Switching from 1 PC to 5 PCs, need some advice on these builds.

[bryce]

So, I haven't technically started boxing yet, but I have a feeling I'd get more reaction time with 5 seperate PCs then 1 fully decked out one. So, I've started planning this build (x4 of course). What do you think of them? These will only be used for WoW and when I'm not using them for that, they'll for Folding@Home.

New Build x4

Case: Antec Twelve Hundred Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case - Retail
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3LR LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 2.5GHz LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80580Q8300 - Retail
Video Card: EVGA 512-P3-N879-AR GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail
Memory: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Desktop Memory Model F2-8500CL5D-4GBPQ - Retail
Power Supply: Antec Signature SG650 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply - Retail
Hard Drive: Seagate SV35.3 ST3500320SV 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Monitor: Acer X193Wb Black 19" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor - Retail
Monitor Stands: Could anyone recommend some good ones for me?


For current PC

Monitor: Acer X243Wbd Black 24" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor - Retail x2

Total for this build four times plus the two 24" monitors comes to $4,987.62

At the rate I'm going right now, I should have all this setup by no later than March. But enough of that, anyone think these would do fine for running WoW on them and the Folding@Home the other times I'm not playing WoW. Or are they a bit overkill?

[Owltoid]

Wow, I think my new single PC (cost 1700 w/o monitor) will be overkill... you're talking about desecrating the body at this point. You could easily 10 man with 5 PCs of that power.

[bryce]

Well, right now the current PC I just finished building ran me about $1500ish I think. But I did get a lot of rebates, etc so that helped a bit and the fact that it took nearly 5 months to get together. But I'm doing a little better now so me being the geek I am I'm like, time for another PC Build, so why not make it 4 builds. My current PC is below just to average it out. I'm considering running the current PC as a server and pull each WoW client off of it so that I just have one PC to update, etc.

Current PC
Intel C2D E8400 @3.8ghz, 8gb RAM, GeForce GTX260 896mb GFX, 750gb hard drive.

The monitors will be arranged like so...

B A D
C A E

Do you really consider it overkill though?

[Owltoid]

I'm probably next to the last guy you'd want to ask hardware advice from so I'll defer to the experts. To put it another way, I'll be very disappointed if my new rig can't handle 5 WoWs with relative ease and was much less expensive than the combined 4 you're talking about. Freddie (Hotkeynet) probably had the best idea for a 5-box and his specs cost much less than 1700. Who knows, maybe you'll want to 10 box in which case you'll be set up for it nicely!

[Ken]

There's absolutely no use to have those specs x4 to run WoW only x4 or x5!
I suggest one of 2 options:

1) Scale the system specs down (see below):
- 2GB RAM per system is more than enough (that could alread run 2 instances of WoW, but it's better to have some space left for the OS)
- A single core or dual core processor is more than enough (a decent dual core can easily run 4 instances by itself!)
- GF9800 is overkill, unless you want to play heavier games .. then again, you could put a 9800 on your main machine and have lesser cards on the remaining WoW PCs

2) Slightly increase the specs and run all clients on 1 PC that:
- has a bit more memory (6-8GB depending on the OS and software you run besides WoW)
- and perhaps (optionally) 2 videocards(with compatible motherboard) if you want 4 screens attached, but 1 big screen with 1 video card works fine too.

I suggest the latter option.
As a reference: I ran 5 clients at 30fps and mid-to-high settings on an intel quad core 2.67GHz with 8GB RAM and GF7900GTX. CPU load is at about 60% and memory load(after a while of playing) is at about 50-75% if I recall correctly). The video card is a bit light though, as sometimes the framerate drops in highly populated areas.

[Freddie]

You're spending much more money than necessary in order to test whether separate PCs are better. Suggested test method below. Also. even if it turns out that separate PCs are better, a PC with one WoW can't use four cores and doesn't need such a big power supply but on the other hand it would probably benefit from RAID and/or SSD and possibly a faster video card.

