Intel Core i7 Quads!!!!!!!!!!!

[Nairi]

SO... has any lucky peoples try these babies out with multiboxing 8o ??????????????????????????

[Multibocks]

I'm about to order, just waiting on an email response from vigor gaming. Anyways my setup:

SPECIAL PROMOTION 1 $100 Instant Rebate
SPECIAL PROMOTION 2 $50 Instant Rebate
PROCESSOR Intel® Core™i7-965 Extreme Edition Quad-Core Processor at 3.20GHz, 6.4GT QPI, 8M Cache
RIG Vigor Mammoth Screwless Chassis powered by Antec w/TyphoonTM Air Ventilation System
RIG COLOR Black
RIG STYLE Metal Mesh Side Window for Improved Ventilation
RIG COOLING Vigor MonsoonTM III LITE Cooling System with Dual 120MM CPU Fan
RIG POWER Cooler Master Real Power Pro nVidia-SLI Certified 1250Watt Power Supply
RIG DIMENSIONS 8.40" Width X 20.20" Depth X 22.90" Height.
MB CORE LOGIC Intel DX58SO "SmackOver" Intel X58 Triple Channel DDR3 w/1600MHz & Gen 2 Crossfire
MEMORY 3GB Kingston HyperX KHX11000D3LLK3/3GX CL7 DDR3 1375MHz Memory (3 X 1024MB)
OPERATING HARD DRIVE 1 WD VelociRaptor 150GB WD RAPTOR S-ATA 10000RPM 16MB Cache Hard Drive
OPERATING HARD DRIVE 2 WD VelociRaptor 150GB WD RAPTOR S-ATA 10000RPM 16MB Cache Hard Drive
RAID SETTING RAID 0 Performance - Striped Drives (2 or More Identical Hard Drives Only)
DATA HARD DRIVE 1 None.
HARD DRIVE COOLER 1 Vigor iSurf II Hard Drive Cooler w/dual fans
DATA HARD DRIVE 2 None.
HARD DRIVE COOLER 2 Vigor iSurf II Hard Drive Cooler w/dual fans
RAID SETTING RAID 0 Performance - Striped Drives (2 or More Identical Hard Drives Only)
VIDEO CARD CROSSFIRE SLOT 1 ATI Radeon HD4870 X 2 2GB Xtreme Edition @780MHz w/PCI Express, DVI and TV Out
VIDEO CARD CROSSFIRE SLOT 2 ATI Radeon HD4870 X 2 2GB Xtreme Edition @780MHz w/PCI Express, DVI and TV Out
OPTICAL DRIVE 1 SONY/NEC Internal SATA AD7200S 20X Dual Layer DVD+/- RW + CDRW Rewritable Drive
OPTICAL DRIVE 2 None.
RECORDING SOFTWARE Bundled DVD/CDRW Software
SOUND Digital High Definition 3D 7.1 8-Channel Sound
NETWORK PORT Onboard Gigabit (10/100/1000Mbps) PCI Network Card
WIRELESS NETWORK PORT None.
I/O PORTS 1 Parallel, 1 Game/Midi, 1 IEEE 1394 Firewire and 6 to 10 USB ports (Varies by Motherboards)
MONITOR None.
SPEAKERS None.
KEYBOARD Standard Black Internet Multimedia Keyboard
MOUSE Standard Black Optical Wheel Mouse
EXTERNAL FLOPPY DRIVE None.
OPERATING SYSTEM Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit w/Original DVD
SERVICE Standard 3 Year Limited Parts and Life-Time Labor Warranty
STORAGE MEDIA None.
SOFTWARE BUNDLE None.
ADDITIONAL SOFTWARE None.
Price: $4439.00

I run on a 30" monitor if anyone was wondering about all the money spent on the GPU setup. We will see, also they are having problems as 3GB is the only option selectable for memory.

[Chaosomega]

PROCESSOR Intel® Core™i7-965 Extreme Edition Quad-Core Processor at 3.20GHz, 6.4GT QPI, 8M Cache - ok, i clock my e6750 stock 2.66 up to 3.2 and it does wonders for my multiboxing, the secrurity of running 3.2 stock is amazing. And really 8m cache, eek.
Quad core even still, my e750 is just a dual core. BUT, theres one question, im kind of out the new i7's, (lost my subscription to CPU magazine) but, is the i7 part of the nahalem series? Do the cores talk to eachother in the actualy cpu or do they have to go out to the FSB and then talk to eachother that way still, until they talk to eachother within the cores themselves im not gonna buy a quad core.

OPERATING SYSTEM Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit w/Original DVD - Dont do it!, honestly the only thing windows vista gives you is directx10 and wow dosent even use that, so meh. Vista has only been a pain in the butt for wow, errors left and right, Lord knows the amount of times ive talked to GM's and they told me my probelm was windows vista. I recommend going with XP with windows 7 comes out, or hell just go to unbunto (unbuntu??)

Price: $4439.00, i know my parts pretty well, I'm a huge comp geek, custom build and mod them myself (infact hopefully i will start to sell my mods this summer?) But, whats making that cost so high? i haven't done a new egg search for the new i7's but are they that expensive or is it that tv/monitor that has the price so high.

[Heenan]

Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 965 3.2GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 Quad-Core Processor - Retail
Experience the New Core i7 Technology

$1,069.99
Free Shipping*

[Chaosomega]

just looked up i7's on newegg

$1,069.99 for the 3.2ghz quad, the one below that was 599.99 @ 2.93 ghz, honestly if its a difference of 400 dollars, i would learn the art of overclocking and spend 50 more on the mobo to be able to oc it as much as you want, either that or wait 2 weeks lol.

[algol]

Just get a Q6600. I believe these new ones are the ones that die if you don't give them the exact right memory settings. Somehow I don't much like that feature. And they're kinda several times the cost, so they'd better be DAMN good in comparison.

[Nairi]

Intel Core i7 920 is $300-400 8o

[emesis]

I'm about to order, just waiting on an email response from vigor gaming. Anyways my setup:

<clip>
MB CORE LOGIC Intel DX58SO "SmackOver" Intel X58 Triple Channel DDR3 w/1600MHz & Gen 2 Crossfire
MEMORY 3GB Kingston HyperX KHX11000D3LLK3/3GX CL7 DDR3 1375MHz Memory (3 X 1024MB)
<clip>
Price: $4439.00
<clip>


gief more RAM plz, ok?

