Multiple Weak machines or 1 Massive Powerfull machine?

[Sentack]

I'm realtively new to Multi-Boxing. That's pretty clear. But recently I just discovered KeyClone and it's multiple display feature. The ability to have all 5 instances of an application running on screen as if they were full screen, thus enableing you to multi-box with just one computer instead of multiple cheeper computers.

Now, the advantages of this approach are pretty clear to me. 1 Master machine means less hardware purchases, and an over all much better master system that can run regular games better then 4 slave machines, each drawing a ton of power, driving your electric bills thru the roof.

The disadvantage is that you need to buy one killer machine. That could easly run you into the thousands of dollars. Blowing $4k on 1 machine isn't impossable these days and while it'll run 5 instances of WoW easly. It's also actually more expensive then buying 4 cheep machines and having 1 'decent' machine. Although the difference might be very slim.

Also, your multi-tasking your computer and that presents it's own problems. Plus, multiple machines means you can host your own multi-game party if you want. Having 5 machines in the house can be a lot of fun.

So what is the popular opinion these days? 1 Killer machine? 2-3 Decent machines, some running multiple accounts, or all separate machines?

Sentack

[Gallo]

A standard issue 5box machine is basically:

Q6600 Processor
4gb RAM
Good Motherboard
Geforce 8800GT / 8800GTS / 8800GTX
600W+ PSU (good brand)
1 or more Hard drives.

going with a 8800GT and 1 hard drive, I made my machine for $850. You could make it beefier with a 8800GTS/GTX and more hard drives and still be well under $2k.

Edit: The main "disadvantage" to 1 machine vs multiple is the possibility that at some point Blizzard will ban the software that allows us to multibox. They don't seem to have a problem with it, but all the hardware-boxers have a) this conspiracy theory b) enough money to buy 5 machines anyways or c) both.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Just like your class, skill and macro selections, everything is a tradeoff. I run multiple machines (2.2-3.6GHz single/dual cores for the alts; Q6600 on main) so I can listen to winamp, download pr0n, capture video of my gaming and surf the web all at the same time without suffering performance issues.

[Djarid]

Multi-machine all hardware solution has the lowest latency with the highest cost

Multi-machine with software broadcast is probably has the slowest response time but has the advantage of using a broadcast mouse

Single machine has the disadvantage of no hardware broadcast but some of the features of Keyclone and Octopus are really closing the gap functionality wise. PiP, Keymaps, RR, DNP and Whitelists (with new features coming all the while). It is also the cheapest to setup and perhaps more importantly to run. It does not suffer the noise and heat issues of the hardware solution. If software mouse broadcasting ever gets developed then I think that this solution could win the day... the extra functionality more than offsetting the decreasing performance advantage of ps2 broadcasts.

[Xzin]

I prefer multiple powerful machines, personally.

[Ðeceased]

Just like your class, skill and macro selections, everything is a tradeoff. I run multiple machines (2.2-3.6GHz single/dual cores for the alts; Q6600 on main) so I can listen to winamp, download pr0n, capture video of my gaming and surf the web all at the same time without suffering performance issues.

hmm using a laptop myself.. not an amazingly powerful one either so you wouldn't need an ultra powerful PC.. as for the music etc I've learnt to optimise my set-up :P mp3 player for music (constantly charging mind you as i listen too such a lot). If you require p0rn, I guess you could go back to the old fashioned way of the VCR or something. video capture I guess would require a bit of umpf in the machine..

[Decedo]

I'm really new to dual-boxing, at the moment I have 2 chars (actually just started this last weekend). I'm also using keyclone after trying two computers with 'Synergy'. I found it a little with synergy, and keyclone has made things allot easier. I would like to add more chars in the future, so if was to go multiple computers, can they be controlled with keyclone (or some similar application)?

Thanks,

[Gurblash]

I personally run 5box on my laptop *specs in sig*. I run 30fps on main window and abuse the shit out of PiPs and BOOBS with KeyClone. Runs without a hitch in PvE, they are still young though so they havn't been battle tested in PvP. I imagine that AV would be pretty ugly on framerates with lots of people on the screen though. Org turns into a move 10yards, wait 5seconds, move 10 yards, wait 5seconds deal.

