Bulldozer vz. Sandy Bridge

[Kedash00]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103961
AMD
or...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115095
Sandy Bridge



Discuss

and ty for input

[MiRai]

I have no idea what there is to discuss. (http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/62)

[Ughmahedhurtz]

http://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/45516-AMD-s-Bulldozer-CPUs-Officially-Released-And-Reviewed
http://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/44505-Multiboxing-Hardware-Science!
http://www.bing.com/search?q=bulldozer+vs+sandy+bridge

/yawn
/goes back to bed

[Bollwerk]

Get an Intel. Period.

[ebony]

its easy u got the money go Intel if not then go AMD like me. i have not many probs but a lot are intel fan boys :P

[Bollwerk]

I don't think I'm being a fan boy if Intel CPUs are clearly faster than AMD (at least right now, with current generations).
Sure, AMD is cheaper, but also significantly slower.
If AMD were faster, I'd be recommending them. (and I have in the past, when they used to be competitive speed-wise)
As for cost, if you're going to spend the money on a machine that is capable of multiboxing (especially 5), I don't think an extra $100 (or so) for an Intel CPU is going to break your bank.
In fact, I'd advise cutting costs in other areas to get an Intel, if cost is really an issue.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I have no problem if recommending the best performer earns me the title "fan boy." :D

[Ualaa]

For the longest time, I was always going with AMD.
Back then, at equal cost the AMD was faster... or at equal speeds, the AMD was cheaper.

When intel came out with the Core 2 Quad, my Q6600...
That was clearly superior to anything AMD had, and I switched to an Intel product.

When it came time to upgrade, the i7 920 was a lot more powerful than anything AMD offered.

A few years later, the second generation i3's, i5's and i7's were still far more powerful than anything AMD had.
So I've gone with Intel again.

If at some point in the future AMD has the superior product, or a similar product at a much lower price...
And I'm in the market to upgrade, I'd go back to AMD without any qualms.
I was very happy with AMD for four or five systems in a row.
But am also quite happy with Intel for the last three systems.

[lonerider]

Ok, has anyone actually tested the 8150/8120 in a multiboxing environment? I've read all the reviews out there and I have to admit bulldozer is a disappointment based on multiple articles from popular sites. BUT, has anyone (a multiboxer) actually tried and properly tested it yet??

A little background. I've been multiboxing WoW for the past 3 months. My setup:
Intel Q6600 C2Quad CPU mildly OCed to 2.85Ghz
2x MSI GTX460 768MB in SLI - SurroundView mode (3x22" LCD screens)
8GB DDR2-800
2x 320GB 7200RPM HDDs in Raid-0

WoW clients: 5 (warrior, priest, druid, and two mages) - CPU Affinity per client enabled, two mages sharing one core, the 3 other toons assigned to one core each (Q6600 has 4 cores total, no HT)

I get decent FPS performance across the 3 toons that are assigned one static core each, but the two mages (which share one core) are laggy especially when they are in IF, etc. My center screen has the master toon (warrior) @ 1920x1020 resolution, while the slaves are at 960x1020 respectively (2 mages on the left screen and priest/druid on the right screen). With this configuration, I can see ALL 5 of them simultaneously ALL the time (I don't like PiP hehe). Initially, I didn't enable CPU affinity (because i didn't know it was an option), but just last month I switched to it and has improved game performance by a noticeable margin.

Yesterday, after doing tons of research, I finally pulled the trigger on upgrading my CPU/mobo. Bought an FX-8120 and Gigabyte 990x SLI Mobo for just a tad under $300 (after rebate). I already have DDR3 memory and a couple of new 7200 RPM harddrives saved up and waiting for this upgrade. Here is an article that somehow convinced me to try out a Bulldozer rig instead of going Intel i5-2500K combo (which would have cost me $50 more than the 8120 combo at the least): http://techreport.com/articles.x/21865/2

I plan to manually set CPU affinity to one core per slave client, and assigning 2 cores to the master client (warrior). This should leave me 2 cores to open up the Internet browser, Outlook express, and other stuff hehe. I'll let you guys know my findings once this upgrade is complete. Just curious if anyone else have tried Bulldozer and running multiple clients with CPU affinity manually set.

