25 boxing, what computer is needed?

[doommachine]

Hi everyone, im new to the site and am aspiring to be a multiboxer and eventually a 25 boxer (pve raiding). I was wondering what the logistics are of this kind of undertaking and what kind of computer i need to accomplish this with 1 machine and 6 monitors (#6 for browsing internet) and any ideas or suggestions you have for me or anyone else that would want to try this? Would i need a powerful computer like a $4500 iMac? Or could i grab a cheap computer and upgrade it for like $1500?

[Kedash00]

you know you can do 10 now and get the same loot from raids right?

[d0z3rr]

First of all, avoid anything with the word "Mac" in it. They are overpriced crap.

Instead, I would go with 2 or 3 computers with the following specs:

i7's in all
6gb in all
spend about 150 on the gfx card for two machines, and maybe 300+ on your "main machine" (so you can max out the details on your "main")

That's the most important parts, the rest is up to you.
You can easily hook up 2 monitors on each machine, whereas on your main machine you would need 3x PCIe slots and 3GFX and one beefy monsterous PSU.

IF, for some weird reason, you wanted to actually run 25 on 1 computer, you would definitely need at least 15gb of ram and 3 video cards. I have a feeling that the i7 would definitely get pegged at some point.

[doommachine]

yes im aware of that. Im just a lil crazy in the head and have taken my 10 boxing idea and am turning it into a 25 boxing idea. Plus it would give me alot more roflstomping power in world pvp.

[Lpwned]

I think keeping 4 guys in sync is hard… I have NO idea how any of you handle 25. If you can raid with 25 toons, you deserve a medal!
As to world PvP roflstomp power, I assure you 4 Ele shammys is more than sufficient to take on ANY size group that isn’t coordinated.

Good luck to you man!

[doommachine]

i was just thinking that 1 computer would be alot simpler to set up. And ive read that its doable. Its also what i would prefer to do unless 2 or 3 machines would improve performance. And ya i could spend $2,000 and build a computer that makes a mac look like a paperweight with such party tricks as HEY LOOK WHAT I CAN DO *crashes the internet* BUT wheres the fun it that?

[Lpwned]

1 computer will be brutal. I box 4 accounts and am already running a beastly computer. I also box them on higher res, and settings though. If you limit the FPS to < 5 and run the slaves on 600X800 you could do it on the graphics end. What I’m thinking of right now though, it Memory, and hard drive.

You WILL need more than 1 disk if you’re not running something like those 1GB/S (Byte, not bit) PCI-E drives. Even a good SATA SSD won’t be able to handle that much bandwidth. I use 4 disks, 1 for each account. Its overkill, but I have 4, so I use them all.

Memory will be a HUGE issue. Bandwidth and size. Wow can use up to a gig a window on high settings, and ~500Meg on lower settings. If you don’t allow for it to expand to its fullest you will start paging the HD, and with 25 windows doing that… Well… It won’t be pretty. I would say 16GB+ triple channel @ at LEAST 1600.

[Boylston]

Hi everyone, im new to the site and am aspiring to be a multiboxer and eventually a 25 boxer (pve raiding). I was wondering what the logistics are of this kind of undertaking and what kind of computer i need to accomplish this with 1 machine and 6 monitors (#6 for browsing internet) and any ideas or suggestions you have for me or anyone else that would want to try this? Would i need a powerful computer like a $4500 iMac? Or could i grab a cheap computer and upgrade it for like $1500?

Going from "aspiring multiboxer" to 25-boxer is an unrealistic goal. If you truly 25-box some day, you will almost certainly do that across multiple PCs, not a single PC.

It makes more sense to build a good 5-10 client computer and learn to multibox on a 5x team right now. You don't level all 25 at once, anyhow. You'd level them in smaller teams and combine them once at max level.

I have to echo others' sentiments, as well. There is no point in 25-boxing. All the PvE content you could care to do is achievable with a 10-character team and the gear rewards are identical.

[doommachine]

well based on the replies ive decided to go with 3 computers. 2 to run 4 slave monitors and 1 beast to run the mains monitor and browsing monitor. Also, im aware that i dont get anything extra from 25 boxing raids instead of 10 boxing. Its just an idea at this point but its what i want to do atm. Im going to RAF arund 40 toons anyway to have a ton of alchemists. So 25 boxing would be a way to make use of them. Ill RAF all the toons i want and begin 10 boxing raids. After that ill decide if i realy want to 25 box or just 10. Thanks for your help guys and any other thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

[MiRai]

I would say 16GB+ triple channel @ at LEAST 1600.
Why do you recommend DDR3 1600? What's wrong with 1066, which is exactly at what i7's are rated to run at?


Going from "aspiring multiboxer" to 25-boxer is an unrealistic goal. If you truly 25-box some day, you will almost certainly do that across multiple PCs, not a single PC.

It makes more sense to build a good 5-10 client computer and learn to multibox on a 5x team right now. You don't level all 25 at once, anyhow. You'd level them in smaller teams and combine them once at max level.

I have to echo others' sentiments, as well. There is no point in 25-boxing. All the PvE content you could care to do is achievable with a 10-character team and the gear rewards are identical.
Exactly this. The more characters you add to a team the less efficient it becomes. To also note, I highly doubt you could
build a computer that would handle 25 instances of WoW like you want it to. I can load about 11 game instances on my
Q9550 with my main on Ultra settings and the other 10 looking at the ground with tiny screens and the lowest graphics.
Sure, there is newer hardware out there now but if you have to jam 24 other screens somewhere while boxing a PvE raid,
how are you going to see who is standing in fire and who isn't?