[Bollwerk]

Not worth the money, IMHO. If you have money to burn, go for it. As for me, the setup listed is overpriced and overkill in some ways, while underkill in others. (proc and 2x 4870x2 is overkill, 3gb ram is underkill)

[algol]

Intel Core i7 920 is $300-400 8o
Q6600 is $180. I assume that's the cheap i7 quad or you wouldn't have brought it up. But it still matches what I said, so what's your point?


Also, yes, 3GB RAM is wtflol small for a $4500 computer intended to multibox - you're doing it wrong. 4x2GB is like $100 these days. Excuses, you has none.

[Ualaa]

Looking at the reviews, the Core i7's will be in three basic varieties initially.

Top of the line ~$1000, middle processor ~$500, low-end ~$250.
Looking at benchmarks, there was very little difference between the 1000 and the 500 models.
The low-end, like the middle and upper needed the new motherboard.
They all used ddr3 ram exclusively, in 3's or 6's instead of pairs like the older ram.

The low-end Core i7' processors were quite a bit more powerful then the Q6600's.
And the board will support the faster chips if you upgrade down the road.
I'd personally go with the middle of the line chip around $500, but if you can afford the $1000 chip its nice to have the best.

[algol]

Sounds like it will be a good upgrade in a couple years when the third WoW expansion comes out, DDR3 is cheaper, the chips are cheaper, and they fix the failure issues.

[puppychow]

Yeah I'm getting ready to build a new PC since my c2duo is a little too slow for Wrath (i really want 5 windows with gorgeous maxed gfx), I kind of want a i7 but imo its a waste at this time. For 1/3d the cost you can get a quad coreww, 8gb of DDR2, a 4870 and you will be able to run 5 WoWs beautifully all maxxed out. With a top of the line i7 you may get maybe 20-30 fps more, but who cares, the difference between 70fps and 90fps isn't worth it to me. In one year there will be much better i7 procs, i7 mobos, graphic cards, and DDR3 will be more reasonable (16GB!) and will be a great time to upgrade again, for essentially the price difference between a quad core and a i7 now.

Now of course the i7 will do farcry2 and stuff like that much better than the quad core, but I don't even bother with that - TF2 is enough for me :) One other big advantage of the i7 is you can do 3 video cards, but wow doesn't even use 100% of one new video card, who cares about 2x or 3x.

Of course if my wife said for my birthday I could spend $4k on a new PC I'd buy a top of the line i7 in a heartbeat :) well, probably a 120" LCD first haha

[not5150]

Save your money and go with a Core 2 Quad... put the savings into more memory and possibly an SSD.

[gitcho]

I bought a new core i7 system last monday. Core i7 920, Asus P6T deluxe, 6gb RAM, Asus 4850, Seagate 640MB HD, Antec nine hundred case. It runs really well - no lag on 5 instaces of WOW (60fps+) with firefox (6+tabs) and photoshop CS3 open. I haven't been able to get any one of the cores (it shows up as 8 cores in vista b/c of hyperthreading) to max out for more than a few seconds. It was a bit pricey, but I was upgrading from a 5+yr old barton athalon 2500 with 1gb of RAM - so I'm pretty happy.

[Noids99]

2 x problems with your spec above. The Intel Motherboard only has 4 slots for RAM and 3GB RAM (as mentioned above) is too little for MBing. Ideally you want 8GB+ now with 64bit OS.

Go for either an Asus, MSI, Gigabyte mobo as they all include 6 RAM slots so you can setup 2 x groups of triple channel memory.

The new quad cores are intels first native quad cores with 4 cores on the one die. The other big plus is an onboard memory controller making the FSB redundant. Finally and best of all for us boxers, Nehalem brings back hyperthreading which means our new quad cores will have 8 virtual cores for assigning to different characters.

The motherboards have the advantage of housing 12GB RAM without going to expensive 4GB DIMMS. They can also accomodate Crossfire and SLI on the same platform. For overclockers, removing the FSB makes the northbridge much cooler for overclocking and that cheap little i7 920 can OC to 3.9GHz on air quite comfortably.

Cheers

[weeep]

I'll LOL @3Gb RAM too. This system will run 5box MUCH slower than old Q6600 + 8Gb RAM.

[Nairi]

more cpu power = better for multiboxing. a 9800gt is more than enough for 4-5 sessions but will be limited by older cpus i.e q6600


Intel Core i7 920 is $300-400 8o
Q6600 is $180. I assume that's the cheap i7 quad or you wouldn't have brought it up. But it still matches what I said, so what's your point?


Also, yes, 3GB RAM is wtflol small for a $4500 computer intended to multibox - you're doing it wrong. 4x2GB is like $100 these days. Excuses, you has none.

[Soto]

Sigh... error on deleting

[Nitro]

3gb of ram on a $4000+ machine makes baby jesus cry

If your thinking of 5 boxing with that they you will get smoked by a person running more ram on $1000 machine.

[pinotnoir]

8 gig of ram is a must if your running Vista 64. Ram is so cheap no reason not to put in 8 gigs.

[puppychow]

the new i7 processors use triple channel memory, so you want to do memory in x3's for best performance. The person who posted the rig said the website was having problems configuring more than 3GB, probably for this reason. Anyways 6GB or 9GB should be fine for Vista64.

For kicks I priced out two PCs on newegg, more or less what I want to buy. It was:

$100 case, $100 power supply, $20 DVD-dl drive, $100 1-TB hard drive
$260 for GTX 260 (216 core), same price just about for a 4870 instead (benchmarks show the new 260 is slightly faster than the 4870 for things like wow)

Suprisingly the processors are the same price! The Q9550 is $320 for NewEgg, the i7 920 is $309. Of course the Q9550 stock is running at 2.8ghz while the i7 is 2.66ghz.

The RAM and motherboards are huge differences though -- ddr2-800, mushkin 8GB for the Q9550 is only $140 whereas ddr3-1333, gskill 6GB for the i7 is $279 - double the price for less memory.

