5 boxing.

[Littleburst]

I'm currectly quadboxing. 3 wow's on my main pc and 1 wow on a 7 year old pc. Now i'd like to go for 5 boxing, but before that i need to upgrade my PC or buy a second one to run 2 or 3 slaves on.

My main pc's specs:
GigaByte GA-P35-DS3R, P35 (ATX, Sound, LAN, SATA II, RAID)
Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 (S775, 2x3,00GHz, 4MB, 1333MHz FSB, Boxed
Corsair 2GB DDR2 (2x1GB) PC6400 800Mhz CL4 (TWIN2X2048-6400C4) (bought another 2x 1g DDR ram)
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT xfx 512 mb


So my options are or upgrading my mainpc so it can run atleast run 4 wow's smooth, 5 if possible so i can ditch the old pc. But since i allready filled the 4 ram slots with 1gig each, for example, i'm not sure how smart this move would be.

The second option which i prefer, buying a second pc who runs 3 wows smooth. Since i still got a good pc, which i'd like to use if this saves me money.

Budget is what is needed pretty much. The cheaper, the better still. I allready read quite a lot about hardware stuff, but i still don't have any idea what is required exactly. I'm pretty much a noob still, concerning hardware. As far as my knowledge gets me, my guess is that buying a pc which runs 3 wow's smooth would be the cheapest(best) choice.



Thanks :)

[Talos]

the current idea of a minimum decent machine to run 5x wow with 'decent' FPS in high traffic places like dalaran and wintergraps is as follows.

Quadcore processor (i use the Q6600 overclocked @ 3ghz)
bare minimum of 4gig but most preferbly 8gig of ram (i use 8gig under Windows7 64bit using about 6-7gig total when running all 5 wows)
decent videocard, reports of Nvidia 8800 series and up and Ati 4500 series and up (i use a 8800GTX 752mb)
if possible a fast harddrive, a 30GB SSD for your wowfolder would make a lot of difference, if you got the money get a 2nd 30GB SSD for windows.

With my setup of Q6600 (@3ghz) 8gig ram, 8800GTX and 2 OCZ Vertex Turbo SSD's i run smoothly in dalaran and with small lag in wintergrasp (but even singleboxers lag there).
This is quite an old system, i have the motherboard/cpu/memory for almost 2 years now, got the videocard a year ago and got the SSD's this year.
If you were to make this setup now you would not have to spend more than 500 to 700 dollar (depending if you take the SSD's or just keep your old harddrives first).

Anything better than this only means an upgrade (the i5 and i7 cpu's are better, a 9800 or GTX250 video card is better, 12gig ram is even better) but will cost you more.

if you want to upgrade your current PC for a cheap budget look for a webstore that sells upgrade kits consisting of motherboard/cpu/memory (for instance a motherboard/Quadcore/4GBram (consisting of 2 banks) and add an extra 2 banks of the same type of memory to the basket. This combined with your current videocard and harddrives would net you a cheap upgrade to 5box with no problem.

[Littleburst]

the current idea of a minimum decent machine to run 5x wow with 'decent' FPS in high traffic places like dalaran and wintergraps is as follows.

Quadcore processor (i use the Q6600 overclocked @ 3ghz)
bare minimum of 4gig but most preferbly 8gig of ram (i use 8gig under Windows7 64bit using about 6-7gig total when running all 5 wows)
decent videocard, reports of Nvidia 8800 series and up and Ati 4500 series and up (i use a 8800GTX 752mb)
if possible a fast harddrive, a 30GB SSD for your wowfolder would make a lot of difference, if you got the money get a 2nd 30GB SSD for windows.

With my setup of Q6600 (@3ghz) 8gig ram, 8800GTX and 2 OCZ Vertex Turbo SSD's i run smoothly in dalaran and with small lag in wintergrasp (but even singleboxers lag there).
This is quite an old system, i have the motherboard/cpu/memory for almost 2 years now, got the videocard a year ago and got the SSD's this year.
If you were to make this setup now you would not have to spend more than 500 to 700 dollar (depending if you take the SSD's or just keep your old harddrives first).

Anything better than this only means an upgrade (the i5 and i7 cpu's are better, a 9800 or GTX250 video card is better, 12gig ram is even better) but will cost you more.

if you want to upgrade your current PC for a cheap budget look for a webstore that sells upgrade kits consisting of motherboard/cpu/memory (for instance a motherboard/Quadcore/4GBram (consisting of 2 banks) and add an extra 2 banks of the same type of memory to the basket. This combined with your current videocard and harddrives would net you a cheap upgrade to 5box with no problem.