[Apps]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103961
AMD
or...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115095
Sandy Bridge



Discuss

and ty for input

Dash, I have 5 computers at home, all varying degrees of ePeen-ness. Between my wifes, three sons, and my Skynet Killer capable, I believe I have enough experience with the different hardware to say, "stick with Intel".

Are you likely to even notice a difference at that level? perhaps not. Will you feel more confident with the Intel vs second guessing your AMD purchase based upon the Benchmark reviews? Probably. Intel has a superb track record. Not saying AMD doesnt. Ive personally seen AMD chips last longer than Intel, but then again they dont put out the same power, so its almost like saying, "I never used 4th gear in my car, hence it never fails, so its better"... eeeaanntt False.

Ive replaced my sons AMD CPU once, and another sons AMD was DOA after purchase, so I swapped it out for a different mobo and cpu combo and went Intel. Skynet is Intel. Its overclocked and not seen one issue.





I have no idea what there is to discuss. (http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/62)

^ Epic Win. Seriously. Best reply. Hard to argue Fact vs Fiction.


Get an Intel. Period.

+ 1


its easy u got the money go Intel if not then go AMD like me. i have not many probs but a lot are intel fan boys :P

I think this quote is "dissectable" in so many ways. But I "think" the point this is trying to make is clear. If your willing to sacrifice some performance for >$100, or cant wait another pay period to afford a better product. AMD is just fine. Dont all cars get you from A to B? Why do people buy nice ones? loyalty? cost? dependability? low maintenance? who knows.


Side note: Arent all "Fan boy" comments hypocritical in themselves? Its shameful really.

[Sajuuk]

Dash, I have 5 computers at home, all varying degrees of ePeen-ness. Between my wifes, three sons, and my Skynet Killer capable, I believe I have enough experience with the different hardware to say, "stick with Intel".

Are you likely to even notice a difference at that level? perhaps not. Will you feel more confident with the Intel vs second guessing your AMD purchase based upon the Benchmark reviews? Probably. Intel has a superb track record. Not saying AMD doesnt. Ive personally seen AMD chips last longer than Intel, but then again they dont put out the same power, so its almost like saying, "I never used 4th gear in my car, hence it never fails, so its better"... eeeaanntt False.

Ive replaced my sons AMD CPU once, and another sons AMD was DOA after purchase, so I swapped it out for a different mobo and cpu combo and went Intel. Skynet is Intel. Its overclocked and not seen one issue.






^ Epic Win. Seriously. Best reply. Hard to argue Fact vs Fiction.



+ 1



I think this quote is "dissectable" in so many ways. But I "think" the point this is trying to make is clear. If your willing to sacrifice some performance for >$100, or cant wait another pay period to afford a better product. AMD is just fine. Dont all cars get you from A to B? Why do people buy nice ones? loyalty? cost? dependability? low maintenance? who knows.


Side note: Arent all "Fan boy" comments hypocritical in themselves? Its shameful really.
yup.


nyerk nyerk nyerk.

[lonerider]

Dash, I have 5 computers at home, all varying degrees of ePeen-ness. Between my wifes, three sons, and my Skynet Killer capable, I believe I have enough experience with the different hardware to say, "stick with Intel".


I'm sure you have built enough computers to have a good sense of what's good and what's not when it comes to hardware. In my case, I have owned and operated a small computer shop for 6 years (built HUNDREDs of custom/whitebox computers, upgraded/rebuilt HUNDREDS of branded ones), worked in a couple of companies as tech support specialist and network admin for over 8 years, etc (not going to post my full resume here, lol). I'd say my experience in the field of PC hardware would be enough to have led me to be brand-neutral (Intel vs. AMD). I've witnessed both had ups and downs for the past 2 decades... have to admit though Intel has the edge right now when it comes to overall performance.