The motherboards are also different, the Q9550 can use a Asus P5 for $150, whereas the I7 will need a $300-400 motherboard (Asus P6T is $300 but oos).

So now I'm kind of leaning towards the i7, it should overclock a lot better and you'd be paying around $400 more for mostly DDR3 and a i7 compatible motherboard. Going to sit on the sidelines for a few days and think about it.

[Nitro]

Anyways 6GB or 9GB should be fine for Vista64.


Either you found some fancy 3gb sticks or you meant "Anyways 6GB or 12GB should be fine for Vista64." :P


EDIT: Now that I look on newegg a 6gb kit might be the best you can do for triple channel memory

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=40000147&Description=triple%20channel&name=Desktop%20Memory

[Nairi]

the new i7 processors use triple channel memory, so you want to do memory in x3's for best performance. The person who posted the rig said the website was having problems configuring more than 3GB, probably for this reason. Anyways 6GB or 9GB should be fine for Vista64.

For kicks I priced out two PCs on newegg, more or less what I want to buy. It was:

$100 case, $100 power supply, $20 DVD-dl drive, $100 1-TB hard drive
$260 for GTX 260 (216 core), same price just about for a 4870 instead (benchmarks show the new 260 is slightly faster than the 4870 for things like wow)

Suprisingly the processors are the same price! The Q9550 is $320 for NewEgg, the i7 920 is $309. Of course the Q9550 stock is running at 2.8ghz while the i7 is 2.66ghz.

The RAM and motherboards are huge differences though -- ddr2-800, mushkin 8GB for the Q9550 is only $140 whereas ddr3-1333, gskill 6GB for the i7 is $279 - double the price for less memory.

The motherboards are also different, the Q9550 can use a Asus P5 for $150, whereas the I7 will need a $300-400 motherboard (Asus P6T is $300 but oos).

So now I'm kind of leaning towards the i7, it should overclock a lot better and you'd be paying around $400 more for mostly DDR3 and a i7 compatible motherboard. Going to sit on the sidelines for a few days and think about it.id rather a pay a bit more for something like the i7 for future proof, i.e. 6/8+ core cpus in future might come out for socket 1366.

[Multibocks]

Wow, I don't check this thread for a few and everyone is dog piling on me. Ok for those that didnt read the initial post, I said that Vigor is not offering above 3GB YET, as in YES I FUCKING PLAN TO GET MORE THAN 3 FUCKING GBS. ok? Happy now you fucking pricks. 2. The hi end proc is the only one that OCs well, you can do 4gb on air. And C. Yes it's expensive, when you are the first to own you pay a shitload, Im ok with that. oh and btw for those that don't know the DDR on this comes in multiples of 3.

I hate geeks that see a build and shit all over it, if you don't like it then state why and be civil. No reason to be asshats. I especially like the ones that commented and weren't even sure what i7 is composed of.. bravo gentlemen, bravo. That says expert if I ever saw one.

edit: As for vista64, I'm extremely hesitant to go this way again. I really hate the operating system, but I installed it on a 2 year old mobo that is barely supported anymore and I imagine this is the main reason for all my troubles. I'm willing to give it one more try, after that I will wait for windows 7 and find something worthwhile in the meantime.

[Noids99]

Not sure that 3GB is really gonna cut it for multiboxing man...

heh, way to blow a gasket eh :P

Anyway, save yourself a few hundred dollars because 920 at 4Ghz on air is easy. What you should spend your money on is a better mobo than the intel.

Linky ('http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/11/06/overclocking-intel-core-i7-920/15')to 920 OCing

[Multibocks]

well I should have expected it and just replied "yes I will be buying the i7, and will tell you how it turns out." to the OP.

and as for the 965 vs 940 well,


The clock speed is the obvious difference between the three Core i7 processors, but it goes a bit deeper. Naturally, the Core i7-965 Extreme Edition will have "overspeed protection removed" (an unlocked multiplier), but the QuickPath Interface speed will also differ. The Core i7-965 XE will have a full speed 6.4 GT/s link, while the Core i7-940 and -920 feature a lower 4.8 GT/s interface speed.


that is why.

and for those of you asking why you don't go out and buy the old quad cores:

Intel has turned Hyper-Threading loose on something far more powerful, and it allows the four cores of the Core i7 to emulate eight. Intel believes, and with good reason, that only a robust architecture like the Core i7 can fully maximize the resource sharing and multi-threaded performance offered by Hyper-Threading.
8 cores, mofakas, 8 cores! Another thing, check out how much the i7s obliterate the old quads in cpu benchmarks (which aren't all that important for say Crisis, but for running 5 instances of WoW it's awesome.)


The only thing I'm not sure about is Nvidia vs AMD graphics cards.... I hope I'm not making a mistake.

[gfd333]

no nat yet.

[algol]

8 cores, mofakas, 8 cores!
Hyperthreading on a multi-core CPU, now there's a niche feature. And speaking of features, I love how those chips "feature" a lower bus speed.

[Noids99]

well I should have expected it and just replied "yes I will be buying the i7, and will tell you how it turns out." to the OP.

and as for the 965 vs 940 well,


The clock speed is the obvious difference between the three Core i7 processors, but it goes a bit deeper. Naturally, the Core i7-965 Extreme Edition will have "overspeed protection removed" (an unlocked multiplier), but the QuickPath Interface speed will also differ. The Core i7-965 XE will have a full speed 6.4 GT/s link, while the Core i7-940 and -920 feature a lower 4.8 GT/s interface speed.


that is why.



The way you OC the 920/940 is purely through bclk rather than mclk however which means your QPI speed is going to scale more with a higher OC than the unlocked 965 will. Check that link on my previous post where it says the QPI for the 4.27 OCed 965 is 177MHz whereas the 920 would be running at 217MHz at the same clock. You might get an extra 6-7% out of the core, but the QPI will be slower (still not really a limiting factor though) so the overall difference will be negligible for a $700 price difference. The 920 is the new Q6600 only better.

At this stage, the major limiting factor for OCing these babies seems to be a good motherboard with up to date bios and that has not been an intel mobo at this stage. Add to that the fact that you limit yourself to 4 DIMMs rather than the 6 found on all of the other X58 boards and you are contradicting the top end choices in every other slot of your configuration. Not sure if the company you are buying from has the option for other mobos, but IMO 965 - 920 < good mobo - intel mobo.

