Upgrading PC

[Alzuule]

Im looking to maybe upgrade my PC and as i have limited knowledge in regards of computer hardware im looking for some advice on what to get and what to keep.

What i have now:

CPU Intel core i5-3570K CPU 3.40GHz
RAM Corsair Vengeance 2133 MHz 2x4GB
GPU NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660
Motherboard MS-7758

Also got SSD drive for my system files and games.

im looking to be able to play the new watchdogs game smoothly on minimum graphics ( higher graphics is ofc nice but not going to spend money on a better graphics card if its not needed ) and multibox 8+ eve clients on minimum settings ( the more the better )

Any help is appreciated, maybe ill even throw a bunch of geckos at someone as a thanks :D

[pinotnoir]

If you are going to upgrade anything it would be the graphics card. Otherwise, I see no reason that system won't do what you want.

[Ishar]

Might want some more ram if you intend to run 8 clients. I don't know what the ram usage is in eve. You can just run eve and find out. Multiply by 8 and add a few GB on top as a buffer. that's your sanity minimum. More wouldn't hurt.

Additionally when running high numbers of clients you sometimes run into cpu bottlenecks. Probably your best bet is to find someone running 8 eve's and ask what their specs and recommendations are. You have a quad core, which is good; but no HT which is less good. Having more cores is a good thing when going to high-numbers of clients; though its not that important otherwise.

For any application other than boxing I agree with pinotnoir. The gpu should be your first stop.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk

[Alzuule]

So how important is the GPU for multiboxing eve?
Im definitely upgrading to 16 gb ram, but im not sure wether to upgrade CPU or GPU first. I dont really play any other games then eve, in which im starting to multibox more and more and might be looking to add accounts when i get the isk, so right now im looking to know if i would run into a bottleneck with the CPU or GPU first when upping the amount of accounts run. Also might add that i run the accounts for wormhole pvp and pve, not mining so random freezing and what not due to perfomance issues are not something i want to deal with :)
At most i would probably be running 10 or 12 accounts.

[Slyminxy]

I'll just hijack this thread for my own ends.

My current gaming rig, that supports up to 8 clients (or did..
..because around 2013/2014 new year line, I started having weird blue screens , right after I updated the GFX drivers.
Going back to previous version didn't provide a solution, so I went to Asus's drivers (the gfx was manufactured by asus) and it doesn't crash anymore for the most part.
RAM sticks are fine, so are the hard drives. There's nothing physically seen on the motherboard or the GFX, tested everything multiple times with multiple tools, together and separate. No errors evident.

One of the most common bluescreens happened after I tried to open a can in space. Or had more than just my own clients in the same fleet.
Each client is run from their own folder on the hard drive.)

Rig:

Q9650 CPU
GA-EP43-DS3L motherboard
8 GB of RAM (4x 2GB) DDR2 1066MHz
Radeon HD 7870 2GB

Hard drives are currently separate 250GB for system, 320GB for Games and 5+ HDD's of 500-1000GB for other stuff.
Running Windows 7 Professional SP1 64bit

So, I was thinking. If I upgrade to anything lower than a 6-core i-7, how much do I actually gain? I'm already running 4 cores. The cache is also 12MB on those Quad cores, so I was thinking first upgrade should be going to an SSD drive for the system and games partitions and maybe going to 4x4GB of ram sticks.

The budget, if I decide for a new machine (CPU, MB, Ram, SSD x2, PSU) is around.. 900€. Any hints?

[Ishar]

So how important is the GPU for multiboxing eve?
Im definitely upgrading to 16 gb ram, but im not sure wether to upgrade CPU or GPU first. I dont really play any other games then eve, in which im starting to multibox more and more and might be looking to add accounts when i get the isk, so right now im looking to know if i would run into a bottleneck with the CPU or GPU first when upping the amount of accounts run. Also might add that i run the accounts for wormhole pvp and pve, not mining so random freezing and what not due to perfomance issues are not something i want to deal with :)
At most i would probably be running 10 or 12 accounts.