But we are talking about a very specific application here, multiboxing. Running one instance of the WoW client per static core would be something I'm very curious to see... in one particular scenario, (at stock speeds) would an Intel i5-2500K running 8 WoW clients (2 clients per static core) outperform an AMD FX-8150 running 8 WoW clients (1 client per static core)? Cuz I could get an 8150+SLI motherboard at roughly $25 more than an i5-2500K+SLI motherboard combo. Which do you think would have the edge in the performance-per-dollar ratio?

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I'm sure you have built enough computers to have a good sense of what's good and what's not when it comes to hardware. In my case, I have owned and operated a small computer shop for 6 years (built HUNDREDs of custom/whitebox computers, upgraded/rebuilt HUNDREDS of branded ones), worked in a couple of companies as tech support specialist and network admin for over 8 years, etc (not going to post my full resume here, lol). I'd say my experience in the field of PC hardware would be enough to have led me to be brand-neutral (Intel vs. AMD). I've witnessed both had ups and downs for the past 2 decades... have to admit though Intel has the edge right now when it comes to overall performance.
While we're exploring the Appeal to Authority fallacy, having worked at or as a vendor to tier 1 PC OEMs and their ODMs for about 14 years now and leading teams that have shipped hundreds of unique products and thousands of individual units through the software QA process (and seen the 3rd-level support data coming back from the field), I don't personally know anyone in the industry that will choose an AMD-based product over a comparably priced (i.e.: within ~20%) Intel-based product when it comes to their home machines or for friends/family units. Seeing the statistics on defect counts throughout the product cycles, I can only report that I've seen enough data that AMD is behind not due to any pogrom on the part of us Intel Fanboys.

That said, when I say "much less stable," we're talking about small percentages that would probably be buried in the noise of bad driver updates, buggy applications, thermal issues due to dust, cheap peripheral hardware, misconfigured timings in BIOS and general cruft most users abuse their systems with.

[lonerider]

I am not worried about overall statistics when it comes to how many defective chips are out there... my only question is about Performance of both CPUs (Sandy i5 vs. Bulldozer FX) on multiboxing several clients. I recently built two gaming rigs for a friend and for a brother... and a regular desktop for a co-worker. The two gaming rigs were 2500Ks and the regular desktop was a Sandy I3. That's because everyone in the industry knows Intels are a bit more dependable. But that is not my concern now, since this CPU/motherboard upgrade is going to be for me (obviously, I'm not concerned in troubleshooting my own rig). When it comes to my rig, I want a platform that will give me the most bang for the back (with a small budget, thanks to my wife). We all know that the i5 would beat the 8120/8150 in single and lightly threaded apps... but what about running multiple instances of a game (like WoW) and binding each instance to one core?

I try to stay brand-neutral, and would like to get a feel on real-world performance (not theorycrafting) on both chips with manually setting CPU affinity. I guess I'll find out for myself once the cpu/mobo arrives.

To note: I also built two identical servers (running Citrix XenServer) for a small client/outfit for their desktop virtualization project using just regular desktop motherboards paired up with PhenomII-X6 1100T CPUs. Let me tell you this, each "server" ran 10 virtual desktops without any hickups. 1100Ts are awesome for virtualization, so that's why you can't really dismiss AMD's CPUs even though they also showed inferior performance reviews against Intel CPUs on single/lightly threaded benchmarks.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I know we've had 10-boxing tests on i7-2600k CPUs with various other bits attached but I don't think anyone has done any side-by-side testing on otherwise identical hardware/setups. The best we've got is anecdotes regarding GPUs on various platforms, with the only demonstrable variable being VRAM size (where more = better).

You might PM Doz3rr and see how he likes his and which model he bought. http://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/45022-From-q6600-to-x6-was-nice

[lonerider]

^ Thanks, I read his thread and got some info... however, I wish he posted some fraps/videos or some screenshots with FPS numbers. I'm upgrading from a Q6600 too, so I should at least see a BIG leap in performance. The two 2500Ks I built... were somewhat of a mixed bag. The first one (for my friend) had the lower end liquid cooling from corsair (was on sale for $49 at the time)... I had it overclocked to 4.4Ghz stable for about a month, then my friend started telling me that most of his games would lock up (SC2, WoW) after 10-20 minutes randomly of continued gameplay. So I checked his temps and they were a bit high... I had it throttled down to 4Ghz and it went stable again (till this day, no more complaints). My brother's rig, I also had it OCed to 4Ghz, since he was only on the stock air cooler. It's still stable to this day, but he doesn't really game much. This is why I wanted to try something other than an i5, but with my rather limited budget, I only have the 8120 as an option... it saves me about $50 for the cpu/mobo vs. the 2500K.