Cheers

[puppychow]

The only reason I wouldn't buy the "extreme edition" is that in 1 year there will be new i7s that are 30-50% faster and cost 50% less. The shelf life for top-end CPUs is horribly short, unless you are writing it off as a business expense it usually is not a great bang for the buck.

Also keep in mind there are persistent rumors that Intel may release a new LGA pin config next year - i7 is 1366, they may release a 1066 or something slightly smaller. imo future proofing is never a good idea, I'd rather buy a new case/PS/mobo/memory/video card every 16-24 months (and sell/donate your old one) than try and jam new CPUs into old motherboards every 12 months. The $500 I'd save between a 920 and 940 right now I could use into buying a new i7 in 18 months.

The things I've read on OCP about the 920 i7 make me pretty happy, people are OCing it to near 4ghz on air and its performing great. Now of course the only real hardcore things I do on my PC are play 5 WoWs and watch blurays, both of which are fine on a core2duo and so the low end i7 will be fine for me. I probably will go that route over the q9550, since for just $400 more you get a CPU that is much better.

[weeep]

Multiboxed WoW is not CPU limited. I've never seen my Q9550@3.6GHz loaded higher than 80%, usually it is around 50-60%. I'm running 5 box with 2560x1600 res on main screen and 1280x1024 secondary screen, and the ONLY thing that raises my fps is lowering graphic settings. I have 4870 1Gb and even though my slaves are running at lowest possible res with lowest details (slightly lowered high settings for main), GPU load is always at 100%. I'd say that getting more GPU power is more important.

[Nairi]

Multiboxed WoW is not CPU limited. I've never seen my Q9550@3.6GHz loaded higher than 80%, usually it is around 50-60%. I'm running 5 box with 2560x1600 res on main screen and 1280x1024 secondary screen, and the ONLY thing that raises my fps is lowering graphic settings. I have 4870 1Gb and even though my slaves are running at lowest possible res with lowest details (slightly lowered high settings for main), GPU load is always at 100%. I'd say that getting more GPU power is more important.A Q9550 is a great cpu, you need a good balance of CPU/GPU. Downgrade your cpu to a Q6600 and tell me how that goes.
are you using dualview? spanned? vista?

im currently using 8800GTS 640MB/9600GT 512MB/Q6600 to quadbox, using both videocards give me a small boost in fps but not huge.
Places with high mob/people concentration is more of a cpu limitation than gpu.

[Multibocks]

I'm still waiting for vigorgaming to introduce a new setup with more options. I was told by the end of this week we should see more stuff up there, I'm having trouble waiting. You can buy this rig on Cyberpower for about 700 less... but that's cyberpower and I really haven't had a good experience with them.

[Nairi]

I'm still waiting for vigorgaming to introduce a new setup with more options. I was told by the end of this week we should see more stuff up there, I'm having trouble waiting. You can buy this rig on Cyberpower for about 700 less... but that's cyberpower and I really haven't had a good experience with them.build it your self. :thumbsup:

[algol]

Cyberpower is fail, that is all.

[Nitro]

Multiboxed WoW is not CPU limited. I've never seen my Q9550@3.6GHz loaded higher than 80%, usually it is around 50-60%. I'm running 5 box with 2560x1600 res on main screen and 1280x1024 secondary screen, and the ONLY thing that raises my fps is lowering graphic settings. I have 4870 1Gb and even though my slaves are running at lowest possible res with lowest details (slightly lowered high settings for main), GPU load is always at 100%. I'd say that getting more GPU power is more important.A Q9550 is a great cpu, you need a good balance of CPU/GPU. Downgrade your cpu to a Q6600 and tell me how that goes.
are you using dualview? spaned? vista?

im currently using 8800GTS 640MB/9600GT 512MB/Q6600 to quadbox, using both videocards give me a small boost in fps but not huge.
Places with high mob/people concentration is more of a cpu limitation then gpu.

I've been upgrading all kinds of stuff trying to reduce heavy city lag. Even purchased a GTX 280 SSC and saw no real gains, Just about the only thing left for me to upgrade is my Q6700

[Multibocks]

Cyberpower is fail, that is all.
yes, I've read of people asking for a oc'd cpu on their setup and receiving it stock... my computer crashes about once a day (first and last cyberpower purchase).

[Multibocks]

I'm still waiting for vigorgaming to introduce a new setup with more options. I was told by the end of this week we should see more stuff up there, I'm having trouble waiting. You can buy this rig on Cyberpower for about 700 less... but that's cyberpower and I really haven't had a good experience with them.build it your self. :thumbsup:

after working on my current computer for 100+hours I am officially tired. I just want someone to make it work right from the start, and I'm willing to pay for that.

[not5150]

The current crop of Core i7 are 4 physical cores with hyperthreading to make it look like 8 logical cores.

And previous posters are correct in that multiboxing is not cpu limited. Your current quad-core LGA775 Core 2's are more than adequate for the job. If you're experiencing slow downs, it's your graphics card and i/o.

[Multibocks]

adequate being keyword.

Look I'm not looking for "adequate" - I'm looking for the most badass computer you can assemble (short of the Skulltrail stuff) for a reasonable price (4k is reasonable to me.) As for your response to it's 8 cores the hyperthreading isn't vaporware this time, check a few articles on it most of what I have read says that the editors are actually impressed this time around.

[not5150]

Heh, you really don't know where I work do you? :)

You want to spend serious bucks on the newest gear... I understand that. I've gone down that road before.

But, you'll soon find a point of diminishing returns and the Core i7 won't be the silver bullet that you are looking for. I know, I'm staring at a few Core i7 cpus/mobos at work and a shiny new Falcon Northwest machine. Great for video rendering, but guess what folks still laggy in Shatt because of ... you got it ... a hard drive.

Good chip, yup. But multiboxing WoW isn't CPU limited, especially with regular quad-core. You may get a few frames per second increase. If this justifies spending the thousands of bucks on a new machine, then more power to you.