Despite all its 'cons' if you don't have the financial means, or in my case no fucking room in your house to setup your desk and your 6PCs in storage, a mid-high end laptop can 5box just fine.

[BobGnarly]

Good points already, but here's my take.

For most people, having 5 computers is a waste. You aren't really going to use them very much besides when you are 5-boxing, so it's a lot of hardware that won't get a lot of use. Also, don't underestimate the effect of having 5 computers in a room from a heat POV. It's significant.

Now, when I was starting this up, I thought like you: I'd need a monster computer to manage 5 accounts on one machine. Fortunately, I tried it out on what I had and found that it was fine (6600 core2du0, 2G upgraded later to 4G, 8800gtx@2560x1600). You can see by those specs that it's far from the best. While the video card is high-end, it's also running at a very high resolution which means it's got a lot more to do when running 5 wows.

There are also some things that software brings to the table that are more convenient (DNP, PIP swapping <<< huge, keymaps, etc). These can all be done via macroing and whatnot in the game with a all-hardware solution, but the software solution is much simpler to setup and manage, in my opinion.

There are advantages to hardware, as stated above, and they aren't to be ignored. You just have to decide which side of that fence you are on.

Good luck.

[Klamor]

I prefer multiple powerful machines, personally.
not all of us have that kind of money lol

[aetherg]

I bought 4 identical Dell mini-towers - 2ghz Core Duo w/ 1GB RAM and integrated graphics - for $300 each including shipping. They're typically running at 30-60FPS depending on the situation. I'd estimate they draw about 150W each (the power supplies are only 250W max), and generate very little heat. So as far as cost/heat/electricity, it's not a problem if you're careful about what you buy.

As I see it (still not sure if I made the right decision myself), the main argument in favor of one beefy machine is the ease of setup & use. With keyclone, especially new features like PiP, one beefy machine has great advantages over having lots of monitors or using VNC.

The main disadvantage is that, even with four cores, four gigs of RAM and an 8800, I doubt your framerates will be as smooth as separate machines.

[Sarduci]

I prefer multiple powerful machines, personally.I'll second that notion. Too bad I don't have the space for 5 monitors.....

[Xzin]

I prefer multiple powerful machines, personally.
not all of us have that kind of money lol

True. But even then, you can get a VERY solid setup for ~ $2.5k ish that should pull 30+ FPS pretty much anywhere.

Depends on your version of what an expensive hobby is really but even a quad core is hard to put together for under $1k.

[glo]

Long term I think separate machines is best, Blizz could come out tomorrow and ban key broadcasting software.

Even with a large monitor having many clients in view makes it a pain to write your macros and read smaller text.

[Djarid]

Long term I think separate machines is best, Blizz could come out tomorrow and ban key broadcasting software.

Even with a large monitor having many clients in view makes it a pain to write your macros and read smaller text.

Agree, however PiP makes up for this, I can do basic stuff in my 384x300 non-focused windows e.g. Loot, hand in and get quests, trade with a vendor and use FPs

Anything else, I just Swap that instance into my main region (1538x1200) and then can read any text. It takes about 1 or 2 10ths of a second for me to swap windows. I am running an Athlon X2 4600+ 4Gb (2.8Gb avail) and an X1950XT on a 24" (1920x1200) monitor.

Do I get performance probs? sure, mainly in cities but since moving to linked Data folders this has improved.

Regarding the acceptable use of key broadcast software, it has the same likelihood of being banned as the full hardware solution. If a ban ever was imposed then it will be the process not the mechanism that they have problems with.

[Lyonheart]

i just paid 3500 for my newest PC ( i still use the last one for my "support" team of a mage and priest to buff/port my other 5 ) I could easily afford 5 PCs.. but I play other games and try almost anything that comes out. For me i have to play games at max res/settings or its just not worth it. So i always have the latest hardware. Anyway, i love only "needing" one PC. Keyclone and maximizer make it "easy" and I run all 5 acnts very smooth. ( two monitors ) Right now I'm using a 20' and 19' but will soon have two 30s for a bit more viewing area.

