More RAM or SSD?

[eisenhorn]

Hey, I am looking at a new build, for around £1K, and have the following specced.

• Intel Core i7-2600K (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Overclocked to 4.6Ghz
• EVGA GeForce GTX 560Ti 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - Maybe looking at Gainward GeForce GTX 570 PHANTOM Ed. 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card as it's slient (and better)
• 8GB Mushkin Blackline #996659B (2x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz 9-9-9-24
• 1TB Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS 3.5" SATA III Hard Drive
• Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H Intel Z68 (REV B3) Socket 1155 DDR3 PCI-Express Motherboard
• 750W Corsair TX750 V2 ATX2.3 SLI/Crossfire Compliant Power Supply
• Fractal Design Arc Midi Tower Chassis
• Be Quiet! Dark Rock Advanced CPU Cooler

I'm debating whether to add 8G more RAM or get an SSD: OCZ Solid 3 60GB 2.5" SATA-III Solid State Hard Drive.

I'm 5 boxing and want to avoid the horrendous fps I get near any populated area. I've read SamDeathwalkers guide to getting all textures into RAM, but that may be past my budget...Also, with an SSD and ISBoxer would you only need one installation of WoW?

[Hyper]

Yes, ISBoxer will only need one installation of WoW (and then you virtualize config files for each toon that you box).

I personally have 12GB of DDR3 RAM and an 80G SSD and have no issues in Stormwind. Draw your own conclusions :)

[Unded]

Instead of the Seagate hard drive take a look at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145520 You can look anywhere online for it-it has pretty good reviews on Newegg-compared to other drives.I have one on the way and can give my experience with it in a few days.

[lamf123]

Yes, ISBoxer will only need one installation of WoW (and then you virtualize config files for each toon that you box).

I personally have 12GB of DDR3 RAM and an 80G SSD and have no issues in Stormwind. Draw your own conclusions :)


What he said. Get more ram and a ssd.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

IMO, if you're planning to 10-box, add more RAM. If you're planning to 5-box or less, SSD.

[Bollwerk]

IMO, if you're planning to 10-box, add more RAM. If you're planning to 5-box or less, SSD.
/agree

[RSM72]

I got 12GB of RAM in my box and went from a good performance HDD to SSD some months ago. Did really not see alot of improvement performance wise. I'd skip the SSD and go for additional 8GB of RAM and a 2GB video card instead.

EDIT: Limitation in crowded areas is the CPU, not disk-io so your on the good side with that overclocked 2600k

[Apps]

/agree

+1 more.

Im running 12GB, and I have 96GB SSD.
I was just playing around in IF and SW last night with 5 accounts. I saw no noticable lag.

[eisenhorn]

Thanks for all the comments. Hopefully I'll order in the next week or so after having a good look around at the various reviews of some of these components. I can't wait to be able to run 5 guys through SW instead of 1 at a time ;-)

Also, is that correct about SW lag, etc being CPU related, and not GPU/RAM/IO? Is it not texture files for all those ppl?

[Sam DeathWalker]

I got 12GB of RAM in my box and went from a good performance HDD to SSD some months ago. Did really not see alot of improvement performance wise. I'd skip the SSD and go for additional 8GB of RAM and a 2GB video card instead.

EDIT: Limitation in crowded areas is the CPU, not disk-io so your on the good side with that overclocked 2600k


What he said. Cept a 3G video card if you can afford (DO NOT get the 440 oem ones lol)




Also, is that correct about SW lag, etc being CPU related, and not GPU/RAM/IO? Is it not texture files for all those ppl?

Im going to vote on gpu/ram/io.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

OK, think about your travels through Org/IF/SW.

If you stutter badly for a while, then things eventually settle down and start being playable, then your primary problem is the time it takes to get textures from disk into RAM. That is a function of disk I/O, thus an SSD would benefit you the most.

If your FPS varies wildly the whole time you're there (one second you're seeing 30+fps, then stutter/stutter/disk grinding/stutter, then 30fps again) that usually indicates not enough RAM as things constantly swap in and out of RAM to your pagefile on disk.

If your FPS is very low all the time and your disk does not sit there grinding constantly, that's either not enough CPU horsepower or not enough GPU horsepower.

[eisenhorn]

Nice comment. My problem is probably a mixture of the first 2 then (4Gb RAM).

[Sam DeathWalker]

If you stutter badly for a while, then things eventually settle down and start being playable, then your primary problem is the time it takes to get textures from disk into RAM. That is a function of disk I/O, thus an SSD would benefit you the most.

Thats kinda true but the game will render even if you don't have textures, I am sure you have seen many times when you log in you only see pets for a bit then you see character models. Pets are obvisoly loaded first as they have few options for gear etc. Even though the game has no textures for the character models yet it still will render the frames without them.