Even building a dual CPU system is a complete waste of money to just play WoW on, especially when it would cost
probably close to $5000 at least. You could easily build multiple systems for less than $5000 for the sole purpose of just
running slave screens on.

EDIT: OP replied to his own thread before this, leaving the reply anyway.

[HPAVC]

Its an interesting thought experiment, but I encourage you to Safety Dance (http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=1996/the-safety-dance-10-player)a few times with just your 5 box rig now and get the feel for how this isn't a hardware issue at all. Just replicate a simple 5box setup and your done.

You might also preface these questions as thought experiments or what not.

[Lpwned]

Why do you recommend DDR3 1600? What's wrong with 1066, which is exactly at what i7's are rated to run at?


1066 is with a locked multiplier. It is not the fastest that an I7 can handle.

I disagree that a system could not be built to handle 25 wow windows looking forward. The SB EX will support 8 cores (16 threads) and 4 sockets (64 threads) with a memory limit in the terabytes.

I do however agree that such a system would be massively inefficient on the cost side.

[Trushot]

1066 is with a locked multiplier. It is not the fastest that an I7 can handle.

I disagree that a system could not be built to handle 25 wow windows looking forward. The SB EX will support 8 cores (16 threads) and 4 sockets (64 threads) with a memory limit in the terabytes.

I do however agree that such a system would be massively inefficient on the cost side.


im a little slow on pc knowledge sometimes ... are you saying basically if you do not plan to Overclock there is no need to buy more than 1066 ram for a 6 core i7 chip ?

i was looking at 1600 becuase the MB i was looking at supported 1600 without overclocking ... but didnt realize I7 chip limited it by default to less than that ?

am i reading what yall are saying correctly that any ram over 1066 is a waste with an I7 chip even if MB states it can go up to 1600 wthout Overclocking

[Lpwned]

[

are you saying basically if you do not plan to Overclock there is no need to buy more than 1066 ram for a 6 core i7 chip ?

Let me double check this with some colleagues. Its gets really complicated as the Front Side Buss is no more. Processors are moving to a new architecture.
Any of the I7s can be over clocked if you know how to. The 6 core just makes it nice and easy to do. Intel knows that if you are dropping that much on a CPU, chances are you have some crazy thermal solution, and will OC it.

So I just talked this over with a coworker. The 6 core uses a QPI, the rest still use FSB. They will likely all default to 1066, but changing them to 1600 is easy and does NOT require you to OC anything else or have an aftermarket thermal solution.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Reguardless I would not spend extra for faster ram, system ram is not the bottleneck, and probably never will be, for playing wow, money is better spent on more ram or SSD.


Yur guy is wrong Lpwned, all i7's based on X58 use the QPI buss, there is no FSB ....

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2773 (http://www.anandtech.com/show/2773)

You can't run 25 on one computer cause you can't get 25 clients worth of video data to and from the SSD/HD to system ram to the video card at even 20fps .... YOu gonna have 2G/25 of video ram for each client lol .... whats that less then 100M per client, way to much swapping beteen the GPU and system ram (assuming you don't have to go to HD/SSD which isnt true either).

[MiRai]

im a little slow on pc knowledge sometimes ... are you saying basically if you do not plan to Overclock there is no need to buy more than 1066 ram for a 6 core i7 chip ?

i was looking at 1600 becuase the MB i was looking at supported 1600 without overclocking ... but didnt realize I7 chip limited it by default to less than that ?

am i reading what yall are saying correctly that any ram over 1066 is a waste with an I7 chip even if MB states it can go up to 1600 wthout Overclocking
http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=37150

Scroll down to "Memory Specifications." DDR3 800 - 1066. People will buy RAM with a little bit of a higher clock so the
chips aren't running at 100% speed all the time. Other people just buy shit and have no idea WTF those numbers
really mean. :) Even Intel's current flagship model (http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=47932) with 6 cores and 32nm architechture, the 980X, is rated at DDR3 1066.


[


Let me double check this with some colleagues. Its gets really complicated as the Front Side Buss is no more. Processors are moving to a new architecture.
Any of the I7s can be over clocked if you know how to. The 6 core just makes it nice and easy to do. Intel knows that if you are dropping that much on a CPU, chances are you have some crazy thermal solution, and will OC it.

So I just talked this over with a coworker. The 6 core uses a QPI, the rest still use FSB. They will likely all default to 1066, but changing them to 1600 is easy and does NOT require you to OC anything else or have an aftermarket thermal solution.
Any Core i7 9xx processor [Socket 1366] uses QPI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_QuickPath_Interconnect) and Xeons are equipped with Dual QPI so they can be
used in boards with multiple CPU sockets and communicate with each other. Socket 1156 [and Atom] uses DMI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Media_Interface).

[F9thRet]

I would get a strained neck trying to box 25.

5 is comfortable right now, and if pressed, I can go as high as 11-13 across 3 pc's.

For 25, I would not settle for anything less then this... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000

just watch the doors if you leave your house.

Seriously, listen to what these guys have to say, and get a good feel for things at a lower pace of things man. you will get more enjoyment out of it , then trying to bump up to 25 right off.

Later on, make the move. It's something I would like to see, as I only know of a few peeps who box with that many toons at once.

Stephen

[Sam DeathWalker]

People will buy RAM with a little bit of a higher clock so the
chips aren't running at 100% speed all the time


Ya thats the only reason to get them.

I underclock my ram to 667 even though they are 800 rated (amd ddr2). Ram speed is nothing imo for wow. Once it gets to system ram you are cool.

[Lpwned]

So it seems I have been confusing the QPI with the Uncore. My understanding is still that an I7 can run at 1600 though. For an application like this memory bandwidth would be a huge factor (I think this thread has been hijacked into a theory craft though :P)