Minimum pc for 5 box

[Xraptorx]

I got rid of my pc 2 years ago when I quit wow. Now I want to come back and 5 box again. My wife likes iMac and the nice design and quiet operation. So I need to consider noise and hopefully can find a near silent pc. I was thinking of running on 2 24" monitors and want a pc that can power 5 clients across such a display with great resolution and frame rates

What is the min spec I should consider? Besides wow, I might use the pc for xmbc and skyrim

Another thought.

Can a i5 iMac run 5 box using VMware without problems? I would only have 1 27" monitor, but that might be the easiest solution. Just not sure if it all runs smoothlynon VMware

[Ualaa]

If you're boxing, I'd strongly consider a PC.
Far greater choice in available software.

IS Boxer is the top candidate, and that is for PC's.



If you're just playing the game, I'd go with an i5 2500K system.
But if you'll be streaming and doing videos too, an i7 2600K system is about $100 extra.
The i7 has virtual cores (hyperthreading), while the i5 does not.

Get a decent motherboard for your chip.
I like Asus boards, but Gigabyte have been good too.
Everyone has a preference.

In general you want 1GB of ram for your Operating System (get a 64-bit version of Window 7).
Plus at least 1GB per client you're running.
6GB would work, but most motherboards are either multiples of 2 or of 3 slots.
So I'd go with 8GB or 12GB, to give yourself some extra ram.
Ram is very cheap.

Go with a single video card, not a pair in Crossfire/SLI.
A major consideration is the number of ports on the back of it, determining how many monitors you can use.
Mine (GTX 570) has two DVI ports and an HDMI port, so in theory I could run three monitors but am using two.

Strongly consider an SSD (solid state drive) for your gaming folder.
Doesn't have to be fancy, but its a major improvement in your play.

There are plenty of virtually silent after-market coolers for your system/CPU.
You could even go with a water cooled system, which is less noise.

Browsing the technical forum, would have more insight than I can give you.

[lans83]

I'll add in here my opinion on this, grab an Intel SSD and not an OCZ. I've got an Intel in mine now for over a year and had no problems, even after reformatting my laptop with it in. Many people have had problems with OCZs and some other brands as they do not hold up very well. Since it's the holiday season, you'll do good at grabbing one now since most are on sell, Newegg.com is my main shopping source. Someone posted a link in this forum of a good 120gig for around $120. I paid that for a 60gig a few months after they came out. They won't increase your FPS, but will cut loading times down, especially if you've got alot of addons running, like I do, even for one account vs multiboxing :/

[Ualaa]

I've had a Patriot Torq (64gb SSD) for close to two years now, and am very happy with it.
It is my gaming folder, for Warcraft, Starcraft II, Diablo II, and Birth of the Federation.

I went with an OCZ Vertex 3 (almost twice as fast as the Patriot) and it has 120GB of storage.
This is my system drive.

The OCZ went and died completely, about a month after purchase.
I've got an Instant-Product-Replacement plan at my local store, so the drive was replaced within 24 hours and they did the Windows install on the new drive, drivers updated etc.
It would have been free, and just give me a drive if I had preferred.
Anyway, have had the new drive for 3-4 months now, and no issues with it.

Quite a few people have mentioned the Intel drives as being very reliable.

[Xraptorx]

I will try to do 5 installs on parallels and see if my iMac can handle it. Thinking wife would explode if I buy a pc for gaming as she hates gaming. If done on iMac, I can play a bit when she is in bed :)

[MiRai]

In general you want 1GB of ram for your Operating System (get a 64-bit version of Window 7).
2GB for x64 (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/system-requirements)


Mine (GTX 570) has two DVI ports and an HDMI port, so in theory I could run three monitors but am using two.
When you plug in an HDMI cable you deactivate one of the DVI ports. The only nVidia cards that can run 3 monitors
are dual-GPU cards. (Repeated this from the other thread solely for the purpose that not everyone reads every
thread in this forum and not because I was picking on you. ;))



