Building a 5 Box CPU Question

[Twyman]

Ok i am reading to take the plung into building my CPU. I have built a handful of computers in the past. I am looking to build a computer that can handle 5 WoW accounts open at the same time, vent, keyclones, and maybe a couple websites. All of that without lagging at all in a Raid, Dalaran or PvP (espesally Wintersgrasp).

Here is what i have so far:

I have a tower already: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811156173

I have the monitors already (6 of them): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824021019



Ok on to the new parts i am probably going to get:

The mother board: http://www.tyan.com/product_SKU_spec.aspx?ProductType=MB&pid=641&SKU=600000074

The CPU (getting 2 of them): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202

The Video Cards (getting 3 of them): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150386

The RAM (gettting 3 sets/18gb total): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220378

I have not looked into what power supply i should get yet.

I am going to get a some SSDs but i am unsure if i should set them up in raid 0 or not. If i put the OS on its own drive and each WoW client on its own Drive would that be better then just putting them all on one Raid 0 setup and running all the WoW accounts and OS on off this the one Raid 0 setup (with 6 SSDs)?

The therory is, if you run in raid 0 the read/write time gets added together for each drive. 1 Drive is 200 read speed, 2 would be 400 speed and soo on.... But if you are running 5 accounts off the same file in on your raid 0 drives. You will be reading the same parts of the Drive when you accessing the WoW file with 5 accounts. Is that a pro or a con??? Maybe put it in raid 0 and install WoW in a couple of diffrent places on the OS???

Thank you for any thoughts you might have.

Twyman

[jag989]

That is quite overkill in all honestly. One of those processors would be more than enough regardless of where you are/what you're doing. Additionally, running multiple video cards won't improve your performance as WoW does not utilize SLI or Crossfire. As far as RAM goes, 12gb would be my recommendation - running 5 copies of WoW in Northrend and the usual vent, web browsers, and IM takes about 5-7 gigs on Vista.

With an SSD, access time is no longer an issue as it is with traditional disks. I run two copies of the game on mine simply for the convenience with addon configurations but it isn't necessary.

Bottom line though, if you're looking to spend that much cash, I would recommend going for the EE i7 chip (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115200) and just one,**maybe** two, video cards. 'Bottomer' line though, you don't need to :)

[Momo]

Nice rig design you have there.

But for five boxing, sorry but there is no other way to put it, its overkill.

For five boxing, a single, higher end graphics card like a GTX275, 285 or the ATI 4870,4890 or 4870x2, with six to eight gig of memory, will eat 5 x wow for breakfast.

An i7 would be fine, yet so would an E8500 or E8600. The latter offer rediculous bang for your buck and overclock ability.

Seriously, you could twenty box on the rig you have designed there lol.

I have what I consider a "decent" system.
Q9550
8gig GOOD ddr2 1600
HD4890 GPU.
SSD & raid array drives.

I can five box on that rig very easily. 30+ frames in Dalaran, 80+ on main screen out and about with the drone screens limited to 30fps.

A rig similar or even slightly higher that that is all you need for five boxing imo.

But that is just my opinion :P Best of luck with what you end up going with.

[gitcho]

I can five box on that rig very easily. 30+ frames in Dalaran, 80+ on main screen out and about with the drone screens limited to 30fps.
i'd love to know how you get 30fps in dalaran ... I 5box on a core i7 with 12gb fast RAM, 30GB SSD (only for wow - os on another drive), Asus 4850 512mb video card and I get 7-10 fps in dalaran.

[Drecan]

he is probably looking using the video cards for connection to the monitors, not to have a better running wow on 5 accounts. i wish wow didn't run just on one GPU cause my 2nd on my 4870x2 is feeling lonely unless i'm playing crysis

[Multibocks]

I can five box on that rig very easily. 30+ frames in Dalaran, 80+ on main screen out and about with the drone screens limited to 30fps.
i'd love to know how you get 30fps in dalaran ... I 5box on a core i7 with 12gb fast RAM, 30GB SSD (only for wow - os on another drive), Asus 4850 512mb video card and I get 7-10 fps in dalaran.