I'm not really sure how to answer that; or if it even has an answer. The simple answer is that it's related to how many pixels you are driving firstly, and what you are displaying on them secondly. Or perhaps the other way around; the point being, GPU is king of components for gaming. Boxing slightly less so, but only because we are willing to throttle the FPS in secondary windows and our application is not quite as sensitive to frames per second. It's still king though. So I'd recommend going with the latest and greatest your budget will allow.

TL/DR: GPU isn't any less important for boxing than for other gaming; other components just become more important.

As an aside, if you go Nvidia, you can always add a second card in SLI if your performance falls behind in the future. MiRai has a post over on isboxer that shows SLI does apparently work in windowed mode now; this (I believe) still is not the case for Crossfire. I don't recommend SLI for boxing off hand, though; it is a valid upgrade option down the line.

Re, ram:
I'm running 4x Diablo 3 windows while typing this and using 18 gigs of system ram. This is mostly desktop applications (like Chrome being greedy) and some applications I run in the background. D3 is only accounting for 6 gigs of that. D3 of course isn't Eve. My point is that more than 16 gigs would probably not be a waste, windows et all would find a way to eat it. This doesn't mean you need more than 16 gigs.

[Ishar]

The budget, if I decide for a new machine (CPU, MB, Ram, SSD x2, PSU) is around.. 900€. Any hints?

A hex core i7 is going to eat a large chunk of that budget. A quad-core that supports hyper threading would most likely be a practical improvement in terms of performance for various reasons. I would consider a quad core without HT to a quad core with HT an upgrade.

If you have isboxer, you should be able to virtualize and run them from a single folder. This makes a SSD a solid investment both for windows and for games. I usually move whatever game I'm multiboxing onto my SSD, which is also used for my operating system.

I have a Radeon HD 7970 and it will be my next upgrade (but I'm probably going to jump the fence to Nvidia; probably a 780, maybe multiple 780s.

More ram (at similar speeds) is always better.

I dunno, if it performs adequately to you, SSD would probably make things load faster. Otherwise, I dunno. If you have performance issues. GPU or CPU would be my first stop, which also means Mobo. Unless your ram is filling up, then it.

If you do use a SSD for OS stuff, you can move the temp folders and such to another harddrive, so it hits your SSD less often.

[pinotnoir]

16 Gigs of ram and a new video card is where I would start. I mulitbox 12 in Eve with an i7 3770k 16gig ram and AMD 6970 card. I upgraded my card to the R9 290 and saw a vast improvement. Don't worry about CPU for now. If you find it's your bottleneck later upgrade. But your CPU should be fine. So you add 8 more Gigs of ram for $70 then buy maybe a $300 video card and call it good.

Also, your CPU is unlocked and they can easily be overclocked. If you have a stock cooler you may want to replace it with maybe a Corsair H80i. Then you can really push the limits of overclocking that chip.

[Slyminxy]

A hex core i7 is going to eat a large chunk of that budget. A quad-core that supports hyper threading would most likely be a practical improvement in terms of performance for various reasons. I would consider a quad core without HT to a quad core with HT an upgrade.

So the Q9650 doesn't support HT (HyperThreading), hm.. I thought all Intel CPU's from P4 3.0 did, weird.

[Ishar]

Each architecture is different; it's best to check. Newegg lists it on the stat's page; as does Intel.

It's probably worth comparing more than cores/hyperthreading/clock speed as well; e.g. generational improvements in overall architecture. Though I've never went that far... For myself, I went from Quad-Core (no HT) to a six core (AMD, no HT) to a Six Core (w/ HT); all were clear improvements. Maybe next time I decide to light some cash on fire I will be faced with that decision.

Is hyperthreading an upgrade? Absolutely. will it improve performance in gaming? Usually, yes. Is it necessary to your application? Who knows.