To test the idea, for comparison purposes, I'd suggest buying one QXXXX CPU and putting it in your current build so you can compare. Overclock it like your current chip. Try five WoWs on it. Get a feel for the responsiveness. Then drop the E8400 back in and try one WoW on it at your current 3.8 GHz. That's what each WoW will feel like on a separate PC. If you still think it's worth it to build five PCs, go ahead but use dual cores and smaller power supplies and consider also that you'll have a lot of hard disk latency when WoW loads files with both alternatives unless you invest in RAID and/or solid state drives. It doesn't seem like you're concerned with saving money ($200 cases?) but if you are, RAID/SSDs will be a lot more affordable if you put them in a single box instead of five.

[bryce]

I tend to go overboard for computers, I guess it's just my nature. But anyways, you're right about quad-cores being to much for it. I'm gonna go look at dual core prices again and swap those out. 2GB of RAM running two WoW at once? I find that hard to imagine. My old PC lagged like hell running 2 WoW's on 1gb RAM, but I guess double would be better. But the old one also had Vista Ultimate on it lol. I was looking at cheaper cases, but I'm like $50 more per case didn't seem like a lot, but now looking at it again it does. I could just build a homemade 'rack' that just houses a motherboard, video card, memory, cpu, and a power supply that feeds all 4 computers. That could be an option and just bring the WoW's into memory from a server.

Thanks for the thoughts.

[bryce]

I've got like 3 15-30a breakers I think is what my dad put in for my room. Not sure, eletrical stuff isn't my thing. But yea, It already stays really hot in my room and that's with my fan running 24/7. It does nothing for the heat now :(

Anyways, I'm off to look at a way to get costs down some more lol.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Processor clock speed is more important the number of cores. Get a fast dual core. I run 5 instances of wow on a machine worse then yours. You can also downgrade the video to 9600. I am thinking of geting 32G SSD though look at the other threads in the hardware section. Stick with 4G, ram is to cheap to be cheap on it right now.

15-30a lol ... don't try and change the breakers yurself.

I use big typoon (thermaltake) heat sink and their 700w powersupplies can be had for $89 referb (well a few months ago) from their site.

[succulent]

I'm a big fan of the hardware approach. I started by software boxing and there are (solvable but in my case annoying) issues with capitol city lag, key press fowarding lag, etc that you completely avoid by going full-hardware. Also I really didn't like relying on a piece of software for key multiplexing.

IMO your secondary machines don't have to be all that uber. I would recommend more than 2g ram; 3 of my slave machines all have 4gb, the last has only 2, and this last is dramatically slower to zone into Dalaran on login or hearthing. This has everything to do with system ram available as two of my slave machines are Mac Minis with piss-poor video cards and laptop hard drives, but 4gb system memory, and they zone in just fine. Your main machine will of course be where you spend the money on video card etc.

Other than that I didn't really overthink it much, and haven't had any problems. Synergy is the only software in my mix (for easy clicking around). I use a Logitech wireless keyboard with 5 receivers all set to the same channel. Profit.

[Freddie]

I tend to go overboard for computers, I guess it's just my nature.
Seems to me there are two different ways of going overboard. One way is you pay a big premium for a small amount of additional performance. Lots of people here do that. They spend maybe twice as much for a build that gives them a 30% higher frame rate or something of the sort. These people are definitely getting something for the extra money, athough if they waited a year they could buy the faster machine without spending more money... then many of them could afford to upgrade more frequently and they would end up with higher performance on average over time. But the bottom line is, they're getting something for the extra money.

But there's another way of going overboard where you spend more and get absolutely nothing. Zero performance increase. That just doesn't make sense to me. Some things in that category are faster CPUs for video-bottlenecked games, quad core CPUs for systems used only to run single instances of games, extra RAM when your system isn't generating page faults with its current RAM, power supplies that are much bigger than the amount of power your PC draws at full load, etc.

The first way, you're climbing up the price curve past the sweet spot and getting diminishing returns. The second way, you're burning money.


2GB of RAM running two WoW at once?
I don't understand where the 2 GB number comes from -- didn't you write 8 GB in your current build? -- but you can look at the number of hard page faults generated by your application (called "hard faults/sec" on Resource Monitor) and see whether there will be a benefit from more RAM. If your system generates zero hard page faults while your app is running then more RAM won't do anything.