Based on OC forums, the 8120 seems to overclock as well as an 8150. When it arrives I plan to just OC it to 8150 stock settings, with the bi-turbo enabled, including power saving features turned on. I don't want to raise our electric bill, so at least I can probably run it on the OEM air cooler for the time being. Once it proves stable in the next couple of months if I think I need more OC, then I'll probably get that Antec Liquid cooler for $62 on Amazon and crank it up a bit. Now, I'm getting really excited LOL.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I had it overclocked to 4.4Ghz stable for about a month, then my friend started telling me that most of his games would lock up (SC2, WoW) after 10-20 minutes randomly of continued gameplay. So I checked his temps and they were a bit high... I had it throttled down to 4Ghz and it went stable again (till this day, no more complaints).
I've had that happen a few times. Every case was either a bubble in the thermal paste or just a bad batch of paste that "dried out" under heavy use. It's common enough that it's now the first thing I check when I have those kinds of problems. :p

[Ualaa]

If you're going with a new system, go Intel over AMD, but spend the extra $100 or so and get the i7 2600K over the i5 2500K.

Since you're talking about 8+ boxing...
If you read the earlier threads that were linked, especially the Tom's Hardware review on Cataclysm Warcraft performance, you'll see the two-core i3 Intel system beat the -then- top AMD six-core system for one-boxing.

There aren't really any tests out there on running five applications at once, for warcraft.
But you can see people who play and have posted their own performance in the various performance/upgrade/will-this-be-good-enough threads for others who are curious.
People who have gone with i5/i7 based systems, have in general been far happier with their boxing performance, than those who went with AMD six-cores.
Sure that's not the AMD eight-core, but the extra four cores (see: i3 vs AMD, Tom's Hardware) didn't amount to any performance gains; not sure that an extra two cores will mean much.

An i5 2500K is a fairly good system if you're going to be five-boxing, without much else running in the background.
An i7 2600K, for about $100 extra, will be the system to go with if you're going to be ten-boxing or running fewer games.
The stock speed i7 was noticeably faster (while streaming, to boot) than the i5 (overclocked to 4.5GHz) was while just playing five games.
And the i7 overclocks just as easily, and is stable with a $40 air cooler (Corsair A70).

It's your money, so do what you want with it.
You're not likely going to find empirical data of AMD 8-core vs Intel i5 4-core.
But if you're going to be 8+ boxing, while asking the boxing community what to go with... everyone is saying Intel and no one is saying AMD, that's worth noting.

[lonerider]

well, I'll give it a shot with the FX, since Eta on the order is Tues next week. If results are disappointing, I can always return it and say it's a bad cpu/board. I'm really curious as to how itll perform as a multibox rig. I just cant see how an i5 would be superior running 2 wow instances per core vs. the FX running only 1 instance per core, even if the intel proc has obviously higher IPC. there are other popular sites that have benched the FX 8core cpu using highly threaded software and the FX came out ahead in performance vs the 2500k. So, if 8 instances of Wow are assigned one core affinity each, then it should get full utilization of all cores! I'll post results once I finish setting the new rig up.

[Pazgaz]

Bulldozer cores are not real cores. They are closer to being real cores than Intel virtual cores are, but they share some hardware between them. That means that they just can't perform as good as a single "real" core. Even AMD refers to each pair as module and is very careful about comparing them to independent cores.

[Ualaa]

If that's the case... then you have...

AMD 4 modules...
4 full cores, and 4 almost cores.

i5 2500K
4 full cores, and no virtual cores.

i7 2600K
4 full cores, and 4 virtual cores.