Ok, thanks, that's far less money then i expected.
I know what overclocking is, but it ends there. So i'm not gonna do that, unless i can buy an overclocked one. No idea what the SSD's are, so i'm gonna google that now. :P

Thanks for the reply, gonna browse the web a bit now see if i can find those items for that price. :)

[Talos]

No problem ;)
Would you mind telling me from what country you are (im from the Netherlands).
Perhaps i can help you search some webshops for these items.
Dont know if you'd care to tell us your max budget ?

Also SSD's are Solid State Drives, its like a big brother to the USB memory sticks only bigger AND a LOT faster.

Where a normal harddrive would have a troughput of anywhere between 30Mb/s to 80Mb/s a SSD can get upwards to 140Mb/s. Also the biggest improvements are the seek times (time it takes for it to find the file you want to open. Normal harddrives have a seek time of 1 to 2 seconds (time it takes for the needle to spin to the correct place on the platter) whereas a SSD has seektimes of about 0.1 to 0.4seconds since its all just RAM memory.
SSD's cost a lot more euro/GB but for uses like these a big improvement.
A normal 1TB harddisk would cost you 100 euros
A SSD of 30GB will cost you 100 euros..... you see the difference in price :D

[ragawaga]

Dunno if it helps....but you've seen me boxing, my setup is

Dual core processor (intel E6600)
6 gig ram
Windows vista 64bit
Geforce 8800GTX (752meg)

I've not overclocked or anything. It runs fine most times....however in dalaran it does get chunky....as does wintergrasp. After reading your post....it's got me thinking that I should try upgrading to a quad core CPU.

[Talos]

Dunno if it helps....but you've seen me boxing, my setup is

Dual core processor (intel E6600)
6 gig ram
Windows vista 64bit
Geforce 8800GTX (752meg)

I've not overclocked or anything. It runs fine most times....however in dalaran it does get chunky....as does wintergrasp. After reading your post....it's got me thinking that I should try upgrading to a quad core CPU.

quadcore sure does help (when im logged in with all 5 and run trough dalaran my CPU monitor reads between 60% en 80% load with peaks to 100% on porting in)

you might also want to check how much RAM is in use when you are in dalaran, if you see ALL 6 gig used it means windows is using the swapfile on the harddrive as 'extra' RAM which is off course a LOT slower.
If you got room on your motherboard you might want to up to 8 (or even 12?) gig ram. If all your memory banks are already filled than a quadcore might do better.

Just check if your motherboard can handle quadcore processors, Q6600 aint that expensive anymore.

[Littleburst]

No problem ;)
Would you mind telling me from what country you are (im from the Netherlands).
Perhaps i can help you search some webshops for these items.
Dont know if you'd care to tell us your max budget ?


I'm from the most awesome country, on which i'm sure you will agree with me: The Netherlands ;) (toeval? :D)

Allready read up on SSD's and i do understand the differences.

Help would be greatly appreciated. I'll see if i can make an alt on on Tarren mill to see if you're online. The downside is that Grim batol, my server has a 30 min queue atm :/

Budget is pretty much what's worth it. I'm not that convinced about SSD, since i can only see the price of those drop by a lot in the coming years? Where a quadcore, ram and graphic card should be well worth their money. Main point is that i'm happy if it runs smoothly and i don't mind if i can save 100 euro if l have to lagg a bit in dalaran. Aslong as it runs smooth in AV in big HKfarm battles at mid etc.

[-silencer-]

I'm currectly quadboxing. 3 wow's on my main pc and 1 wow on a 7 year old pc. Now i'd like to go for 5 boxing, but before that i need to upgrade my PC or buy a second one to run 2 or 3 slaves on.

My main pc's specs:
GigaByte GA-P35-DS3R, P35 (ATX, Sound, LAN, SATA II, RAID)
Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 (S775, 2x3,00GHz, 4MB, 1333MHz FSB, Boxed
Corsair 2GB DDR2 (2x1GB) PC6400 800Mhz CL4 (TWIN2X2048-6400C4) (bought another 2x 1g DDR ram)
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT xfx 512 mb


Get a SSD to have much faster access to data resources, and get 4GB of ram. That PC *can* 5-box, as I 5-boxed for a year on this machine:
E6600, 4GB RAM (only WinXP 32-bit though), RAID0 2x 36GB Raptors, 8800GTX.
Now, a 5-boxing machine can be done cheap.. just upgrade that E6850 to a Q6600 (make sure your motherboard supports it though), get 8GB of RAM, get 64-bit Windows, an SSD (even a cheap $100 will be better than any HD for hosting WoW), and a newer videocard.