[puppychow]

Please Please Please please visit Dalaran with your current config and 5 box, and then visit Dalaran when you get your i7. I would love to hear what the difference turns out to be. I'm finding cities in Northrend, even small ones like Vengeance Landing but especially Dalaran, lag to hell and back 5 boxing. I get 40-50 FPS on my 2 year old dual core in most of Northrend, but it drops to 5 fps and lower in Dalaran :(

Also you may want to seriously look at the new Intel SSDs, the price is dropping to under $500 for the 80GB model Nov 30th I believe. Its supposed to be really awesome, and you can even put the OS on it. I think this is the MLC, the SLCs are due out next year? dunno. Multi vs single layer, don't really know what that means though, I assume the way the data is stored on the drive.

[Noids99]

mmm and even better than the intel ssd is the ioxtreme aka gamer iodrive. Not out until next year, but this will hopefully make city lag a thing of the past.

Cheers

[weeep]

Multiboxed WoW is not CPU limited. I've never seen my Q9550@3.6GHz loaded higher than 80%, usually it is around 50-60%. I'm running 5 box with 2560x1600 res on main screen and 1280x1024 secondary screen, and the ONLY thing that raises my fps is lowering graphic settings. I have 4870 1Gb and even though my slaves are running at lowest possible res with lowest details (slightly lowered high settings for main), GPU load is always at 100%. I'd say that getting more GPU power is more important.A Q9550 is a great cpu, you need a good balance of CPU/GPU. Downgrade your cpu to a Q6600 and tell me how that goes.
are you using dualview? spanned? vista?

im currently using 8800GTS 640MB/9600GT 512MB/Q6600 to quadbox, using both videocards give me a small boost in fps but not huge.
Places with high mob/people concentration is more of a cpu limitation than gpu.Yes, I did upgrade from Q6600 and the performance gain is not that great. You are probably using it at default clock and mine was overclocked to 3.2GHz. I did the upgrade because of huge L2 cache and better overclocking capabilities (current 3.6GHz is mobo limited, I'm sure it can hit 4GHz with something better). If you are against overclocking then yes, current inexpensive quads are not enough to run 5box smoothly in major cities at default clock, and same priced core i7 should do better.
I'm running it on vista64 with desktop extended to 2nd monitor and my slave windows on it.

[Multibocks]

Heh, you really don't know where I work do you? :)

You want to spend serious bucks on the newest gear... I understand that. I've gone down that road before.

But, you'll soon find a point of diminishing returns and the Core i7 won't be the silver bullet that you are looking for. I know, I'm staring at a few Core i7 cpus/mobos at work and a shiny new Falcon Northwest machine. Great for video rendering, but guess what folks still laggy in Shatt because of ... you got it ... a hard drive.

Good chip, yup. But multiboxing WoW isn't CPU limited, especially with regular quad-core. You may get a few frames per second increase. If this justifies spending the thousands of bucks on a new machine, then more power to you.

Actually pricing up a quad core with similar mobo and ram is more than the i7 I want to get. Another thing is I plan to buy the intel MLC drive from newegg when I get my comp just for my wow folder.

[puppychow]

Yes, I did upgrade from Q6600 and the performance gain is not that great. You are probably using it at default clock and mine was overclocked to 3.2GHz. I did the upgrade because of huge L2 cache and better overclocking capabilities (current 3.6GHz is mobo limited, I'm sure it can hit 4GHz with something better). If you are against overclocking then yes, current inexpensive quads are not enough to run 5box smoothly in major cities at default clock, and same priced core i7 should do better.
I'm running it on vista64 with desktop extended to 2nd monitor and my slave windows on it.

What kind of FPS do you get when you are in Dalaran on your multibox team? I currently get between 4-8FPS on a c2duo @ 2.4ghz (OC'd), 8800GT w/ 512MB, and OCZ SSD with the data folder on it. Used to get around 30 FPS in Shattrah same rig too. This is with video settings on all windows lowered as far as they will go too :(

It'd be great to build some data points so we can see how much FPS c2duos, Q6600s, Q9550s, and I7's do in Dalaran, and what effects CPUs, GPUs and SSDs have on it.

[weeep]

Yes, I did upgrade from Q6600 and the performance gain is not that great. You are probably using it at default clock and mine was overclocked to 3.2GHz. I did the upgrade because of huge L2 cache and better overclocking capabilities (current 3.6GHz is mobo limited, I'm sure it can hit 4GHz with something better). If you are against overclocking then yes, current inexpensive quads are not enough to run 5box smoothly in major cities at default clock, and same priced core i7 should do better.
I'm running it on vista64 with desktop extended to 2nd monitor and my slave windows on it.

What kind of FPS do you get when you are in Dalaran on your multibox team? I currently get between 4-8FPS on a c2duo @ 2.4ghz (OC'd), 8800GT w/ 512MB, and OCZ SSD with the data folder on it. Used to get around 30 FPS in Shattrah same rig too. This is with video settings on all windows lowered as far as they will go too :(Not in Dalaran yet, but I was getting around 50 fps in Shattrah and Org mailbox even in peak hours on high pop server. I'll try and check it because your results are quite surprising

[weeep]

BTW I dont think that hard drive is an issue if you use symlinking for all accounts. I'm using regular HDD and 8Gb ram with page file turned off and I dont experience any extreme HDD activity. Loading times are almost instant (I have only 1 addon for slaves and porting to Shatt or just initial loading takes like 2-3 seconds)

[Multibocks]

so this is strange, I've always thought of turning off pagefile, but this ('http://www.vistax64.com/vista-performance-maintenance/141260-turn-off-page-file.html') says it's a really bad idea. Enlighten me please!

[Freddie]

But, you'll soon find a point of diminishing returns and the Core i7 won't be the silver bullet that you are looking for. I know, I'm staring at a few Core i7 cpus/mobos at work and a shiny new Falcon Northwest machine. Great for video rendering, but guess what folks still laggy in Shatt because of ... you got it ... a hard drive.

Good chip, yup. But multiboxing WoW isn't CPU limited, especially with regular quad-core. You may get a few frames per second increase. If this justifies spending the thousands of bucks on a new machine, then more power to you.
Good advice. People pay too much attention to the adjectives when they read reviews (blinding speed! blistering improvement!) and not enough to the test details. The result is that they end up spending 100% extra for 15% more actual, visible performance on the applications that they use. It makes no sense.