I'll add in here my opinion on this, grab an Intel SSD and not an OCZ. I've got an Intel in mine now for over a year and had no problems, even after reformatting my laptop with it in. Many people have had problems with OCZs and some other brands as they do not hold up very well.
The rule of thumb that I currently go by is that if an SSD uses a Marvell controller then, it's probably safe; and if it
uses a SandForce controller, beware. However, OCZ just released a new line of drives that use an Indilinx controller
rather than SandForce and Intel's new 520 SSDs that were rumored to use SandForce might be using something
totally different (Anobit?).

[Ualaa]

Not an issue at all.
I'm going with personal experience on hardware, and am certainly not an expert.

In particular, I've found your posts and Sajuuk's informative for hardware :).

[sethlan]

From my own experience when boxing 5x toons on i5 2500k, you have to lower the graphics all the way to low if you want everything to run smooth, cpu usage is right on the border, when you enter org, server is pretty heavy where I play. Its ok to stream, but it may spike/lag in some areas (in instances is smooth as butter) if you cut to 4x toons its perfect, I cant believe how much of a different is is from 4 to 5 box. So what I would do Get i7 2600k no matter what, I made huge mistake not going to i7 (I'm going to change my cpu soon) 8gb of ram is minimum, im running at 5gb atm with win7 64bit spikes to 6 when i hit org. So from what i can tell/see : i7 2600k with 12gb would be perfect.

[Lax]

ISBoxer's official minimum specs and recommendations: http://isboxer.com/wiki/Multiboxing#Minimum_System_Requirements

Most of what people are recommending is pretty much optional. For example if you have extra money to spend purely on added LOADING performance (*NOT* framerate) or whatever while multiboxing, then certainly get an SSD; if not, don't worry about it, we've multiboxed without them for years. Generally when I have time to multibox I am doing it on my $1200 laptop -- the ASUS G74, with an i7 CPU, 560M 2GB GPU, and 8GB of RAM. Everything about it is stock, straight from Best Buy. I can put my main on high or ultra settings, and I put the others on low, and I have been quite happy with its performance.

[Peli]

I'm 5 boxing on a Q6600 system with 6 gb of RAM and with a GTX270. My PC is about at the edge of what I'd consider playable. I use high graphics on my main and low on all of my slaves and my processor is maxed out most of the time (the only effect that I've noticed from this is that the sound tends to stutter every once in awhile). I'm still getting 20-30 fps out in the world and around SW, but it can drop into the low teens regularly in a larger BG.

[Ualaa]

I was using a Q6600 system, quite a while back.
And regularly having follow break on epic ground mounts in battlegrounds.
Or having 280% speed flyers, break follow when flying anything other than a straight line...
That prompted my upgrade.

Could have probably played on lower settings.
My main is usually around 3/4's of the eye-candy on, and the slaves around 1/4.

[Jeremiah]

Simple answer, no.

I haven't encountered any other boxers who run on iMac but I wouldn't really advise it for 5 boxing.

I run 3 accounts on an i5 iMac with 12gb ram in Mac OSX with a key cloner only.

OSX is great for boxing and I'd like to see a complete suite like ISBOXER for it.

The problem with the iMac is HEAT! The iMac i5s and i7s are easily powerful enough but because of their compact design, the fans fail when you run 3-5 clients, hence I only run 3.

Also, you cannot assign memory using OSX and as far as I'm aware, you can't assign the memory in fusion ware which is a critical part of boxing.

Mac for fun but for owning in boxing, go for a PC (Can't believe I'm advocating buying a PC /cry)

[Peli]

I was using a Q6600 system, quite a while back.
And regularly having follow break on epic ground mounts in battlegrounds.
Or having 280% speed flyers, break follow when flying anything other than a straight line...
That prompted my upgrade.

Could have probably played on lower settings.
My main is usually around 3/4's of the eye-candy on, and the slaves around 1/4.