[Littleburst]

What exactly is the gain in having SSD memory? I asume at least loading will be faster and i guess Dalaran will run smoother, but do you really notice a difference once you get into a BG and played for 5 min? So do you notice a difference when you're just 'playing' and not HSing to dalaran or porting somewhere?

[Talos]

Get a SSD to have much faster access to data resources, and get 4GB of ram. That PC *can* 5-box, as I 5-boxed for a year on this machine:
E6600, 4GB RAM (only WinXP 32-bit though), RAID0 2x 36GB Raptors, 8800GTX.
Now, a 5-boxing machine can be done cheap.. just upgrade that E6850 to a Q6600 (make sure your motherboard supports it though), get 8GB of RAM, get 64-bit Windows, an SSD (even a cheap $100 will be better than any HD for hosting WoW), and a newer videocard.

I took the liberty of making a small shoppinglist for you based on my opinions and Silencers opinion
http://azerty.nl/winkelmandje/winkelmandje/?legen=1&product[245945]=1&product[91501]=1&product[34543]=1
(The SSD is optional, its the cheapest one that still has a high read speed (writespeed is slower though))

You current motherboard is capable of using the Quadcore processor and the memory i linked according to the Gigabyte website http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2543

Let me know what you think of it :D

[Littleburst]

I took the liberty of making a small shoppinglist for you based on my opinions and Silencers opinion
http://azerty.nl/winkelmandje/winkelmandje/?legen=1&product[245945]=1&product[91501]=1&product[34543]=1
(The SSD is optional, its the cheapest one that still has a high read speed (writespeed is slower though))

You current motherboard is capable of using the Quadcore processor and the memory i linked according to the Gigabyte website http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2543

Let me know what you think of it :D

Thanks, but i'm affraid my "winkelmandje is leeg"(shopping list is empyty) :D So i'd greatly appriciate it if you could make one i can see aswell. Thanks a lot :)

Allready found out that my motherboard idd supports the quadcore. So that's good.

[Talos]

Thanks, but i'm affraid my "winkelmandje is leeg"(shopping list is empyty) :D So i'd greatly appriciate it if you could make one i can see aswell. Thanks a lot :)

Allready found out that my motherboard idd supports the quadcore. So that's good.

You need to select the entire line and copy/paste it into a new window... the forum cuts off the link halfway (only half of it is hyperlinked)

http://azerty.nl/winkelmandje/winkelmandje/?legen=1&product
[245945]=1&product[91501]=1&product[34543]=1

^^^^^copy these lines and paste them together in a new tab or window (somehow the [ cuts off the link)


SCREW THAT.... Forum keeps crapping up this big link....
i made you a tinyurl instead

http://tinyurl.com/yd29kpx

Enjoy

[Littleburst]

You need to select the entire line and copy/paste it into a new window... the forum cuts off the link halfway (only half of it is hyperlinked)

http://azerty.nl/winkelmandje/winkelmandje/?legen=1&product
[245945]=1&product[91501]=1&product[34543]=1

^^^^^copy these lines and paste them together in a new tab or window (somehow the [ cuts off the link)


SCREW THAT.... Forum keeps crapping up this big link....
i made you a tinyurl instead

http://tinyurl.com/yd29kpx

Enjoy

I guess i'm the noob who fails to copy an URL now :P

Thanks A LOT! that's like a lot cheaper then i found somewhere else, i'll have someone else with some knowledge take a look at it and then probably order it from Azerty. So this saved me so much time. :D

[Talos]

No problem ;)
Was fun shopping even though im not the one receiving the packages..... *sigh*

[dRiN]

I know littleburst from my guild, he is an old member :D. Im also a multiboxer and run with 2 x spinpoint disks. I have almost no loadlag in dalaran. The pricing isnt too bad and his motherboard can also handle two disks in raid.

http://tweakers.net/pricewatch/244092/samsung-spinpoint-f3-hd502hj-500gb.html

43,38 Euro per disk X 2 + 8 euro sendcosts +/- 100 Euro

I agree on the processor and on the memory. But if I would go for storage and speed I would go for the raidsetup with the spinpoints.

Why go for SSD if SATA disks in raid is an option?