I think it's better to buy stuff at the sweet spot. Spend maybe $1000-1500 for a system. Then you can afford to upgrade three times as often as the guy who spends three or four thou. I'm looking forward to owning an i7 but I'm probably going to build a Wolfdale next month. The price premium for i7 just isn't worth it at today's prices. It doesn't buy enough extra performance.

[weeep]

so this is strange, I've always thought of turning off pagefile, but this ('http://www.vistax64.com/vista-performance-maintenance/141260-turn-off-page-file.html') says it's a really bad idea. Enlighten me please!One more proof that MVP is a synonym for "retard". You can safely turn off pagefile with 8Gb RAM, you'll never ever see any message that you dont have enough memory. I've been using my system without pagefile for at least 5 years and it never caused any inconveniences.

[Nairi]

The current crop of Core i7 are 4 physical cores with hyperthreading to make it look like 8 logical cores.

And previous posters are correct in that multiboxing is not cpu limited. Your current quad-core LGA775 Core 2's are more than adequate for the job. If you're experiencing slow downs, it's your graphics card and i/o.

Heh, you really don't know where I work do you? :)

You want to spend serious bucks on the newest gear... I understand that. I've gone down that road before.

But, you'll soon find a point of diminishing returns and the Core i7 won't be the silver bullet that you are looking for. I know, I'm staring at a few Core i7 cpus/mobos at work and a shiny new Falcon Northwest machine. Great for video rendering, but guess what folks still laggy in Shatt because of ... you got it ... a hard drive.

Good chip, yup. But multiboxing WoW isn't CPU limited, especially with regular quad-core. You may get a few frames per second increase. If this justifies spending the thousands of bucks on a new machine, then more power to you.

Hard drive i/o or the whole cpu/mobo i/o?

i7 increases i/o proformance with built in memory controller, this allows for more head room for GPUS and devices...
Lets not forget the tripple channel DDR3.

instead of going back and forth with this 'its not the cpu its the gpu' lets see some benchmarks people.

btw hard drive i/o can easily be avoided get some ultra fast ssd with crazy i/o or multiple harddrives per sessions.

[not5150]

The current crop of Core i7 are 4 physical cores with hyperthreading to make it look like 8 logical cores.

And previous posters are correct in that multiboxing is not cpu limited. Your current quad-core LGA775 Core 2's are more than adequate for the job. If you're experiencing slow downs, it's your graphics card and i/o.

Heh, you really don't know where I work do you? :)

You want to spend serious bucks on the newest gear... I understand that. I've gone down that road before.

But, you'll soon find a point of diminishing returns and the Core i7 won't be the silver bullet that you are looking for. I know, I'm staring at a few Core i7 cpus/mobos at work and a shiny new Falcon Northwest machine. Great for video rendering, but guess what folks still laggy in Shatt because of ... you got it ... a hard drive.

Good chip, yup. But multiboxing WoW isn't CPU limited, especially with regular quad-core. You may get a few frames per second increase. If this justifies spending the thousands of bucks on a new machine, then more power to you.

Hard drive i/o or the whole cpu/mobo i/o?

i7 increases i/o proformance with built in memory controller, this allows for more head room for GPUS and devices...
Lets not forget the tripple channel DDR3.

instead of going back and forth with this 'its not the cpu its the gpu' lets see some benchmarks people.

btw hard drive i/o can easily be avoided get some ultra fast ssd with crazy i/o or multiple harddrives per sessions.Hard drive i/o. I know the i7 has a built-in memory controller.

As the previous poster said, go for the sweet spot. Buy the gear that will get you the most overall performance increase for your buck.

Spending $2500 to $3000 on a new Core i7 system for maybe 10% to 30% frame rate increase doesn't make sense to me when I can buy a $600 SSD to get the same effective performance increase. Your system is only as fast as the slowest component and don't let any shiny marketing exec tell you otherwise.

The rules change if you have unlimited money. When you're in that situation, then go buy the i7 AND an SSD and rock on.

In the business we have something called "Vendor Kool-Aid". PR and marketing dangle something shiny in your face and they want you to write a certain way. Critical thinking and skepticism goes a long in countering that.

[Nairi]

The current crop of Core i7 are 4 physical cores with hyperthreading to make it look like 8 logical cores.

And previous posters are correct in that multiboxing is not cpu limited. Your current quad-core LGA775 Core 2's are more than adequate for the job. If you're experiencing slow downs, it's your graphics card and i/o.

Heh, you really don't know where I work do you? :)

You want to spend serious bucks on the newest gear... I understand that. I've gone down that road before.

But, you'll soon find a point of diminishing returns and the Core i7 won't be the silver bullet that you are looking for. I know, I'm staring at a few Core i7 cpus/mobos at work and a shiny new Falcon Northwest machine. Great for video rendering, but guess what folks still laggy in Shatt because of ... you got it ... a hard drive.

Good chip, yup. But multiboxing WoW isn't CPU limited, especially with regular quad-core. You may get a few frames per second increase. If this justifies spending the thousands of bucks on a new machine, then more power to you.

Hard drive i/o or the whole cpu/mobo i/o?

i7 increases i/o proformance with built in memory controller, this allows for more head room for GPUS and devices...
Lets not forget the tripple channel DDR3.

instead of going back and forth with this 'its not the cpu its the gpu' lets see some benchmarks people.

btw hard drive i/o can easily be avoided get some ultra fast ssd with crazy i/o or multiple harddrives per sessions.Hard drive i/o. I know the i7 has a built-in memory controller.

As the previous poster said, go for the sweet spot. Buy the gear that will get you the most overall performance increase for your buck.

Spending $2500 to $3000 on a new Core i7 system for maybe 10% to 30% frame rate increase doesn't make sense to me when I can buy a $600 SSD to get the same effective performance increase. Your system is only as fast as the slowest component and don't let any shiny marketing exec tell you otherwise.

The rules change if you have unlimited money. When you're in that situation, then go buy the i7 AND an SSD and rock on.