Still, if you're going with more than 5 boxing, and the AMD 8-core is similar priced to the i5 2500K...
Then spend an extra $100 and get the i7 2600K...
Which while it costs $100 more is far stronger, no comparison.

Plus or minus $100 isn't that big of a deal, when you're spending around $1000-$1500 on a system.





However the AMD system ends up performing...
If you can then test an i7 2600K system for comparison.

The "pretending something didn't work" to get the other option, will be very worthwhile.

[lonerider]

Bulldozer cores are not real cores. They are closer to being real cores than Intel virtual cores are, but they share some hardware between them. That means that they just can't perform as good as a single "real" core. Even AMD refers to each pair as module and is very careful about comparing them to independent cores.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulldozer_(microarchitecture)

"A module consists in a coupling of two conventional x86 out-of-order processing engines each of which is considered to be a core. The processing engines share the early pipeline stages (eg. L1i (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPU_cache), fetch, decode), the FPUs, and the L2 cache with the rest of the module."

"difference between the two approaches is that Bulldozer provides dedicated schedulers and integer units for each thread, whereas in Intel's core all threads must compete for available execution resources."

I'll leave it up to you on how to understand what that means.

Price differences at the time of my purchase:
$310 - FX-8120 CPU + Gigabyte SLI mobo ($290 after rebate)
$360 - Intel 2500K i5 CPU + Gigabyte SLI mobo (no rebate)
$450 - Intel 2600K i7 CPU + Gigabyte SLI mobo (no rebate)

I'm not building a $1,000-$1,500 unit, I'm just upgrading my existing one and luckily, I already have some parts laying around (DDR3 memory, harddrives, etc)

[Bollwerk]

well, I'll give it a shot with the FX, since Eta on the order is Tues next week. If results are disappointing, I can always return it and say it's a bad cpu/board. I'm really curious as to how itll perform as a multibox rig. I just cant see how an i5 would be superior running 2 wow instances per core vs. the FX running only 1 instance per core, even if the intel proc has obviously higher IPC. there are other popular sites that have benched the FX 8core cpu using highly threaded software and the FX came out ahead in performance vs the 2500k. So, if 8 instances of Wow are assigned one core affinity each, then it should get full utilization of all cores! I'll post results once I finish setting the new rig up.
If you're going to be boxing more than 5 clients, I don't think it's necessarily a fair comparison to include the 2500K (or any Intel without hyperthreading), even though it's in the same price range.
In other words, since we are talking about processing lots of threads, we should compare 8 "cores" to 8 "cores", however they are implemented.
It would be a better comparison to compare the 2700K or 3820 ($300 range) to the AMD FX-8150 ($250 range).
The cost difference is minor and should not be a concern if you're building a PC to box more than 5.
I understand you're only upgrading, rather than building a whole PC, but the principle should hold.

[lonerider]

2700K would cost me almost $500 for a CPU & SLI motherboard combo. That's way out of my price range. We are talking about the most bang for the wallet here, so the comparison for which is the better buy is totally based on price and multiboxing performance, not on how many cores/features. The package came in last night... I'm going to try build it later when I get home from work. Most likely, I'll have the new system up and running by tomorrow, that if I don't feel too lazy haha.

[lonerider]

Just finished building the thing last night, what took forever was the Windows patches, updates, etc (not to mention, house chores lol). When I was done it was almost midnight. Initially, the thing ran a little hotter than I've expected, thanks to the crappy OEM bundled heatsink/fan. I'm going to wait for a sale on a liquid cooler or one of those high-end air pushers. In the meantime, the CPU is running on stock speeds (3.1Ghz default, 4Ghz turbo mode), but I've lowered the CPU voltage to -0.05 over default setting. It dropped running temps from 57' to 52' under load. I'll probably drop it a bit more when I get home tonight.

The thing RUNS like a champ. Running my normal boxed team of 5 wow clients, and set CPU affinity to 5 separate cores per instance. Each window is super smooth... no more choppy frames in IF (which I was suffering from before this upgrade... had Q6600). Average CPU utilization is around 50-60% per bound core in Ironforge (on "medium" graphics settings across all toons). I'll post screenshots tonight, will probably download MSI's afterburner so I can see the exact frame rates per instance.