Pinot's advice to the OP was sound. In your case its less clear, but not a bad idea. Though it probably boils down to what you can upgrade without changing mobo. I would pick a hypothetical CPU and Mobo [that is within your near-term budget]; and only upgrade components for my current system that I could transfer to that mobo. If that limits you too severely, it's probably time for a mobo change. If it doesn't; try just adding ram and upgrading your graphics. Depending on how old your mobo is, this might even be a non-issue.

[Ualaa]

You can, and likely should, use the resource monitor to determine what your bottlenecks are.
If anything reaches 100%, or close to that usage, that component is a bottleneck for your desired usage.
So upgrading that component will increase your performance.
Something that is only reaching 60% utilization isn't likely a bottleneck.



The Intel processors are generally miles ahead of the AMD processors.

The current 8-core AMD processor is not even close to the current gaming 4-core or 6-core Intel processor.
But you can tell that by their relative costs.



The motherboard is going to determine (by its' socket type) which CPUs you can use.
It might limit your ram somewhat, to say 2-channel instead of 4-channel ram.
So motherboard/CPU are generally larger upgrades.

The other upgrades on a system are generally going to work in multiple systems.
So you can upgrade your gaming drive to an SSD.
Or add more system ram or a better video card.
If you upgrade to a new system down the road, you can add the SSD or powerful video card you get now.
Assuming you go for something other than ram/cpu.

[Tool of Society]

You can, and likely should, use the resource monitor to determine what your bottlenecks are. If anything reaches 100%, or close to that usage, that component is a bottleneck for your desired usage. So upgrading that component will increase your performance. Something that is only reaching 60% utilization isn't likely a bottleneck. The Intel processors are generally miles ahead of the AMD processors. The current 8-core AMD processor is not even close to the current gaming 4-core or 6-core Intel processor. But you can tell that by their relative costs. The motherboard is going to determine (by its' socket type) which CPUs you can use. It might limit your ram somewhat, to say 2-channel instead of 4-channel ram. So motherboard/CPU are generally larger upgrades. The other upgrades on a system are generally going to work in multiple systems. So you can upgrade your gaming drive to an SSD. Or add more system ram or a better video card. If you upgrade to a new system down the road, you can add the SSD or powerful video card you get now. Assuming you go for something other than ram/cpu.That is only true to an extent if you're willing to spend real money (+250$ on cpu and +150$ on mobo) otherwise the AMD will outperform the Intel any day when it comes to multitasking. Those on a budget will usually get much bigger bang for their buck out of an AMD CPU.

[MiRai]

That is only true to an extent if you're willing to spend real money (+250$ on cpu and +150$ on mobo) otherwise the AMD will outperform the Intel any day when it comes to multitasking. Those on a budget will usually get much bigger bang for their buck out of an AMD CPU.
Do you have any data to back up this statement? I mean... there's a good reason why Intel is able to price their CPUs the way that they do -- It's because they're better.

[Ishar]

At certain price points that might be true. It doesn't change things for boxers though unless you are building a single character machine on the cheap maybe.

Even allowing for price points I would think that it would only hold for certain tasks.



Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk

[Slyminxy]

Each architecture is different; it's best to check. Newegg lists it on the stat's page; as does Intel.

It's probably worth comparing more than cores/hyperthreading/clock speed as well; e.g. generational improvements in overall architecture. Though I've never went that far... For myself, I went from Quad-Core (no HT) to a six core (AMD, no HT) to a Six Core (w/ HT); all were clear improvements. Maybe next time I decide to light some cash on fire I will be faced with that decision.

Is hyperthreading an upgrade? Absolutely. will it improve performance in gaming? Usually, yes. Is it necessary to your application? Who knows.