[Fearlys]

Blizzard will never ban multi-boxers, especially with us all aspiring to be like Zin (FREAKIN 10 BOXING ARE YOU SERIOUS???). If anything they'd upgrade servers and make wow more multiboxing friendly. They care nothing about the social benefits of an MMO and if they can get 50% of there player base to multi-box?? In the words of Method Man " DOLLAR DOLLAR BILL YAW!!!!!" :huh:

[keyclone]

I'm really new to dual-boxing, at the moment I have 2 chars (actually just started this last weekend). I'm also using keyclone after trying two computers with 'Synergy'. I found it a little with synergy, and keyclone has made things allot easier. I would like to add more chars in the future, so if was to go multiple computers, can they be controlled with keyclone (or some similar application)?
keyclone was initially designed to take advantage of all the hardware i had laying around... so yes, keyclone can easily connect multiple machines together. actually, there is no real limit to the number of machines you can connect.

this is a pic from the keyclone walk-thru 'tutorial' page:

http://solidice.com/keyclone/tutorial/connection_diagram.jpg



as you can see.. multiple machines, multiple instances... 1 keyclone per machine. the most i have had in a 'keyclone network' has been 24 across 6 or 7 machines... but that was over 18 months ago. i haven't heard of anyone trying to connect more accounts in wow yet... but it's doable (but would probably bring down the ban hammer due to account sharing)

if you have any more questions, please feel free to drop me a note.

[Decedo]

I just installed a GeForce 8800 GTS (640MB) and new power supply and pip rocks now. Thinking about upping the toons (not up to Xzin's level though). ......getting hooked on this multi-boxing!

[marvein]

Blizzard will never ban multi-boxers, especially with us all aspiring to be like Zin (FREAKIN 10 BOXING ARE YOU SERIOUS???). If anything they'd upgrade servers and make wow more multiboxing friendly. They care nothing about the social benefits of an MMO and if they can get 50% of there player base to multi-box?? In the words of Method Man " DOLLAR DOLLAR BILL YAW!!!!!" :huh:

this is pretty much the case right here. They are not going to remove that kind of income from their stuff as long as we stay withini the realm of human controlled (which it is). For me the reason is I dont have space in this cramped apt to actually setup 5 computers on my desk (I have plenty in my place though) when I eventually get a bigger place/house I will definately be going to a 5 massive machine setup. I am an avid folder ( Folding@home ('http://folding.stanford.edu') ) so I have all the PCs I need just add video cards and Im good but currently my one massive machine can handle things. Though Im upgrading to a quad core and adding another hard drive in short order to improve loading times.

[Thedonsquad]

I personally like the one mean machine idea (as i suppose is obvious from my sig). Many of the speed issues can actually be completely overcome, as there are many tools out there. In fact there is an idea i have for the ultimate single machine setup. Besides, unless you are running a complete netflix backup facility out of your house when you aren't boxing, how much will the other 4 machines get any real use? This is one of the realms where I truely believe that a single system setup will match most peoples interest much more, and tech is definatly at a point where a carefuly planned system can virtually eliminate any effective difference.

Basically heres the parts list and concept:

Quad Core 3.0ghz (preferably a model and board capable of 1600Mhz FSB)
8GB Ram DDR2 1066+
2x 320GB Raid 0 (SATA II)
Dual 8800GT or better on PCIx 2.0 bus
Audio of choice
Vista x64

Thanks to the ability to dynamically link the data files in wow you split 4GB of the ram into a ramdrive and copy the files up to it, dynamically link the folders to it. This completely bypasses the reading of the files from the hard drives and skips the bus entirely. The rate at which the system can call for the info and recieve it ends up on the level of approximatly 17000x faster than a typical hard drive.