My new specs:

AMD FX-8120 @ stock speeds, -0.05 CPU voltage (OEM Heatsink/fan)
Gigabyte 990XA-UD3 SLI motherboard
8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1600 8-8-8-24
Dual MSI GTX-460 768MB in SLI (surroundview mode, x3 LCD screens, 5760x1080 resolution)
Dual 500GB 7200 RPM HDDs in Raid-1
Ultra 750W PSU

[Apps]

no more choppy frames in IF


OH! why didnt you say you were alliance!? Theres your problem right there, we couldve saved you a lot. lol

Seriously, glad you got it up and going... and are happy. How do you like SLI mode? I love it.

[lonerider]

Hehe, I'm just so used to the Alliance cities... that's why I stuck with the faction. Wish I didn't have to work today so I could tinker around with the upgraded rig. I want to run lower voltages @ stock clocks. Less heat & power draw are my main objectives, not necessarily higher clock speeds... despite the $hitty stock CPU fan and cheap PSU, I want a stable rig. The two TwinFrozr MSI 460 SLI cards both draw a LOT of power, so I might need a better (& certified PSU) down the road once I desire for overclocking.

[Bollwerk]

What resolution and graphics settings are you running each window at?

[lonerider]

My center screen has the master toon (warrior) @ 1920x1040 resolution, while the slaves are at 960x1040 respectively (2 mages on the left screen and priest/druid on the right screen). Total resolution for all 5 windows (side by side) across 3 LCD screens is 5760x1040.

NVidia's 3-screen surroundview mode (SLI) is amazing for multiboxing (I don't have to PiP or control another PC). I'm going to set CPU affinity later to 2 cores each for my warrior, priest, and druid... then one core each for my nuking mages. That's a total of all 8 cores fully utilized. I'll report the results later.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

The thing RUNS like a champ. Running my normal boxed team of 5 wow clients, and set CPU affinity to 5 separate cores per instance. Each window is super smooth... no more choppy frames in IF (which I was suffering from before this upgrade... had Q6600). Average CPU utilization is around 50-60% per bound core in Ironforge.
Nice. Glad it's working well for you. ;)

[ebony]

this is the CPU am thinking about upgrading to as its a simple in and out job from my 1100T hexcore. i like to know what you get with 10 and more stuff going on when am round a lot off players my systems starts to die :( 10boxing (touhg its a lot better now i cut some addons)

[lonerider]

Overclocked to 3.8Ghz (disabled turbo, stable even if CPU is undervolted to -0.05V over default, 49-50'C average temp with stock fan on multiboxing load). warrior, priest, and druid now with 2 cores each, the two mages one core each. (only thing I can complain about is the noisy stock fan, it goes loud when CPU is under load).

Getting a solid 60+ FPS on the 3 toons with dual cores... about 55-60 FPS on the other 2 with single core affinity. (screenshot was taken in IF, all toons were running/autofollow when this shot was taken... with lots of players around). I think Vsync is enabled, max graphic settings/effects/distance on Warrior, high settings on the other 5 toons with low distance.

579

-edit- I'm going to try upload/share the high-res screenshot later tonight.

[lonerider]

this is the CPU am thinking about upgrading to as its a simple in and out job from my 1100T hexcore. i like to know what you get with 10 and more stuff going on when am round a lot off players my systems starts to die :( 10boxing (touhg its a lot better now i cut some addons)

That's interesting to hear... 1100T is a multitasking monster with 6 full cores (integer+FPU). Is your CPU affinity per wow instance configured/enabled? I found out this really helps a LOT. Then again, you have 10 toons running... ideally, I read somewhere it's best to have (at the least) one core per wow instance.