I've never had an issue with it breaking follow on epic ground mounts (except when those massive Elekk asses get hung up on low flying airplanes and whatnot, but that's not a system performance issue...) My shaman are only level 60, so I can't comment on epic flyers. The system will have to do for now, though, since although it is 4 years old, I don't think I could convince the wife that I need an upgrade just yet. Like I said, I just used the default slider bar and set the master to High (one from best) and the slaves to Low (one from worst).

Anyone know if getting a dedicated sound card would fix the sound stuttering issue and maybe free up some breathing space for my processor?

[zer0patches]

The rule of thumb that I currently go by is that if an SSD uses a Marvell controller then, it's probably safe; and if it
uses a SandForce controller, beware. However, OCZ just released a new line of drives that use an Indilinx controller
rather than SandForce and Intel's new 520 SSDs that were rumored to use SandForce might be using something
totally different (Anobit?).

I think sandforce has gotten a bad rap from all the pr and issues with the newest drives based off sandforce. I have been using (RAID0) 4x ocz 80gb vertex 2's (sandforce) for over a year with no problems.

SSD's in general including intel and others have always battled issues with firmware bugs etc. It's not just a sandforce issue. You can avoid a lot of the compatibility issues if you do a little research before hand.

Even though the first gen sandforce drives do not support trim in raid I have yet to see a very noticeable drop in performance athough the numbers below I just benchmarked were slightly lower than a fresh install.

Originally on a fresh install with new drives I was getting writes around 950 MB/S Write and 1325 MB/S Read but honestly I can;t really tell much of a difference. =p

Small file performance for files less than 64k is supposed to be much improved on the newer chipsets but It hasn't really held back the performance that much. From post to desktop was about 14 to 18 seconds in windows 7 x64 on a new install.

I would like to upgrade to 4x vertex 3's at some point. =p

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Originally on a fresh install with new drives I was getting writes around 950 MB/S Write and 1325 MB/S Read but honestly I can;t really tell much of a difference. =p
Good lord. I really need to look into upgrading to newer drives. I've been happy with these but damn...those speeds...

http://www.l00py.net/pics/upload/2012/01/14/20120114004418-4f103787.jpg

And my single-drive (backup drive) in that same system:
http://www.l00py.net/pics/upload/2012/01/14/20120114004431-655cd630.jpg

And my normal HDDs in raid0 on the other PC (same exact system, just HDDs different):
http://www.l00py.net/pics/upload/2012/01/14/20120114004416-47b93002.png

Still much better than platter drives but nowhere near yours, especially on write speeds.

[Nindenumene]

Hi all.
Im using a Q66002.4ghz@ 3.65ghz watercooled. With a ATI HD 5870. Atm I have 8gbs of ram running at 1600 6.8.6.24 CAS. My sound is controlled by creative xfi-elite pro which has its own memory and prosessor to handle sound. My harddrives are watercooled SAS scsi drives 2x15k in raid 0.

(This is an old computer , but it was very good when i bought it and build it. As for performance in wow:)

In singel account playing i have around 150fps on ultra settings 1900x1086(or what it is)

My discoveries: I found in the Catalyst program settings of the AMD card, that in advanced section , if you have those settings at max, this will slow down wow to an extent that you will be doing 15-20 fps...even on my system... when I lowered the settings to performance mode the fps went up to 150+.

These settings are not ingame---these settings you need to adjust in the g-cards own program. Put youre card to performance mode...
The cards settings is often in the middle by default. When I lowered those settings I could still have the settings on full ingame..but just with 150+ more fps.

Boxing 5 chars: Settings on low, with fair/good view distance.
Im boxing 5 chars now, and iam around 50-60 fps (maxed by fps limiter). in crowded cities ..like orgrimmar - i have around 20-30 fps.


So just my tip, check youre grapich cards own program and check for performance mode. (right click desktop>properties>advances>youre cards program>performance