Granted this creates a helluva hassle each time you have to reboot, but if you are looking for the pure peformance standpoint, you are taking out steps in the process which makes things faster. You also won't be running 4 more computers consuming all that extra power, making it less of an issue to leave the system running (not to mention adding a UPS to help reduce the chances of having to resetup).

Now you have the lowest problems with loading, the 1600Mhz FSB helps throughput to the video cards reducing load on the CPU cores allowing you to have at worst %60 load giving room for keyclone, vista, IM, etc to do it's thing. You also have a solid 4GB RAM left over which is sufficient for 4-5 boxing on a single machine.

The biggest thing for me is the features of keyclone that cannot be achieved by KVM. The program is great, and getting better each week.

[Zite83]

I've ran five accounts on my setup just fine. I already have enough machines in my house (room mates computers, m0n0wall, NAS server) I don't need anymore. I just like having one keyboard, mouse and two monitors. If my main dies, I just click over to the other WoW instances I have running. I prefer just one solid machine.

[farkenell]

Long term I think separate machines is best, Blizz could come out tomorrow and ban key broadcasting software.

Even with a large monitor having many clients in view makes it a pain to write your macros and read smaller text.I use moveanything addon to resize the macro window and rearrange alot of the stuff on screen so I can see it better.

[Shigan5]

I personally like the one mean machine idea (as i suppose is obvious from my sig). Many of the speed issues can actually be completely overcome, as there are many tools out there. In fact there is an idea i have for the ultimate single machine setup. Besides, unless you are running a complete netflix backup facility out of your house when you aren't boxing, how much will the other 4 machines get any real use? This is one of the realms where I truely believe that a single system setup will match most peoples interest much more, and tech is definatly at a point where a carefuly planned system can virtually eliminate any effective difference.

Basically heres the parts list and concept:

Quad Core 3.0ghz (preferably a model and board capable of 1600Mhz FSB)
8GB Ram DDR2 1066+
2x 320GB Raid 0 (SATA II)
Dual 8800GT or better on PCIx 2.0 bus
Audio of choice
Vista x64

Thanks to the ability to dynamically link the data files in wow you split 4GB of the ram into a ramdrive and copy the files up to it, dynamically link the folders to it. This completely bypasses the reading of the files from the hard drives and skips the bus entirely. The rate at which the system can call for the info and recieve it ends up on the level of approximatly 17000x faster than a typical hard drive.

Granted this creates a helluva hassle each time you have to reboot, but if you are looking for the pure peformance standpoint, you are taking out steps in the process which makes things faster. You also won't be running 4 more computers consuming all that extra power, making it less of an issue to leave the system running (not to mention adding a UPS to help reduce the chances of having to resetup).

Now you have the lowest problems with loading, the 1600Mhz FSB helps throughput to the video cards reducing load on the CPU cores allowing you to have at worst %60 load giving room for keyclone, vista, IM, etc to do it's thing. You also have a solid 4GB RAM left over which is sufficient for 4-5 boxing on a single machine.

The biggest thing for me is the features of keyclone that cannot be achieved by KVM. The program is great, and getting better each week.

Id change the graphics cards to 1 9800gtx2 much faster than dual 8800gts You could always get 2 9800gtx2's and quad sli but thatd be major overkill. drool, 120+fps in shatt. And less power consumption.

Oh and for the processor a larger L1/L2 cache makes things nice and fast as well.

As for the ramdrive, that is highly unrecommended. Not only on every reboot would you have to recopy the files, and since the wow folder is now around 7gb, it would take a long time and it wouldnt fit anyways. The other issue would be having that much data access going on with your ram, if the FSB for your ram is low, more performance issues, but the biggest problem is with that much accessing going on you could run into heat issues and destroy your ram.

[marvein]

I personally like the one mean machine idea (as i suppose is obvious from my sig). Many of the speed issues can actually be completely overcome, as there are many tools out there. In fact there is an idea i have for the ultimate single machine setup. Besides, unless you are running a complete netflix backup facility out of your house when you aren't boxing, how much will the other 4 machines get any real use? This is one of the realms where I truely believe that a single system setup will match most peoples interest much more, and tech is definatly at a point where a carefuly planned system can virtually eliminate any effective difference.