-edit- Before I did this upgrade, I was running a Core2Quad Q6600 (mildly OCed @ 2.85Ghz), same setup and video cards. If memory serves right, I was averaging around 22-25 FPS on the three toons that had one core each.... while the two mages (both shared one core) would drop to around 12-15 FPS in IF. (graphics set to "medium" across all toons)

[ebony]

That's interesting to hear... 1100T is a multitasking monster with 6 full cores (integer+FPU). Is your CPU affinity per wow instance configured/enabled? I found out this really helps a LOT. Then again, you have 10 toons running... ideally, I read somewhere it's best to have (at the least) one core per wow instance.

-edit- Before I did this upgrade, I was running a Core2Quad Q6600 (mildly OCed @ 2.85Ghz), same setup and video cards. If memory serves right, I was averaging around 22-25 FPS on the three toons that had one core each.... while the two mages (both shared one core) would drop to around 12-15 FPS in IF. (graphics set to "medium" across all toons)


ya i know what i read i should be laughing even 10 boxing i tryed just doing one core per window but find it better doing 1-2 2-3 3-4 4-5 5-6. at the start i was always maxing out my ram 5 boxing so changed that out and now am using a lot less ram. but as soon as i go over into a good gf setting boom! less then 15fps. and its jumpy and lagging to hell.

Then i was on beta and was funny running really really well so went back to live and removed all my addons but like 6 and so far its been great running about 40-80% cpu load using 1.5gb on my gfxcard and its load is like 40% and ram is 50-60% (ten boxing) but as soon as i change any gfcard setting its just kills my fps and cpu is maxing out at 100%.

even though am not even close to maxing out ram/gpu on my card.

i do play on a full server so players = high load even though its not to bad somtimes i just wish i had that bit more. overclocking the system helps loads but i car't get it stable.

so am thinking its my PSU its a 650w (though box says 750w) Its Name is "power cool" *couth* bad move gfxcard says its needs 650w min and on a overclocked system i think that is whats making it unstable. funny thing is my bother was having big prob's in LFR with low fraps and sceen lag and asked me if i know it could be his psu and he changed it and it was. shame i car't use his but its "Installed" well to test to see if that is the prob. let me know what you think.

am sure its not my gpu its a very nice card still and ash has the same one 10 boxing fine.

[lonerider]

I kinda think it's also your PSU... My Ultra 750 (I also don't think it's actually 750W) is probably not also giving enough juice cuz once I start to OC at 4Ghz and upping voltage to normal settings, my video card driver would randomly crash & reset the screen. I know the 8120 processor would have no problems running overclocked to 4Ghz on stock fan as I read user reviews on sites like newegg. But my two GTX-460s are drawing much power on full load, and if the cpu/motherboard sucks a lot of juice, the GFx cards would starve out on power and crash the software. I just tried 9-boxing last night, and man... it's a whole different ball game. I'm no longer getting ultra smooth rendering, still decent, but I think the GFX settings will have to be lowered, and SLI would have to be disabled (which I will try tonight). CPU temps are rising to about 55'C and the core that's running two toons is fully maxed out, I'm averaging 70-90% utilization across all the rest of the cores running one toon each LOL.

[ebony]

I kinda think it's also your PSU... My Ultra 750 (I also don't think it's actually 750W) is probably not also giving enough juice cuz once I start to OC at 4Ghz and upping voltage to normal settings, my video card driver would randomly crash & reset the screen. I know the 8120 processor would have no problems running overclocked to 4Ghz on stock fan as I read user reviews on sites like newegg. But my two GTX-460s are drawing much power on full load, and if the cpu/motherboard sucks a lot of juice, the GFx cards would starve out on power and crash the software. I just tried 9-boxing last night, and man... it's a whole different ball game. I'm no longer getting ultra smooth rendering, still decent, but I think the GFX settings will have to be lowered, and SLI would have to be disabled (which I will try tonight). CPU temps are rising to about 55'C and the core that's running two toons is fully maxed out, I'm averaging 70-90% utilization across all the rest of the cores running one toon each LOL.


ya av only got the one gfxcard but like i said i ran gpuz and am not even hit half my load. but a cheep psu is not a good move really. so i like see what i get paid and maybe get one shiped in for the weekend i hope this is the prob and its not the cpu my cpu i can get to 3.9 easy and temps are great i use a All on one H2O water cooler but my cpu u don't need a lot off v to get a good speed but i have to keep giving it more and more to get it stable and i know my stoping point on this cpu and i don't get a lot.