7-10?? Wow something is wrong. I get around 25-30 with the same setup... at least I remember it being that way.

[jag989]

I can five box on that rig very easily. 30+ frames in Dalaran, 80+ on main screen out and about with the drone screens limited to 30fps.
i'd love to know how you get 30fps in dalaran ... I 5box on a core i7 with 12gb fast RAM, 30GB SSD (only for wow - os on another drive), Asus 4850 512mb video card and I get 7-10 fps in dalaran.Your video card may be holding you back a tad, but not that much : / Do you have your core affinities set up either through WoW's config or your multiboxing software?

[Multibocks]

doh I just noticed the vid card, ya I run 2x 4870x2s. My bad!

[Momo]

I can five box on that rig very easily. 30+ frames in Dalaran, 80+ on main screen out and about with the drone screens limited to 30fps.
i'd love to know how you get 30fps in dalaran ... I 5box on a core i7 with 12gb fast RAM, 30GB SSD (only for wow - os on another drive), Asus 4850 512mb video card and I get 7-10 fps in dalaran.Your video card may be holding you back a tad, but not that much : / Do you have your core affinities set up either through WoW's config or your multiboxing software?Thats what I do. All four cores are used on each instance of wow....30fps+ in dalaran is most definately accurate and achievable.

[Frappuccino]

Definately an overkill IMHO.

I have a single 920 i7, 6gb ram, 2 vid cards (gtx280) and it all runs more or less flawlessly.
Slaves are all limited to 20fps and in dalaran only does it get strained. Wintergrasp can become pretty rough too but the servers lag out and make it unplayable anyway so *shrug* :P

The thing with WoW too, is performance doesn't really improve if you assign more than one physical CPU core to it. So two checks in the task manager probably is the same as 4 (two phsyical cores) since the game isnt designed to run over multiple cpus. This is assuming no other processes are assigned to those cores.
My core allocation is core 2-3 for main, 4-5 for two slave sessions, 6-7 for other two slave sessions.

Also keep in mind you'll need to change the primary monitor to one of the monitors on each physical card when you open up a new session. If you have 3 cards it's gonna get messy!



Edit - Would recommend 2vid cards and wide screens instead, makes the PC more usable for multimedia stuff / other games etc when you dont have to look at bezel lines everywhere, seeing as you're using keyclone n all.

[Sajuuk]

I'd say it's overkill.

But then...with that setup, you could use Folding@home, encode a couple dvds, and play wow at the same time.

But unless you're building this computer for something extremely resource-hungry(edit: other than multiboxing wow) I'd say tone it down.

If your heart is set on the six monitors, go for a less expensive card. A 260 will still eat wow up for breakfast.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150361

You're going to need a Xeon processor, as that IS a server motherboard, and it's what the motherboard supports. (Don't worry, it's still a Nehalem processor)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117186
HEATSINK/FAN NOT INCLUDED!

Now I'm not quite sure about the ram, someone with more server experience than me would need to step in. (Read my experience as: Zilch!)
Here's the kind of ram I THINK you'd need.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134944

Forget about using all of your three sets - the motherboard you want only has 8 DIMM slots for ram.

Your case does not match the form factor of the motherboard you wish to use.
If you have your heart set on a regular computer case and not a server chassis, this is the only motherboard in the regular case section of newegg that'll hold your motherboard. (Apparently SSI EEB, and EATX are similar, only some mounting holes won't line up correctly (Could be an issue))
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811121089
If you're willing to go to a server chassis, then this could work, among other things.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811192112

I don't even want to think about the PSU that would need, as it's a server motherboard, with two eight-pin and (Maybe)a four pin (In addition to the 24pin) power connectors, and NOT including the motherboard the 12V rails will need to be able to put out a combined amperage of 108A (Rough power requirements for 3x GTX260's. 120A for a 285. This is counting the power you could get from molex->PCI-E connectors)
[Pictures are misleading, photo shown has a 24, 2x8, and 4pin connectors, specs say 24-pin+2x8-pin connectors, gonna go by specs]

So you would need (VERY VERY ROUGH MATH!) Correct it, by all means.