In the business we have something called "Vendor Kool-Aid". PR and marketing dangle something shiny in your face and they want you to write a certain way. Critical thinking and skepticism goes a long in countering that.what are you spewing about? dont judge the chip till you try it. 8o

[algol]

what are you spewing about? dont judge the chip till you try it. 8o
Need I elaborate upon how bad that reasoning is? Finding examples is almost trivial.

[not5150]

what are you spewing about? dont judge the chip till you try it. 8o/facepalm

We're going around in circles here, feel free to email me at humphrey (at) tomshardware.com. Also feel free to read our lovely reviews of the Core i7 on the same website.

[Nairi]

what are you spewing about? dont judge the chip till you try it. 8o/facepalm

We're going around in circles here, feel free to email me at humphrey (at) tomshardware.com. Also feel free to read our lovely reviews of the Core i7 on the same website.So thats where you work, benchmark some chips with multiboxing!

[weeep]

Multiboxed WoW is not CPU limited. I've never seen my Q9550@3.6GHz loaded higher than 80%, usually it is around 50-60%. I'm running 5 box with 2560x1600 res on main screen and 1280x1024 secondary screen, and the ONLY thing that raises my fps is lowering graphic settings. I have 4870 1Gb and even though my slaves are running at lowest possible res with lowest details (slightly lowered high settings for main), GPU load is always at 100%. I'd say that getting more GPU power is more important.I've visited Dalaran and this place is a real test for your multibox hardware. I had to lower graphic settings to get decent fps, but CPU load still is around 80-90% with rare short 100% spikes. I tried to overclock cpu up to 4GHz, but havent seen any real performance upgrade. The only way to get higher FPS for me is to lower graphic settings, so I still dont think that WoW is CPU limited even in Dalaran.

[Nairi]

Multiboxed WoW is not CPU limited. I've never seen my Q9550@3.6GHz loaded higher than 80%, usually it is around 50-60%. I'm running 5 box with 2560x1600 res on main screen and 1280x1024 secondary screen, and the ONLY thing that raises my fps is lowering graphic settings. I have 4870 1Gb and even though my slaves are running at lowest possible res with lowest details (slightly lowered high settings for main), GPU load is always at 100%. I'd say that getting more GPU power is more important.I've visited Dalaran and this place is a real test for your multibox hardware. I had to lower graphic settings to get decent fps, but CPU load still is around 80-90% with rare short 100% spikes. I tried to overclock cpu up to 4GHz, but havent seen any real performance upgrade. The only way to get higher FPS for me is to lower graphic settings, so I still dont think that WoW is CPU limited even in Dalaran.specs would be nice

[Hakaslak]

what I paid in the store.

299 i7 920
299 Asus P6T deluxe
449 3x 2x2GB DDR3 1600

1049, then you add on your PSU, case,if you need one, HDD, optical, and other stuff that you can usually pillage from your old computer

then I paid 549 x2 for the 4870x2 2GB, but im not sure they are working right with wow... on the contrary i got higher FPS on my 4850 512 =/

[Tsunami]

it's funny how people don't do their own research.

first the i7 chip cost the same as the quad core chip. so if your looking for a new system than go with the i7, it is crazy fast compared to the regular quad core.

second, all the i7 are basically the same chip. the 920 and 940 are the exact same chip, except the 940 is overclocked by intel for $300 more. so save some money and just buy the 920 and overclock it yourself. the 920 will still blow away any quad core in any speed test. the 965 has a 30% faster data transfer rate than the 920/940, but in today's world it is not worth the $700 price increase.

third, the i7 is so fast it you can save money on your video card. in all the speed tests i have seen comparing the quad core to the i7. the i7 was faster than the quad core and gpu combined. so you could run the cheapest video card you want and still be faster than a quad core set up. the i7 is so fast that the nvidea 280 actually had a much lower score(about half lower) with the i7 than with the quad core.

fourth, on problem with the i7 is providing enough data for the chip to process. so if you get this chip you should also get a raid0 setup or an SSD.
fifth. dell is selling an i7 for less than $1k. upgrade the memory to 6gb, add a 24in monitor and a 640gb raid0 and the cost is under $1,500.http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=dxcwzy4&c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&kc=productdetails~desktop-studioxps-435mt

[Hakaslak]

I wouldn't say it is crazy fast compared to a quad core...

in fact, the only benefit i got moving from a Q9450 with 4x 2GB dimms to my current i7 machine is having 12gb.

since the system uses over 8.7GB now multiboxing.

load times are very similar, if negligible. Especially since HT needs to be disabled..... the only difference would be the integrated memory controller and new architecture, which is not so much faster than a normal quad.

those are just my observations as a user, i did not do benchmarks and such. waste of time imo... if I can't tell the damn difference then it is not worth it, whatever vantage says.

case in point,

wow runs faster with a single 4870 over dual 4870 x2 crossfired.

but vantage shat itself in the extreme presetting with smooth(!) benchies.

45nm quads are comparable, at most a couple fps behind. though I attribute that to the new architecture as a whole than the i7 itself.

but, if you are using a dual core or a phenom, good upgrade.

and about dell, needs 12GB ram, not 6, and that monitor is terribad. get the ultrasharp.

and for some reason....... i am curious about your bit with the i7 > 45nm quad + gpu....... i just stuck a ATI Radeon 7000 in my computer and crashed loading dalaran.... wtb videocard plox

[Tsunami]

my main point was if you are looking to buy a new computer. if you have a quad core than it would not be worth the money to upgrade. so i agree with you. but if you are looking to upgrade to a quad core than don't, go with the i7. they are both about the same price except for the cost of memory.

wow is not a very difficult game for a computer to run. i played it on my 3.5 year old g4 mac mini just fine. playing on my g5 macbook was not much of an improvement. mostly if your harddrive is fast enough and you have sufficient memory, almost any intel 2 core will be able to multibox wow.

once you meet the recommended system requirements everything over that is over kill. running 5 wow's really means you need more ram and faster hard drives. not the fastest cpu on the market. but if you thinking about buying the quad than get the i7.

[Viezefur]

I just built a complete new system with: Gigabyte EX58-UD5, Core i7 920 (clocked to 3.6), 2 x 1TB Samsung F1 (Raid0), 3 x 1GB OCZ 1330MHz DDR3, Radeon X4870 X2

Man, I wished that I had read this forum before I bought the 3 x 1GB RAM. 5 boxing is completely worthless with this. It keeps crashing every 5 mins. Processors are running at 50-60% but memory is maxed out all the time.