Basically heres the parts list and concept:

Quad Core 3.0ghz (preferably a model and board capable of 1600Mhz FSB)
8GB Ram DDR2 1066+
2x 320GB Raid 0 (SATA II)
Dual 8800GT or better on PCIx 2.0 bus
Audio of choice
Vista x64

Thanks to the ability to dynamically link the data files in wow you split 4GB of the ram into a ramdrive and copy the files up to it, dynamically link the folders to it. This completely bypasses the reading of the files from the hard drives and skips the bus entirely. The rate at which the system can call for the info and recieve it ends up on the level of approximatly 17000x faster than a typical hard drive.

Granted this creates a helluva hassle each time you have to reboot, but if you are looking for the pure peformance standpoint, you are taking out steps in the process which makes things faster. You also won't be running 4 more computers consuming all that extra power, making it less of an issue to leave the system running (not to mention adding a UPS to help reduce the chances of having to resetup).

Now you have the lowest problems with loading, the 1600Mhz FSB helps throughput to the video cards reducing load on the CPU cores allowing you to have at worst %60 load giving room for keyclone, vista, IM, etc to do it's thing. You also have a solid 4GB RAM left over which is sufficient for 4-5 boxing on a single machine.

The biggest thing for me is the features of keyclone that cannot be achieved by KVM. The program is great, and getting better each week.

Id change the graphics cards to 1 9800gtx2 much faster than dual 8800gts You could always get 2 9800gtx2's and quad sli but thatd be major overkill. drool, 120+fps in shatt. And less power consumption.

Oh and for the processor a larger L1/L2 cache makes things nice and fast as well.

As for the ramdrive, that is highly unrecommended. Not only on every reboot would you have to recopy the files, and since the wow folder is now around 7gb, it would take a long time and it wouldnt fit anyways. The other issue would be having that much data access going on with your ram, if the FSB for your ram is low, more performance issues, but the biggest problem is with that much accessing going on you could run into heat issues and destroy your ram.

Myth, using your computer a lot will not ruin its components. As long as you are not running your computer in a far too warm environment any amount of use will not hurt it. In fact system builders (especially overclockers) forcefuly stress their system in order to 'burn-in' the components and check stability. Also, even the slowest DDR2 ram on the market is still faster seek times than a hard drive but none of this is practical due to the size of a WoW installation.

[Shigan5]

im not saying using it all day or something im talking about all at one time. Amount of load on the ram is how i should have worded it. CPUS can only handle so much load, and at some point ram could potentially as well. Could being key word as ive never stressed ram enough. You would either bottleneck or overload your ram.

Overclocking does stress a machine and they only stress it to a point, and yes some overclocking settings are stable at idle, but put a load on them and they draw too much power and overheat. Which is what im trying to get to. Everything is only stable up to a certain point.

[Oldin]

Fact:

My current setup

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6000+ 3.00GHz
8800 GT
3 GB of RAM (XP Max)
single SATAII drive 320GB

Is more than beefy enough to 5box wow, watch porn and fraps the main windows character at the same time without any noticeable drops in FPS. Main goes from 70 to 40 when activating fraps Not noticeable by human eye.(of course using horizontal span due to XP)

Alt windows are stuck at 15FPS all the time with keyclone command editor setups.

[Thedonsquad]

Id change the graphics cards to 1 9800gtx2 much faster than dual 8800gts You could always get 2 9800gtx2's and quad sli but thatd be major overkill. drool, 120+fps in shatt. And less power consumption.

Oh and for the processor a larger L1/L2 cache makes things nice and fast as well.