CPU WATTAGE = 80W, PSU VOLTAGE = EPS12V = 12Volts. CPU Amperage: 6.66666666666666667A
Motherboard Usage = 130W. Approx Amerage for motherboard= 10.83333333333A
Approx Amerage for 3 GTX260s = 108A = (36A*3), = 3(18*2) = 108A
6.66+10.83+108= 125.49A power draw, not including memory/fans. But that could be included in the motherboard power draw.
125.49*12=1505.88W


So going by my rough math, for 3 260's you would need at a minimum a 1506W PSU.

This could work, but I don't think I'd trust it with some hard drives/optical drives added. (reasoning, if you need 108A on the 12V rail(s) for the graphics cards, and the power supply below can do 115A at the maximum. (On the 12V rails)
http://www.pcpower.com/power-supply/turbo-cool-1200.html

Either way, your psu will cost a nice bundle.

Please keep in mind power requirements will drop should you decide to get a less...demanding card. (Say, a couple ATI 4850s)


My head hurts. Can I have a cookie now?

[multiwowzer]

Here is my setup for wow. i know this is overkill but you gotta remember i used to 6 box eq2 with all settings full blast and it looked awesome.. each one of my pc' are exactly the same even monitors and keyboard mice..here are the specs**. I use to build pc's for a living back in the day and i think all together for each pc to build was$1500 so i have around $9k in my pc's and i upgrade them every year also, easy to do since i have my own home based business answering service with over 100 clients i make around $4800 a week.since i cannot leave my house to really do anything boxing is my fun time!

i use 6x pc'(acutally have 6 but use 5 since wow group is 5 toons)
**3.2 gighurtz quadcore
4 gigs of ram ocz fatality.. (my favorite ram to use.)
2x BFG GeForce GTX 295 Video
500 gig internal sata 2 hd 10,000 rpm
1 terabyte external hardrive sata 2
HT OMEGA Claro Halo XT 24-bit
32 inch flat screen hdtv 1080p

[Tonuss]

That looks like a killer rig. But as mentioned above, make sure to check the motherboard specs, you may have to buy Registered DDR3. And see if they have any recommendations for a power supply so that you don't wind up with a PSU that doesn't work with the board.

[MiRai]

Tyan's site says:

Supported CPU Series: Intel Xeon Processor 5500 Series You've linked the Intel 920. Now, I understand that the 920 and the Xeon 5500 series are both 1366 Nehalem processors but will that work? But yes...unless you will be 10 boxing on that thing [or more] it's quite overkill.

EDIT: And nevermind read Sajuuk's post.

[Lax]

Okay he sent me a PM asking for my thoughts on his post.

Parts compatibility aside, I agree with overkill. Definitely use Windows 7 (that goes for everyone, including those asking how the hell you get more than 7-10 fps in dalaran) with Aero disabled. I don't even have to look at the specs if you tell me you have 8 cores and 3 of (nearly) the fastest consumer video cards available, and will only be running 5 WoW characters. On the other hand, I don't think you will be disappointed if you build a PC like that (at least where the parts are compatible with each other), assuming the money isn't the problem. You will probably be afforded the opportunity to turn your graphics settings up, which is not something a typical 1-PC 5 boxer can do without sacrificing necessary performance.