Got a Update on this: so i been doing some more tests and i find out am only using like 80% off my CPU when a lot is going on. Running it to 100% but its not staying at 100%. so i was looking into the PSU a bit more and find out the amps on my psu is only 32amps. then i find out my gfxcard needs 43amps so thats a right prob before we start. and its olny a 650w and i need 700w for what am running so am probs hitting a few extra probs. am getting a psu tomz and ill update you :)

[lonerider]

Update: ordered a Thermaltake Frio monster-sized CPU cooler from Amazon and it arrived last night. Replaced the crappy stock fan and overclocked to 4.1Ghz (undervolted to -0.025V vs. stock). Temps held to 39-41'C for 9-boxing, very stable. Smooth rendering across all windows... about 45-55 FPS on slaves and close to 60 FPS on my main's window.

SLI with SurroundView still enabled across 3 LCD screens, Main's game window is at 1920x1040 (affinity Core0-1, while all 8 slaves are at 960x520 distributed across 6 remaining cores). One thing to note, if you get a bulldozer 8-core CPU, I would strongly recommended to get an aftermarket CPU cooler that is highly rated for overclocking. CPU utilization is about 50% average on Core0-1, and about 80%-90% on Core2-7.

[ebony]

Update: ordered a Thermaltake Frio monster-sized CPU cooler from Amazon and it arrived last night. Replaced the crappy stock fan and overclocked to 4.1Ghz (undervolted to -0.025V vs. stock). Temps held to 39-41'C for 9-boxing, very stable. Smooth rendering across all windows... about 45-55 FPS on slaves and close to 60 FPS on my main's window.

SLI with SurroundView still enabled across 3 LCD screens, Main's game window is at 1920x1040 (affinity Core0-1, while all 8 slaves are at 960x520 distributed across 6 remaining cores). One thing to note, if you get a bulldozer 8-core CPU, it is strongly recommended to get an aftermarket CPU cooler that is highly rated for overclocking. CPU utilization is about 50% average on Core0-1, and about 80% on Core2-7.


wow looking good there :). i have a update as well i changed my PSU i gone over kill ;) so i can get a 2nd gfxcard if needed. 5 boxing is great 10 boxing is not going to happen even though my gxfcard loads seem low. its fine for old raids (any other zone then SW/Org/Tol wpvp) but i am trying to rendor them all at 1920x1080 so thats not going to help probs ill have to do some more testing.

i OCed my CPU to 3.8gz at 1.43v its not going to have anything higher then that. and its very stable runnign at a max off 52c

[lonerider]

9-boxing fun:
http://i46.tinypic.com/2mhg0o6.jpg

[ebony]

9-boxing fun:


Why is the a xmas tree in may? and a very old UI someone anit playing by the rules here ;)

[lonerider]

Why is the a xmas tree in may? and a very old UI someone anit playing by the rules here ;)

lol, i played on <removed>. never liked any of the expansions, except TBC. however, the server shutdown today, to the huge disappointment of hundreds of active players.

[ebony]

lol, EDIT. never liked any of the expansions, except TBC. however, the server shutdown today, to the huge disappointment of hundreds of active players.


not being funny i would edit that post as its not in the rules to talk about servers like this just because there about does not meen there ok.


This will make the hole topic pointless as your playing the game way back before the extra updates was added DX11 shadows and waters.

[MiRai]

lol, i played on <removed>. never liked any of the expansions, except TBC. however, the server shutdown today, to the huge disappointment of hundreds of active players.
That is a touching story but, we don't allow discussion of private servers on this forum as they are against Blizzard's rules. It also would explain why your new CPU did so exceptionally well for you because you're playing on an old outdated server, where as, the rest of us are looking for specific help and insight on how CPUs and GPUs run on current up-to-date servers.

http://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/1518-Community-Guidelines-Read-Before-Posting

[lonerider]

I apologize, totally missed out on that particular forum rule. admins, feel free to delete posts that are considered inappropriate here.