As for the ramdrive, that is highly unrecommended. Not only on every reboot would you have to recopy the files, and since the wow folder is now around 7gb, it would take a long time and it wouldnt fit anyways. The other issue would be having that much data access going on with your ram, if the FSB for your ram is low, more performance issues, but the biggest problem is with that much accessing going on you could run into heat issues and destroy your ram.Myth, using your computer a lot will not ruin its components. As long as you are not running your computer in a far too warm environment any amount of use will not hurt it. In fact system builders (especially overclockers) forcefuly stress their system in order to 'burn-in' the components and check stability. Also, even the slowest DDR2 ram on the market is still faster seek times than a hard drive but none of this is practical due to the size of a WoW installation.
There are actually only a few select files that you need to be accessed that fast, and the vast majority of that is textures. The first setup of that would take a while, yes, but that would include creating a batch copy file that creates the ramdrive, makes the folders, copys the files for peak performance, and creates the symbolic links for the files. This is not a new concept, in fact vista includes something that does essentially the same idea, it's called ReadyBoost and it copies things that make your computer FEEL faster to a flashdrive, such as start menu lists and links, etc. The time it takes to complete the operation on sucessive boots would not be as horrible as you think once the batch file is created, as the files in question are not updated during gameplay. Most SATAII drives maintain about 60MB/s while reading larger files than the buffer, so yes, the copy operation would take a bit of time, and this could be lowered running a Raid 0 setup (i copy form one raid to another at sustained rates of 120MB/s which means i can fill the 4 GB in less than a min.

The bus from memory to graphics memory to GPU is a much wider and faster bus with less inbetween than a hard drive to mem to graphics memory to GPU. As far as memory burning out, marevin is correct, and i'm not even talking about OC'ing to get to this, i'm talking about buying memory thats been proven to be able to be overclocked and survived the 1 day stress/burn in test in those situations (guys clocking DDRII to 3-4-4-7 from 5-5-5-12 and running stable) taking the memory thats 5-5-5-12 and running at it's SPD will have plenty of lasting power, many high end DDRII dimms come with heatsinks on them, and a few even have other alternate cooling methods (eg watercooling, micro peltier to heatsink, copper piping to a larger heatsink)

Overload your ram, please explain, with a ramdrive, thats kinda hard to do when you aren't changing or adding data much once it's loaded it's now just a data repository thats being read from. With the rest of the ram, thats what caching is for.

[Shigan5]

It all depends on the ram.

But what im trying to say is everything has a limit on how much it can do at once. Examples:

You are copying a 4 gb file from one folder to a next and the whole progress bar shows up. Not bad. Doing the same thing 6 seperate instances at the same time, your bottlenecking your harddrive. Its not going to be copying at the same speed. Not very bad, other than an inconvenience.

You have internet explorer loading a page. Not bad. 50 seperate instances of the same thing at the same time. More than likely your CPU ( and your connection) is going to be at 100%. At factory settings this isnt bad, but overclocked your drawing alot of power now and producing alot of heat. If overclocked properly, no worries but if never tested at 100%, lots of potential problems.

You have a few components in your comp and a 300W power supply, not bad. Same power supply but running higher end components and you dont have enough amps on your 12v rail, potential power supply blow outs or failure, and potential ruining of components.

Now as for the ram, you could just get bottlenecked speeds, or you could get overheat issues. Which is what im getting to. The heat issue was what i was hitting on and yes, you could remedy with cooling. but depending on what ram he gets and what his current setup is, he might get a good couple of sticks with heatsinks, but idk what the heat implications for that much data access might be. Or he could go for the water cooling, which is a big expensive step. And if he doesnt get ram with any form of cooling or heat sink, potential heat issues.

[marvein]

im not saying using it all day or something im talking about all at one time. Amount of load on the ram is how i should have worded it. CPUS can only handle so much load, and at some point ram could potentially as well. Could being key word as ive never stressed ram enough. You would either bottleneck or overload your ram.

Overclocking does stress a machine and they only stress it to a point, and yes some overclocking settings are stable at idle, but put a load on them and they draw too much power and overheat. Which is what im trying to get to. Everything is only stable up to a certain point.

Again that is not correct, all of those issues can be countered with cooling (some as simple as just adding another fan) There is nothing wrong with running a CPU or RAM at 100% load 24/7 as long as, as I said, you are not already in a really warm environment. But any computer whether under 100% load or not will not perform well if the ambient air is really hot because it cant cool itself down. And no offense to you but it sounds like you have no idea how overclocking works if you are saying "and yes some overclocking settings are stable at idle" Everyday use OCs are perfectly stable. I currently run several that are in order to get a bit more juice out of them, mostly for folding since WoW doesnt need the horsepower. an OC that is not stable at load is not a stable OC, that is what "stable OC" means. One of my first dual core purchases was the first run E6200, its been running with a 35% OC, at 100% load, having been turned off only 3 times (power outages) for over 6 months and it is still rock solid. Intel/AMD make excellent chips that can handle the stresses of constant use. After all take a look at servers, which the 'small business' line is often identical to home computer CPUs, they are often under much more stressful loads and still function fine. Hard drives are much more likely to die first due to their moving parts.

Oh and one other point, nearly every intel and AMD chip made these days supports thermal throttling to avoid damaging itself if it thinks its getting to hot. Turn on your PC and remove the heatsink you will see what I mean. So unless you are doing something that requires this kind of cooling you arent likely to kill your CPU using it at full load, especially without an OC http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=387525 (unless of course you are using a really crappy PSU lol)

*edit* putting high power demand items in a comp and hooking them up to a garbage PSU and watching it explode is not a valid point for your argument that loading down computer comonents will cause them to fail. Thats like saying driving an 18wheeler a lot can cause it to die but then you mention that you are using regular unleaded gas instead of diesel, that doesnt hold any water.

[Shigan5]

just counteracting your point that just using a computer alot cant harm it, using it incorrectly. And though i dont overclock myself overclocking can be very unstable if you dont know what your doing, which is what i was hitting at. When i say some settings i mean setting up a stable overclock, if you have a 50% or higher OC that isnt stable under alot of load then it isnt a very "stable" overclock as it has the potential for failure.

[marvein]

just counteracting your point that just using a computer alot cant harm it, using it incorrectly. And though i dont overclock myself overclocking can be very unstable if you dont know what your doing, which is what i was hitting at. When i say some settings i mean setting up a stable overclock, if you have a 50% or higher OC that isnt stable under alot of load then it isnt a very "stable" overclock as it has the potential for failure.

saying misusing a computer counters my point is incorrect, that is called the straw-man fallacy. Driving a car will not cause damage to it, but driving it into a light pole would, but that is not prper use of a vehicle (such as not covered under warranty?) and is completely irrelevant. Intelligent, constant, full load use of a computer will not harm it. Do we really need to argue symantecs here? This isnt 1999, computer componets are very well built these days.

Also, a stable OC means it is stable, not stable some of the time so that is moot too. Im talking about using a stable machine, not purpously making one unstable, then overusing it then saying "omg look it died from 'normal' use"

[Shigan5]

exactly. has anyone actually tried setting this up on their ram like that and had extensive testing? We dont really know how much load or stress this could cause, might be no problem, but then again there might be. But its still blown out of the water either way by the size of the wow folder. The data folder itself is over 7gb. So it wouldnt matter anyways.

[marvein]

exactly. has anyone actually tried setting this up on their ram like that and had extensive testing? We dont really know how much load or stress this could cause, might be no problem, but then again there might be. But its still blown out of the water either way by the size of the wow folder. The data folder itself is over 7gb. So it wouldnt matter anyways.

uhh ok you just tried to dodge my point again, how did we suddenly jump over to a RAM drive? it doesnt hurt the memory, period. constant use and load of a stable system does not, and will not, damage it.

and if you are interested in a seperate solution so that you dont have to use system memory I direct you to this.
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?item=N82E16815168001

Its nifty but the biggest disadvantage is the 4GB limit. I used to have one in my server for hosting games like CS/BF2 to improve loading times of things like the maps etc but I sold the setup when I stopped hosting them because it wasnt really "OMG SWEET" as it sounds.

[Shigan5]

the original discussion stemmed from it being a ram drive. Thus i was returning to point, and still having it tie in with the topic.