I don't know what boards, if any, support dual i7, but the added "cores" from Hyper Threading will probably not measurably help you, when comparing dual Xeon vs dual i7. Hyper Threading does improve some specific circumstances, but I believe its benefits are best realized with fewer real cores. (I don't have benchmarks to back that statement up and I don't claim to be an expert on this particular subject, but it seems to me that the more actual cores available, the less useful the Hyper Threading's ability to "process another thread while one is waiting if the pipeline has room" will become by virtue of having real cores available that don't have the "pipeline has room" catch. I could also be exactly wrong on my guess)

You could get away with only using one video card (say, one 295 instead of 3 285s) if you didn't want to use all 6 monitors. I only use one myself, but it comes down to personal preference -- you're building what you'd like it to be, after all. RAM-wise, 18gb is way more than you need. To run 5 WoWs, a mere 8gb is more than enough, and 12gb gives you tons of breathing room for any applications that want to use gigabytes of RAM.

For power supply to power 3 video cards, Sajuuk's estimate is better than I would know to tell you. The PC Power turbo cool power supplies seem pretty reliable (I use a 1000W myself), and the 1200W is certified by nvidia for 3 video cards, so I imagine it would work. You do have to be careful about what PSU you get, it needs to have multiple 12V rails, and I guess some say they do but dont (Wikipedia: For a time, power supplies were marked and sold as having multiple +12V rails, although no current limit circuitry was included. As of 2008, having only an overall +12V current limit is seen as a desirable feature, and "single-rail" power supplies are advertised and sold as such, although it is still common to find power supplies for sale that falsely claim to have multiple +12V rails. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_supply_rail ) and you won't be very happy when your PC doesn't work because the PSU can't handle your hardware. Anyway, the suggested PSU should be fine.

As far as SSD and raid, my personal opinion is screw that. I'm pretty sure just using Windows 7 will improve performance enough that you'd probably be going through all that for not much of a reward. If you want performance, keep one installation of WoW -- use symlinks and/or Virtual Files via ISBoxer to achieve the other desired effects (keeping account name, server and character for login, etc). That should help performance by increasing cache use. You can still do your raid if you want, but I wouldn't do multiple folders if you want performance. I probably wouldn't bother with mirroring 6 drives though, maybe 2 or 3 but 6 is stretching it. I use a single 10000rpm SATA drive, and I don't think the hard drive is a big bottleneck for me at this point, considering the performance improvements in that area from switching to Windows 7. It only needs to load data from disk every so often, so generally the CPU, Video and RAM are the main offenders.

There's my thoughts, I'm not an expert when it comes to some of this hardware selection stuff, but I can program the shit out of them and tell you why things are happening wrong in many cases ;)

[Sam DeathWalker]

I really really doubt the cpu you have choosen will work in that motherboard, even though its 1366. These are the ones for that motherboard:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2000340727%201652744898&name=LGA%201366

6 monitors from one motherboard? I forsee problems, but I could be wrong.

I would still take the single cpu tyan with 32G of ddr2 over what you have picked.

Tempest i5100T
S5377 G2NR Custom Single Intel 5100 - - 1 32GB ^ RDDR2 - XGI Volari (2) GbE (4) SATA-II M3295-2 Yes
? 1333 2-ch. 667/533 Z9s M3296 (6/6)


Someone with similar system to what you picked:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/265133-31-dual-nehalem-xeon-workstation-2500

I would call Tyan and the Bios maker to make 100percent sure I7 will work in that board. No one is advertizing a duel i7 systme.



Wouldn't spend that much.

I just built a dual xeon 5520 workstation, and it renders 10% slower than my i7 920 rig(OC'ed to 3.8ghz).

The problem is, I can't overclock the dual rig. If that was possible, I'd be in heaven. For the money I spent on the dual rig ($2300), I could have built 2 more i7 rigs and been in better shape.

My advice would be to build or buy an i7 rig and overclock the living crap out of it. Much more bang for the buck

I will say they have good prices. I just priced out my rig I built using their site-- -dual 5520, 12gb ram -- and it cam out to around the same price I spent. .


i7 can't be dual, only xeons can do that. When the 5500 series (based on i7) Xeons came out, I was licking my chops, because I was dreaming of a dual i7 overclocked rig. Dumb me forgot to check if OC options are available on server boards. They are not.

http://www.xsibase.com/netview_forum/index.php?board=15;action=display;threadid=39599

[Moadikum]

I also agree it is far more than you need, also many of the components are not compatible with one another.
That motherboard is designed for servers, it will not perform as well for desktop applications as a cheaper motherboard, which is designed for desktop applications would.
One issue is the Northbridge Chipset, with the one on that mother board you may have trouble getting crossfire or SLI to work.

