With the minions running at 720p or lower, capped at 30 fps and low settings. Entry level boxer is likely imo going to be letting isboxer configure those windows, which will not be the full 1440p on each window. Yeah, it's a little jarring if I switch to another character to do something specific, but I'm not too bothered by it. Personally, I see running everything full tilt as being a luxury, high end boxer type of thing.

    In that case, I can attest to the 480 working perfectly fine. I had one in for testing not long ago, and tested it with my team on my normal rig and saw perfectly acceptable performance using the settings I described above. Obviously, it's not as good as running a 980 TI or a 1080, but it's not meant to be.

    As for online shopping, I agree with you generally speaking Mirai. I have a short list of dealers I am willing to deal with. After I built this rig late last year I learned I will never, EVER do business with NCIX again for example (a month before they even shipped my water cooler from Canada, I got my monitor from Korea faster than that). You can however edit the price sources in pcpartpicker to show only the stores you want to shop from, including down to a single store.

    Additionally, looking at full rig bundles on newegg is not a bad idea either, if nothing else to get a ballpark of what you can get in a certain price range. Here's where they list all of the available DIY Super Combos.

    http://www.newegg.com/DIY-PC-SuperCo...Y-Super-Combos

    Also, I would add in addition to Slick Deals, Dealzon is nice (if a little bit of a pain to navigate). However, Tek Syndicate does a weekly list of deals from both eBay and Dealzon on their front page.

    https://www.dealzon.com/

    https://teksyndicate.com/

    MiRai maybe we should make a sticky for online sources like this?
    My Blog: SRS Business

  8. #8
    Multiboxologist MiRai's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    Winter Is Coming
    Posts
    6815

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Hor View Post
    I suspect most people getting started will run similar to what I do, with a large 1080p window for the tank, running at 60+ FPS at high settings. With the minions running at 720p or lower, capped at 30 fps and low settings. Entry level boxer is likely imo going to be letting isboxer configure those windows, which will not be the full 1440p on each window.
    ISBoxer's default behavior is to render all of your game clients at the same size as Region 1 of your Window Layout, which is how it's able to broadcast the mouse cursor like it does. I feel that a lot of people who use ISBoxer believe that the smaller windows are rendering at a smaller resolution, when they're actually not, unless they have specifically told ISBoxer to do so. I talk about disabling Instant Swapping in my prior post for this reason.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hor View Post
    As for online shopping, I agree with you generally speaking Mirai. I have a short list of dealers I am willing to deal with. After I built this rig late last year I learned I will never, EVER do business with NCIX again for example (a month before they even shipped my water cooler from Canada, I got my monitor from Korea faster than that). You can however edit the price sources in pcpartpicker to show only the stores you want to shop from, including down to a single store.
    That's funny you mention NCIX, because I had a similar experience with them last year. They gave me a tracking number which I could not get to work on neither the Canadian UPS site, nor the US UPS site, so I just had to sit around waiting for something to arrive. Whether that was their fault or UPS's fault, I don't know, but they also took their sweet time processing my order before sending it out.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hor View Post
    MiRai maybe we should make a sticky for online sources like this?
    I have no desire to maintain something like that, and it's probably easier for people to just watch other hardware forums for deals that are posted there, which are normally seen on sites like Slick Deals. That, and the fact that we'd need to maintain deal sites not only in the US, but in the EU (and UK >_>), as well.
    Do not send me a PM if what you want to talk about isn't absolutely private.
    Ask your questions on the forum where others can also benefit from the information.

    Author of the almost unknown and heavily neglected blog: Multiboxology

  9. #9

    Default

    Well, for example, I run at LOW "game settings" with everything turned down as low as possible. Always have...I have never enjoyed this game at High quality to be honest. My bar is pretty low...

    From the looks of it, the best bang for my buck is to jack the CPU/GPU up as high as I can afford and most of the rest of the parts are interchangeable, performance wise that is.

    I am going to look for a "Manage your CPU" post or something to try and help. Maybe something about Win 10 configs too, I always feel like there are 1000 things running in the background of this thing cause there are dozens "if you turn this off Windows will blow up" entries...

  10. #10

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by kalos72 View Post
    I am going to look for a "Manage your CPU" post or something to try and help.
    While you may not be using ISBoxer, there is a WIKI article for managing CPU, but the main recommendations that always come up are, just assign all CPU cores to all instances. This lets Windows manage the CPU allocations and as MS have spent a buttload of money on the CPU scheduler, it will generally be better than just about anything else out there. On another note, there are some things you might want to check out to make sure other features of Windows are not hindering your multiboxing experience. http://isboxer.com/wiki/HOWTO:Disabl...ing_in_Windows

    Quote Originally Posted by kalos72 View Post
    Maybe something about Win 10 configs too, I always feel like there are 1000 things running in the background of this thing cause there are dozens "if you turn this off Windows will blow up" entries...
    I like this guys site for streamlining a Windows setup. Used it for reference for forever and a day. http://www.blackviper.com/
    If nothing else it always provides some useful info.

Posting Rules

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •