Optimum Multiboxing Performance - Thoughts on two systems

[Chumbucket]

Which system would be best for multiboxing? According to Apple, if you run apps that are not highly multithreaded, you will benefit the most from processors with a higher clock speed. However, highly multithreaded applications will perform best on processors with a higher core count, even with a slightly lower clock speed.

So I was wondering how you guys might analyze these two systems for multiboxing.

Processor: Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 4960X 3.6GHz (Six-Core)
Motherboard: ASUS Rampage IV Extreme X79 (Intel X79 Chipset) (Features USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s)
Memory: 32GB DDR3 1866MHz Corsair Dominator Platinum DHX
Graphics: 2x SLI Dual (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB (Includes PhysX)
Storage: 1x (240GB Solid State (By: Corsair) (Model: Neutron GTX Series) (SATA 6Gbps)

VS.

Processor: Intel Xeon E5 processor 2.7GHz 12-core with 30MB of L3 cache
Motherboard: Mac Pro Motherboard
Memory: 32GB (4x8GB) of 1866MHz DDR3 ECC
Graphics: Dual AMD FirePro D700 GPUs with 6GB of GDDR5 VRAM
Storage: 256GB PCIe-based flash storage


I'm looking into a rig with 12 cores at 2.7 Ghz vs a rig with 6 cores at 3.6 Ghz. What do you guys think would have the best multiboxing performance given equal Ram and and the above graphics cards? What bottlenecks would you look for? How many accounts could one expect to run on one system versus the other. Which would you choose and why? What might you change? Thanks for your insights.

[JohnGabriel]

Its very easy to setup Raid0 with SSD drives, seems a good performance upgrade for low cost.

[RSM72]

How many accounts could one expect to run on one system versus the other.
You should probably tell us what game we are talking about?

4960X is overkill, you will get 95% of the performance for 55% of the price with an 4930K

[Chumbucket]

I box Rift now. I'm thinking of boxing WoW later. My experience is that I can run about half as many toons on Rift that I can on WoW.

Ideally, I'd like to be able to box at least 25 WoW accounts at 60 fps on my active screen and 15 fps on the inactive screens with at least medium settings on my main. I'm not sure this is even possible, but on my 2008 Mac Pro using Windows Vista and an ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT single graphics card I could box 10 at 45 fps on the active and 15 fps on inactive at medium settings on my main and low on the alts.

The two systems are within a few hundred dollars of each other so I'm wondering if the extra cores will make a difference in multiboxing more toons or not vs. an overclocked 6 core and probably better graphics cards. I've seen benchmarks on recent Xeon processors playing WoW here (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i7-3970x-sandy-bridge-e-benchmark,3348-13.html) that look interesting but they aren't boxing and I really don't know enough about the variables involved to make an informed decision. There are other benchmarks on the exact processor here (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ivy-bridge-ep-xeon-e5-2697-v2-benchmarks,3585-2.html) and here (http://www.game-debate.com/cpu/index.php?pid=1895&pid2=1295&compare=xeon-e5-2697-v2-vs-core-i7-4960x-6-core-3-60ghz) but I don't know how to interpret them relative to boxing WoW and in relation their respective graphics cards.

If I use the Mac Pro, I will be running ISboxer on Windows 8.1 using Bootcamp. This has worked well for me in the past.

[Multibocks]

25 accounts? Yikes, definitely go with at least 2 computers. The curve would look like this

1059
where your initial performance for number of windows is awesome, but as you add windows at some point it drops dramatically. I find with a pretty stout system ( 4930, 64GB ram, 2 Titans, Panasonic Pro SSD) that I can do 10 ok. After that it starts getting rough. I have to reduce effects quite a bit. I'm not sure what that new Apple computer is like, but I would wait for a review before splurging on it. Would be nice if some site could show it's scalability. Use input director and two computers is my vote.

edit: doh, not sure how I remove those other graphs. And, yes, I reversed a graph from a google search :P

[MiRai]

That i7 machine is going to blow the Xeon machine out of the water in, most likely, everything except for niche benchmarks like compute and heavily multi-threaded 3D applications.

First, here's my list of things...

CPU:

From what I understand, Xeons are about on par with an i7 in terms of performance in gaming at the same clock speed. The mere fact that they can't be overclocked at all makes them very undesirable at their current price tag.


Motherboard:

Who knows what you're getting with that Apple brand mystery motherboard.


Memory:

ECC memory has higher timings for error correction which is garbage for gaming.


GPU:

FirePro D700 is apparently a W9000 (http://www.overclock.net/t/1436253/mac-pro-dual-amd-firepro-d300-dual-amd-firepro-d500-dual-amd-firepro-d700-options) which is about on par with a HD7970 / HD7970GE / R9-280X in the memory bandwidth department.
It could end up being handicapped for gaming because the GPU uses different drivers and its VRAM is ECC which is meant for error correction and compute rather than raw FPS.
FirePro cards use CrossFire Pro, which somehow differs from just regular CrossFire (probably because you can't mix-n-match different GPUs with CrossFire Pro like you can with CrossFire).
CrossFire, and most likely CrossFire Pro, don't work in Windowed mode, so you'd be forced to split the load of the clients across multiple monitors to even utilize the second GPU (which may or may not work depending on the game).


Storage:

Do whatever you want. Just make sure you're gaming on some sort of modern SSD.



Second, I have no idea how these two systems could be priced only a few hundred dollars apart, because that Xeon CPU (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116925) ($2700) and a single W9000 GPU (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814195116) (3400) are $6,100 by themselves which completely dwarfs the entire i7 system (~$3500 as it's listed above) almost twice over.

And finally, I also agree that you don't need a 4960X for the same reason that RSM72 stated.

[Chumbucket]

Thanks guys for the feedback. I may be wrong but it's sounding like higher end machines tend to max out at around 10 accounts. As I could run 10 on a relatively old Mac Pro it seems that for multiboxing, hardware technology advances have not produced significant game changers. I would imagine the frame rates are slightly better and of course multitasking and video has come a long way but I'm interested in more accounts per machine.

It also seems that the Mac Pro may be the wrong tool for the job. There are obviously many unknowns at this point but it seems clear that the FirePro graphics cards are just not the right choice for multiboxing.

As for the cost, I may have been looking in the wrong spot. I was comparing a slightly customized Digital Storm Aventum II (http://www.digitalstormonline.com/comploadaventumii.asp?id=842821) H2O Level 3 Performance PC to the new Mac Pro (http://store.apple.com/us/buy-mac/mac-pro?product=MD878LL/A&step=config) as customized above. Digital Storm is known for creating the PC Gamer Large Pixel Collider (http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/11/18/introducing-the-large-pixel-collider-a-computer-of-uncomfortable-power/) which is described as "an irresponsibly powerful" gaming machine with "uncomfortable power". The specs I came up with above are a scaled-down version of the LPC, which is actually slightly more expensive than the new Mac Pro. I'm guessing now that there is a ton of markup.

As I'm a bit nervous about building my own machine I'm looking for a solid performer that I can use for years without too much trouble. Maybe building is the best way to go. Now I guess I'm looking for 2-3 of them. Do you guys have any suggestions? Thanks again : )

[Invisahealz]

Thanks guys for the feedback. I may be wrong but it's sounding like higher end machines tend to max out at around 10 accounts.
I can run 15 on my computer without problems. But in large fights I experience some graphical lag and follow seems to start breaking. I run 3 computers now. 10 on each. Works perfectly. Graphics on main character on ultra.

[Chumbucket]

I can run 15 on my computer without problems. But in large fights I experience some graphical lag and follow seems to start breaking. I run 3 computers now. 10 on each. Works perfectly. Graphics on main character on ultra.

Nice! Would you give me the specs of your rigs?

[Invisahealz]

Nice! Would you give me the specs of your rigs?
CHUM! haha, I just remembered we used to wreck together in TB back when i was 10 or 15 boxing. And here are my computer specs
First computer:
i7 990x, 24 gb ram, gtx 680 (4gb version), Asus Rampage III Black edition mother board, H100i water cooled
Second computer:
i7 3930k , 64gb ram, gtx 780 (3gb version), Asus Rampage IV Extreme edition mother board, H100i water cooled
Third computer:
i7 4770k, 32gb ram, gtx 780 (3gb version), Intel DZ876KLT75K Extreme Overclocker Motherboard, Thermaltake Extreme 2.0 Liquid Cooling
each system runs on a platinum 1200w PSU

Each system is runs 10 instances of wow without any problems what so ever. I originally 15 boxed on the 990x system without issues either but i wanted to start frapsing to make videos and it couldnt handle that so i started splitting the games between multiple computers and now i am up to 30 accounts. I dont think i will be expanding any further :)

[Chumbucket]

Thanks for the info Invisahealz!!! It's great to hear from you. I like to read what you guys are up to from time to time. I'm sad you moved to Darkspear but completely understand. I hear you even took down Prepared!!

I've been very casually boxing Rift over the last year and have run most of the content and was looking into WoW again. I'm still miffed about the bg /follow thing as it makes me worry that I might sink some money into it again only to find I can't play. But Mirai's dungeon videos, interesting improvements to ISboxer and various contributions to this site make boxing WoW seem like it might be fun again.

I'm not sure how many accounts I will end up with but I have 10 I can resub with 98 level 85s, and I need a new computer because mine has pretty much died.

Thanks for the specs as I'm looking to buy a system very soon.

[MiRai]

I may be wrong but it's sounding like higher end machines tend to max out at around 10 accounts. As I could run 10 on a relatively old Mac Pro it seems that for multiboxing, hardware technology advances have not produced significant game changers.
I honestly believe it's possible to run more than 10 clients efficiently on a single machine, but because I don't personally run more than 5, I can't debunk the statements that others are making.

I currently run some ridiculous video settings (Ultra+ / DX11) on 5 clients at 1920x720 and, from what I've tested so far, can hold a steady 30/30 fore/background FPS when there's a bunch of other players around. It would be easy for me to drop my slave clients to 20 or even 15 FPS and free up, theoretically, 40-60 FPS worth of CPU/GPU power in order to feed more juice to my main client. I would have trouble trying to 5+ box with these settings, but I would already know that ahead of time and would be willing to turn my settings if I chose to move to a larger team.

When I did some 20/30-box testing on my old machine, I ran into an issue that you might describe as "thread lag" -- Where the system itself tends to just become very laggy when trying to do basic things such as open up the Start Menu. It didn't actually seem to affect me playing the game, but I did want to re-test this stuff now that I have a much more powerful machine.


As for the cost, I may have been looking in the wrong spot. I was comparing a slightly customized Digital Storm Aventum II (http://www.digitalstormonline.com/comploadaventumii.asp?id=842821) H2O Level 3 Performance PC to the new Mac Pro (http://store.apple.com/us/buy-mac/mac-pro?product=MD878LL/A&step=config) as customized above. I'm guessing now that there is a ton of markup.
Uh... yeah. Now I see how those two machines were similar in price. ;)


As I'm a bit nervous about building my own machine I'm looking for a solid performer that I can use for years without too much trouble. Maybe building is the best way to go. Now I guess I'm looking for 2-3 of them. Do you guys have any suggestions? Thanks again : )
Most people who've built their own machine will tell you that it's easy to do because everything only fits into its own 'slot' and you can't mess anything up. However, when something does go wrong you had better be ready to troubleshoot it by scouring the internet for answers by hoping you put the right keywords into Google search.

You may even have to randomly guess which component is bad, and unless you have another one lying around to test it, you're just going to have to RMA it and hope that you were right. I think if that would have happened to me back in the day when I started building computers I may have stopped trying to build my own, or at least have stopped for a bit.

If you're looking to build some ultra top-end machine with water cooling and all of that, then I wouldn't recommend you try doing that for your first system; but if you were going to put together a few machines, then it would be easier to troubleshoot things because you'd have identical hardware in the other machines that you could troubleshoot with if any issues arise. I guess if you were willing to try piecing together your own, you might try searching on YouTube for recent videos of people putting together their own stuff. The only thing I'd watch out for is people giving information or advice that's blatantly wrong or generally frowned upon. I guess the only way for you to know that the information from a random YouTuber might be wrong, would be to watch a lot of build videos and then try to filter out the stuff that just doesn't seem to be consistent.



I've been very casually boxing Rift over the last year and have run most of the content and was looking into WoW again. I'm still miffed about the bg /follow thing as it makes me worry that I might sink some money into it again only to find I can't play. But Mirai's dungeon videos, interesting improvements to ISboxer and various contributions to this site make boxing WoW seem like it might be fun again.
Oddly enough, most of those "interesting improvements" have been present in ISBoxer for quite some time and most people don't even know them -- Except Menus, which I was using as glorified Click Bar buttons and are relatively new. I started that series (which isn't dead and is just on hold, by the way :)) with the intention that I would show how someone who multiboxes can look to make improvements to their profile and how it can evolve over the course of time, as well as, just show some general multiboxing with an attempt at semi-interesting, but not all that exciting, narrative.

I finished this reply in a rush because I was pressed for time, but if anything I said doesn't make sense, just ask and I'll try to explain it better.

[Invisahealz]

Thanks for the info Invisahealz!!! It's great to hear from you. I like to read what you guys are up to from time to time. I'm sad you moved to Darkspear but completely understand.

Yea we left last week, the world pvp is crazy there on Darkspear, there are a ton of boxers on both sides. We crashed the server twice the first night when we had massive pvp events with the other boxers. Ruinous also transfered to play along with Prepared. It took them 4-5 full raid groups for them to kill us in their shrine.

Anyways its good to see ya Chum. We may be creating more teams back on KJ just because the horde pop is so high it does give us plenty of targets. I left a few teams on that server as well but if you ever plan on makin new teams consider joinin up with us like the good ol days :)
Good luck pickin out a system, there are lots of good options out there and i agree with Mirai, its definitely possible to box 15+ accounts on a single computer as long as you get a good rig and have everything set up correctly.

[Sam DeathWalker]

I run 6 accounts each on two machines (2011 intel socket asus sabertooth x79) and 4 accounts each on 4 old 2 core amd machines.

I have 6 1920 X 1200 monitors. I don't tile but can see 6 out of my 28 accounts in 1920 X 1200.

Others will advise different but I would always go with 1compter/1monitor/1videocard and scale up.

I very sure that 2 $1000 computers will out perform 1 $2000 computer.

[Chumbucket]

I currently run some ridiculous video settings (Ultra+ / DX11) on 5 clients at 1920x720 and, from what I've tested so far, can hold a steady 30/30 fore/background FPS when there's a bunch of other players around.

When I did some 20/30-box testing on my old machine, I ran into an issue that you might describe as "thread lag" . . . It didn't actually seem to affect me playing the game, but I did want to re-test this stuff now that I have a much more powerful machine.

I watched your system upgrade video. Really nice work all around. Mmmmm cherry peppers....
Just curious, do you build systems professionally?

Also, it would be interesting to see how your upgrades boosted performance visa vie more accounts.



If you're looking to build some ultra top-end machine with water cooling and all of that, then I wouldn't recommend you try doing that for your first system; but if you were going to put together a few machines, then it would be easier to troubleshoot things because you'd have identical hardware in the other machines that you could troubleshoot with if any issues arise. I guess if you were willing to try piecing together your own, you might try searching on YouTube for recent videos of people putting together their own stuff.

I'm thinking I may expand my gaming hobby into building 2 simple systems. Time is a factor, but after watching a number of videos it seems to have a charm of its own.


Oddly enough, most of those "interesting improvements" have been present in ISBoxer for quite some time and most people don't even know them -- Except Menus, which I was using as glorified Click Bar buttons and are relatively new.

I started that series (which isn't dead and is just on hold, by the way :)) with the intention that I would show how someone who multiboxes can look to make improvements to their profile and how it can evolve over the course of time, as well as, just show some general multiboxing with an attempt at semi-interesting, but not all that exciting, narrative.

I wasn't even aware of the Pro config until fairly recently. It's impressive. The videos really help. <3 the Video FX AOE heal!! I really appreciate the time and quality you put into them. Especially helpful are the tips and the .5 episodes.


Yea we left last week, the world pvp is crazy there on Darkspear, there are a ton of boxers on both sides. We crashed the server twice the first night when we had massive pvp events with the other boxers. Ruinous also transfered to play along with Prepared. It took them 4-5 full raid groups for them to kill us in their shrine.

Sounds fun!! Hope to see you in game in the next several weeks.


I run 6 accounts each on two machines (2011 intel socket asus sabertooth x79) and 4 accounts each on 4 old 2 core amd machines. I have 6 1920 X 1200 monitors. I don't tile but can see 6 out of my 28 accounts in 1920 X 1200.

Thanks for sharing your setup Sam. How many fps are you pulling and at what settings?

[Sam DeathWalker]

Well my main computer has 6 clients, the main is ultra and the rest are low cept view distance is good. My main is easy 30fps and the others 15fps and they don't break follow. I am sure I could do better but the game is playable at 15fps actually

My main computer has 64g ram with wow in ram, and a 670 4G video card. I am at 1920 X 1200.