Quickly put together this suggested build, it will run 5 WoW's smoothly:

Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131386
CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202
Memory: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226049, 2 sets should be more than enough, remember to use a 64 bit OS
Video card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102840, only need one, save your money
Video multiplexer: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815106011, since you wanted so many monitors these will allow you to have just 1 video card give many outputs
Hard Drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148337, Don't bother with SSD just yet. I own one, yes they are fast but in my opinion just isn't worth the cost at the moment
Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133071, of course it is up to your personal preference this is just the one I chose, when choosing be sure to pick and ATX form factor
Optical Drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106225
Edit: PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817339028
This setup will be a fraction of the cost, however will definitely be more than enough to run 5 WoW's perfectly.
Estimated cost : $2150

[Tonuss]

6 monitors from one motherboard? I forsee problems, but I could be wrong.
Three video cards with two outputs each would handle six monitors just fine. And you wouldn't have to spend any money heating your home in the winter, either, with six LCDs going!

I think it's weird that Tyan positions this as a server board. With support for up to four PCI-E video cards and no 64-bit PCI slots or built-in SCSI, it looks like more of a workstation board. The specs are drool-worthy, though. 8o

[Sam DeathWalker]

You have to get data from ram to the video cards, with 6 outputs to be rendered you are really straining both the cpu (if the DMA is inside the cpu) and making the ram output a bottleneck. And you have to go to the HHD for textures for SIX renderings ...

http://edc.intel.com/App_Shared/Pix/Block-Diagrams/Xeon-5500.gif

[Tonuss]

You may be right, Sam, I don't know enough about how much data is being pushed through. I don't think that WoW pushes a steady stream of video data from RAM to the video cards, though. If the video cards can store most of the texture data onboard (and they should be able to) then after an initial load when entering a new area or encountering new mobs/players, the performance should smooth out. It may depend on video settings. My dual Radeons (512MB) handle WoW reasonably well, with one card managing four instances of the program. But those are 800x600 and with all settings turned down.

I think that it can be done in a way that allows the game to be playable.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Well there is some disagreement on how much of video ram wow uses to store textures, and as you correctly point out once you get them there you should be fine, but then a new character comes into view ... back to the hard disk ...

Ya it dosnt constantly stream textures to the card for sure. But you hit a area with a lot of people with unloaded textures and ... also it loads textures "on demand" cause if it loaded eveyrone near you, even those not visible, well thats even worse.

Thats why I think that a system with 32G ram is better then all this, as you can then put the whole wow folder into ram.

As pointed out does this board support crossfire or sil? I dont see a word about that in any review or add or anything. Just what 4 video cards does tyan expect on this board? Are you able to assign spicifc gpu's to spicific instances of wow? Does the bios support all this? .... Lots of problems.

[Sajuuk]

As pointed out does this board support crossfire or sil? I dont see a word about that in any review or add or anything. Just what 4 video cards does tyan expect on this board? Are you able to assign spicifc gpu's to spicific instances of wow? Does the bios support all this? .... Lots of problems.Does it really matter if it supports sli/crossfire? As stated, the OP wants to use six lcds, which means he's not using sli/crossfire. Why don't we just advise the OP, and then see how he fares instead of staying how we don't think it'll work correctly.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Good point, crossfire/sli not needed for 6 seperate monitors.

[TeK23]

If you are going to spend some cash on a new box why not go big!!!

http://www.nvidia.com/object/personal_supercomputing.html

The new Telsa Tera-flop computers that runs over 250x faster then your standard PC :P Nothing like 960 Cores :D

[nakago]

I am currently using a Early 2008 Mac Pro
8 x 3.0 Ghz Xeon cores
16 GB Ram
8800 GT 512mb

I am running under Vista 64 Ultimate ( Aero turned off!!! )
You really need to run Vista 64 or Windows 7 64, mostly so you can get full use of your memory and cores.

I use InnerSpace, and run 5 instance of WoW with affinity split among the various WoW's

Works great, but I am going to be buying the EVGA GTX285 1GB Mac Edition this week. Friend of mine just got his, and was a big upgrade over the 8800GT 512mb, so I am looking forward to it.

In generally I am using between 8 to 12GB of ram, I like having extra, so 16GB was the easy choice ( I also do high end 3D work under OS X, so the memory was more for that purpose )

[Enndo]

I can five box on that rig very easily. 30+ frames in Dalaran, 80+ on main screen out and about with the drone screens limited to 30fps.
i'd love to know how you get 30fps in dalaran ... I 5box on a core i7 with 12gb fast RAM, 30GB SSD (only for wow - os on another drive), Asus 4850 512mb video card and I get 7-10 fps in dalaran.

I'm not sure what your settings are but my i7 stock clocking, gtx 285, and 12 gigs of corsair 1600 i get 30fps in dalaran on my main and slaves are capped at 15. The build the OP has designed is very nice but not needed. I think I got all my parts for my i7 for about 2k all said and done and it is awsome.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Although its not certain it does appear that the more video ram you have on your card the better.

[gitcho]

I can five box on that rig very easily. 30+ frames in Dalaran, 80+ on main screen out and about with the drone screens limited to 30fps.
i'd love to know how you get 30fps in dalaran ... I 5box on a core i7 with 12gb fast RAM, 30GB SSD (only for wow - os on another drive), Asus 4850 512mb video card and I get 7-10 fps in dalaran.I'm not sure what your settings are but my i7 stock clocking, gtx 285, and 12 gigs of corsair 1600 i get 30fps in dalaran on my main and slaves are capped at 15. The build the OP has designed is very nice but not needed. I think I got all my parts for my i7 for about 2k all said and done and it is awsome.For those that are getting 30fps in dal, are you getting it right away after a hearth? does it stay that way? I'm not getting close to this, and not sure why ...

[Sam DeathWalker]

Everyone needs to say what resolution they are running at. If they are getting 30fps at 800X600 and you getting 15fps at 1920 X 1200 well .....

[keyclone]

you could reduce the number of monitors if you'd like.

you can use 2 video cards... but you would not want your wows to run on more then one card. therefore, run your wows on 2 monitors (or what your card supports) from the same card. run your main on one monitor and a 2x2 on the other.

if you have other video boards, i'd put the web browser, vent, IM, etc on the monitors attached to them.

i run 3 monitors. 24" for my main, 22" for my 2x2 alts, and the other for my non-wow stuff (running 2x 260s now).. all monitors running 1680x1050 and getting 25/42 normally.

[jstanthr]

as long as u set the cpu affinity correctly that would be smooth as silk, but something most people don't realize is that workstation boards handle data differently than most pc's data passes through the storage controller then to the northbridge then proccesed and sent out, thats 1 extra step but it's not a bottleneck by any means. imo if your going to use multiple drives and u want ultra reliability with most uptime, id do raid 0+1 with miiroring (5) that way if one array dies, the other will pick up without missing a beat, reguardless of which drive in the array dies. and u have a backup to restore from, no downtime. overall nice setup, jst don't overlook the maintanence, workstations require more care than regular pc's.. on a side note, make sure ur using a 64bit os, and keep PAE enabled (physical address extensions) it will allow wow to allocate memory blocks to each app, and imo would greatly imporbe thouroput.



The JsT's

Magtheridon US

[Twyman]

Here is what i plan on getting now:

I have the monitors already (6 of them): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as…N82E16824021019 ('http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as…N82E16824021019 ')

The items i am thinking of ordering:


The Tower: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811192112

The Mother Board: http://www.tyan.com/product_SKU_spec.asp…1&SKU=600000074

The CPU x2: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117186

The Video Cards x3: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130492

The RAM 8x2g = 16gb: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226066

The SSD x5: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820141419

The Power Supply: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817256054

The Heat Sink: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118046

Thank you all for your inputs. I think this is what i am going to go with. Anyone see any last min problems?

I do want to use 6 monitors on one computer. The one thing i am concerned with is the CPUs, they dont even show up on the 3Dbenchmark 2009 results chart.

[keyclone]

just understand that your wows will put the graphics objects for the game into the memory for one graphics boards... which will power one of two monitors. if you try to move that wow to a monitor that is supported by another board, i believe you would see a drop in performance. (this use to be the case, i haven't tried it recently)

SSDs have had some issue where they perform great for the first month or so, then slow down for some reason. i believe it's due to constant writing to the disk that causes some form of write failures. one suggestion would be to get a 32M cahce, 7200 rpm regular SATA-300 drive (like $40) and use that for your paging file. after your OS and games are installed, the paging file is the file written most to disk. moving it to a regular harddrive might stretch the performance and lifetime of the SSD (just a thought... totally unproven)

only other option is the OS. windows 7? or vista? (assumed 64 bit, of course)

[Sajuuk]

Replied in email, and cross-posted.

I still see power as an issue. The motherboard you want has two 8 pin CPU power cables in addition to the 24 pin, so you need a power supply with those pins as well. So while you may be able to find a power supply that can supply the power, it might not work due to the lack of connectors.

So, we need to find a way to reduce power, or find a compatible power supply. I thought of an alternative to having three 280's - two 295's. you get the equivalent of four 260s, with a small reduction in power (92A power draw vs 120A) Even then, that brings our power requirements to at least 1350W.

(How do you get six monitors from two cards, you ask? I'm not entirely sure it would work, but I think you could work something out with a couple of Matrox TripleHead2Gos. You plug one into each card, and then have three monitors connected to the triplehead2go. There is no guarantee this would work, I was just trying to think of an alternative.)

You might be pushing it with five SSD's (your motherboard only has six SATA connectors, this could be fixed with a RAID card)

But...in all honesty it might be better to build two computers. It'd be less of a hassle that way.

Here's something you could try - (Two computers, about the same as mine, only better graphics cards)
2x i7 920s http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202
2x P6t Deluxe http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131365
4x 260 (core 216) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130433
2x 250Gb HDD (System drive) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148261
2x Computer case http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811103011
2x 6gb DDR3 RAM http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231223 (Why only six per machine? You'll only be running 2/3 clients on each, you're not going to max out your ram playing wow on that many clients)
2x 750W SLi certified PSUs http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006
2x CPU coolers http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118046
2x of your aforementioned SSDs http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820141419 (Just have one in each computer for your WoW installations. RAIDs might be fun, but I'm not certain on how your performance boost might be.
You also get four copies of Call of Duty World at War.

Cost pre-shipping for two i7 systems - 2945. I honestly think two systems would be better. But, I'm just giving you alternatives.

[pbrigido]

I have a similar setup to the Q9550s mentioned. I usually struggle in Dal with about 10 FPS. I noticed that some people have limited their slaves to 15 FPS...I was just wondering how that was done?

[Sajuuk]

I have a similar setup to the Q9550s mentioned. I usually struggle in Dal with about 10 FPS. I noticed that some people have limited their slaves to 15 FPS...I was just wondering how that was done?Within wow - /console maxfpsbk 15

[Enndo]

This machince is gonna be sick, please post pics and benchmarks when its done!

[pbrigido]

I have a similar setup to the Q9550s mentioned. I usually struggle in Dal with about 10 FPS. I noticed that some people have limited their slaves to 15 FPS...I was just wondering how that was done?Within wow - /console maxfpsbk 15

Great! Thanks much, can't wait to implement it now! ;)