I was looking at cheaper cases, but I'm like $50 more per case didn't seem like a lot, but now looking at it again it does. I could just build a homemade 'rack' that just houses a motherboard, video card, memory, cpu, and a power supply that feeds all 4 computers.
I use individual rackmount cases from Newegg for about $70. Plain, no frills, industrial, extremely sturdy.

[Ken]

Processor clock speed is more important the number of cores. Get a fast dual core.
Indeed, a fast dual core can easily run 5 instances at a decent framerate and with mid-to-high settings.
On the other hand: a fast dual core costs probably as much as a cheaper quad core(around $200?) ... and having your quad core at a lower load is always nice (in relation to temperature, power usage and fan noise).

[bryce]

@Freddie: People were saying use 2gb of RAM in the secondary machines. And I'm like Sam, why bother, RAM's super cheap nowadays.

[Freddie]

Oh sorry I missed that.

[Yo-Yo Freak]

another thing to factor in is weather you want to go full hardware (KVM switch and multiplexer) or software to broadcast to all the computers. vetra has an 8 port KVM switch and multiplexer ('http://vetra.com/808B_text.html') for about $360+, probably the cheapest one around.

as for the computers you put together... well.. i would have thought you were going to start 25 boxing. you can easily make a computer more then capable of boxing 1 or 2 instances of WoW for under $500. just some food for thought. also go dual or single core. 2G of RAM is enough to run 1 instance but RAM is so cheap you might as well get 4G if you ever decide to go 10 boxing. you don't have to buy a GPU, there are plenty of MoBo's out there with onboar graphics that can handle 1 or 2 instances of WoW for around $150. you would probably only need a 400w PSU to run the slave machiens, maybe less. if you want a nice, cheap case, get the Antec 300 ('http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042&Tpk=antec%20300'). if you are only going to be using these for wow then you only need an 80G HDD but for only like $10 more you can get a 160G one and that will be just fine. you only need like 17" monitors, you can find those easy for around $80, maybe less.

basicly you are spending WAY too much for what you want. wow is not a very graphicly demanding game. it can run smoothly on just about anything.

Hope this helps some ^_^

~YYF

[pinotnoir]

I changed from running wow x 5 on 1 q6600 system to running 2 pc's and its great. My main pc is an i7 920 and it runs 3 wows. My other two wows are run of fmy q6600 system. So far it works really nice. I think two pc is all you need. Doing 5 pc's is just a waste I think.

[Owltoid]

I changed from running wow x 5 on 1 q6600 system to running 2 pc's and its great. My main pc is an i7 920 and it runs 3 wows. My other two wows are run of fmy q6600 system. So far it works really nice. I think two pc is all you need. Doing 5 pc's is just a waste I think.

Why aren't you running all 5 on the i7?

[Herc130]

I've got like 3 15-30a breakers I think is what my dad put in for my room. Not sure, eletrical stuff isn't my thing. But yea, It already stays really hot in my room and that's with my fan running 24/7. It does nothing for the heat now :(

Anyways, I'm off to look at a way to get costs down some more lol.

I didn't read too much farther down, but had to LOL here. You build what you listed at top, your dad is gonna kill you when he see's the next electrical bill lol. Not exactly enegry efficient builds considering all it has to do.

[Ishar]

LOL, well, just because he refers to his dad putting the breakers there doesn't necessarily mean his dad pays the power bill. hehe.

still, it does sound pretty funny with the way he phrased it.

Honestly though; if his dad is still paying the bills, and lets him buy 4 quad cores, well,i doubt his dad would bat an eyelash at the power bill. (And if he himself can afford 4 quad cores, he can probably afford to pay the difference on the power bill as well, hehe.)

In all seriouness, for the 'boxed' machines buy a cheap 50 or so dollar amd dual core processor, 2 gigs of cheapish ram, and a cheap mobo. You wont be looking at the chars 90% of the time, and when you do look, you just glance at them. Seriously, their performance does not matter. (Unless your planning to pull a Sam or Prepared.) Honestly, I spent maybe 400 bucks per machine and i think I could 10box without any signifigant upgrades. Granted, the performance on the 8 'slaves' wouldn't be all that hot, but who cares.

[bryce]

I do pay some of our power bill. But the good thing is most of it gets written off as a business expense due to work so yay for that I guess. Y'all made me think a second on the build, time to downgrade or just wait a little while longer until I need em all.