:(

*drags himself to the shop on monday to get more RAM

[turbonapkin]

For comparison against Hakaslak's i7 observations:

On my new rig, HT does not need to be disabled as it makes no discernable difference to wow or multiboxing when enabled or disabled.

System uses up to 4.5 gig when multiboxing 5 through quests and visiting cities. I expect that to jump dramatically when i am 80 and actively pvping again, at which point i will purchase another 6 gig to total 12.

The use of a raid0 ssd setup has a profound effect on city areas, other areas with high texture count. No i7 required to achieve this of course. Loading times are not noticeably different in wow, however in general windows use (logging in, firing up a browser etc.) the difference is again profound.

The combination of i7, greater memory bandwidth and much greater random write access via the ssd results in a fantastic 5 on one pc experience when coupled with a top line graphics card.

For those looking at improving performance purely for multiboxing i would recommend the ssd. For those who need a full system upgrade (as i did) i would recommend i7 for future-proofing. I think its very important to understand which bracket you fall into when considering i7.

[Tdawg2008]

I'm about to order, just waiting on an email response from vigor gaming. Anyways my setup:

<clip>
MB CORE LOGIC Intel DX58SO "SmackOver" Intel X58 Triple Channel DDR3 w/1600MHz & Gen 2 Crossfire
MEMORY 3GB Kingston HyperX KHX11000D3LLK3/3GX CL7 DDR3 1375MHz Memory (3 X 1024MB)
<clip>
Price: $4439.00
<clip>


gief more RAM plz, ok?

DDR3 ram though...

[Noids99]

For comparison against Hakaslak's i7 observations:

On my new rig, HT does not need to be disabled as it makes no discernable difference to wow or multiboxing when enabled or disabled.

System uses up to 4.5 gig when multiboxing 5 through quests and visiting cities. I expect that to jump dramatically when i am 80 and actively pvping again, at which point i will purchase another 6 gig to total 12.

The use of a raid0 ssd setup has a profound effect on city areas, other areas with high texture count. No i7 required to achieve this of course. Loading times are not noticeably different in wow, however in general windows use (logging in, firing up a browser etc.) the difference is again profound.

The combination of i7, greater memory bandwidth and much greater random write access via the ssd results in a fantastic 5 on one pc experience when coupled with a top line graphics card.

For those looking at improving performance purely for multiboxing i would recommend the ssd. For those who need a full system upgrade (as i did) i would recommend i7 for future-proofing. I think its very important to understand which bracket you fall into when considering i7.
Out of interest, which SSD are you using? I have heard the controllers on the OCZs can cause some major stuttering in small, fast, write situations like outlook express or lots of caching, so interested to know if you are using intel SSDs which apparently address this problem.

Cheers

[turbonapkin]

Noids,

OCZ Core V2 60GB, 2 in raid0 (i.e. the cheaper stuff). This is my only storage on the pc, used for OS and other media.

If you read here ('http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=46690') you'll see my benches on the OCZ forum. Others with similar i7 setup have experienced similar results.

Both the V1 and V2 Cores use a JMicron controller which is known to be extremely bad at memory handling for small file write performance, causing the freezing and in worst cases complete drive failure you will have heard of. I have never experienced these problems.

I have had very good experiences with this SSD coupled with the Intel ICH10R controller on an i7 mobo and XP x64, but many others have had nothing but trouble. As it is hit and miss, I would not recommend even the Core V2 drives but would advise anyone interested in SSD to wait for the upcoming Samsung or A-Data consumer products, which should help to drive down the price of the reputed Intel X-series drives, which I would have purchased if I could have afforded it!

[blast3r]

I got the new Gateway FX6800 ( i know, crappy gateway but my old system crashed). For them to call this a gaming computer then give you just 3 gigs of ram is a joke. My ram upgrade is on the way! Overall outside of the low memory it runs pretty good. What amazes me most about this system is lack of a hard drive light. If I start lagging a bit I like to look at the HD activity but with this I can't.

[puppychow]

Noids,
OCZ Core V2 60GB, 2 in raid0 (i.e. the cheaper stuff). This is my only storage on the pc, used for OS and other media.


You put your OS on the OCZ Core2? That seemed like a bad idea to me. I have the same drive ($100 newegg deal, even got the rebate already!) and I only put my WoW data folder on it. If the Intel SSDs drop below $300 I'll definitely buy one to put Vista64 on it, but until then the OCZ SSDs seem to be best-suited for read-only data files.

When you are playing WoW, if you have enough ram there really should be minimal hard drive write-access going on. Maybe some minor OS background stuff, any browser stuff (cache, cookies, etc) you have going on. WoW itself should be doing virtually no hard drive writing -- the only folders it ever writes to are WTF (upon logout), cache (logout), errors, and logs.

imo the biggest and greatest bang for the buck you can make for WoW multiboxing is more and more and more memory. Once you get past the 6 (or 8?) gigs mark you basically have Vista64 not needing to ever page, Wow being loaded completely in memory and not having to page, and Vista will cache all your data folders as they are randomly accessed. A SSD is a nice little bonus for slight speedups of reading the data\ folder, but compared to having a ton of memory its the difference between a bike and a car.

It really sucks running XP, as I do now, since you are limited to 3GB and you are pretty much guaranteed to be swapping when in high-texture areas like dalaran, etc. Thats one place too where stuff like the i7 will help out a lot, since there will be a lot of texture map movement between the GPU, hard drive, and memory.

[turbonapkin]

Noids,
OCZ Core V2 60GB, 2 in raid0 (i.e. the cheaper stuff). This is my only storage on the pc, used for OS and other media.
You put your OS on the OCZ Core2? That seemed like a bad idea to me. With Intel's writeback cache enabled, it runs like a dream.

Getting back on topic, some new info ('http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10707&Itemid=1') on i7 regarding TLB - this could be a major downfall for the first revision of chips, much like the TLB issue seen on specific revisions of the Phenom. If anyone has more info please post.

edit: Looks like much ado about nothing ('http://www.dvhardware.net/article31640.html') - worth keeping an eye on this though!