Pinot's advice to the OP was sound. In your case its less clear, but not a bad idea. Though it probably boils down to what you can upgrade without changing mobo. I would pick a hypothetical CPU and Mobo [that is within your near-term budget]; and only upgrade components for my current system that I could transfer to that mobo. If that limits you too severely, it's probably time for a mobo change. If it doesn't; try just adding ram and upgrading your graphics. Depending on how old your mobo is, this might even be a non-issue.

Thanks for the replies.

Basically, my current motherboard can only hold Socket 775 CPU's, so I'm nearly at the top of the range with the Q9650 (I could go for a Q9higherups, but that wouldn't solve the problem, since they're about as pricey (even used) as a new i7 CPU). The Q9650 was, about 2.5 years ago, about 400$.

So next motherboard will be either Gigabyte again or Asus. My current motherboard is.. 4 years old, at the least. Which is what I'm afraid the most, that the motherboard will die out and I'll be forced to upgrade on a short notice. Whilst right now, I can still leisurely weigh options.

For now, I was thinking something along these lines:

Motherboard: MB Asus, LGA 1150, IZ87 (Z87-K)
CPU: INTEL CORE i7 4770 3.4/3.9 LGA1150
RAM: DDR3 16GB kit (2x 8GB) PC3-14900 1866MHz CL10 Crucial
SSD: Samsung SSD 250GB EVO Basic

Which totales out at roughly 530€ (roughly 720$)

[Tool of Society]

Do you have any data to back up this statement? I mean... there's a good reason why Intel is able to price their CPUs the way that they do -- It's because they're better.I like how you ask me for data without providing any of your own. I don't need data from you as I've already utilized the great power of google galore on this. Also this is within the realm of my profession. You do sound like apple people talking about their intel macs. They have to be better because they cost more!!! Despite you know running the same intel chip as the cheaper PC that they are busy dissing (not to mention cheap caps etc). Like I said earlier you cannot beat AMD for multitasking for less then $250 for a CPU. This is a simple fact and a quick visit to newegg will show you that the only intel CPUs that can keep up with an FX 8xx0 series in multitasking costs more. Isboxer is certainly a program that takes advantage of multitasking capabilities. If you have the money splurging on Intel with a good z97 or z87 chipset mobo is the way to go. If you're on a budget and need to buy other things too then AMD is well worth a look. Having said all that I find that eve tends to hit the memory the hardest. I can run 8 clients on low on an e7200 (3.2ghz) with 4 GB of ram a hd5770 and a 7200 rpm sata drive. Watching the stats on that system I can clearly see that it's being limited by RAM and not CPU capability. In case you're wondering I use a separate hard drive for a page file and a 4 GB USB stick for readyboost. So 16 gb is what i would consider a bare minimum for a mulitbox system like this. If you're going to get the 4770 you might want to try to get the K version so you can either overclock now or in a couple years when the system isn't quite as fast as you'd like. The price difference varies but I see about 30 bucks difference. You're already paying 300 bucks for a CPU don't cheap out now :P Your motherboard choice is a fine choice so it's obvious you are paying attention to trends. The z97 boards don't really add much (msata and potentially more cpu support) so unless you find one in your price range I wouldn't be too worried about that right now. If there's only one thing you listen to from me I hope it's this. Get a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO cooler and some good thermal paste. Last evo cooler I bought had thermal paste with it. I'm not sure how good CM's paste is because I already had an open artic silver tube. Haswells run hotter then prior iterations and the evo cooler is cheap piece of mind (also quieter then stock cooling). If you already have aftermarket cooling then disregard this comment. For some lovely reason the forum refuses to allow any formatting in my post. So I'm stuck with on giant paragraph...

[EaTCarbS]

I like how you ask me for data without providing any of your own. I don't need data from you as I've already utilized the great power of google galore on this.

You came in here and made the claim without providing any evidence. Its not up to everyone else to prove you false. An amd can do better than an intel chip in some areas, but overall intel chips outperform. Just go read through tomshardware for a bit.
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/burden-of-proof


Having said all that I find that eve tends to hit the memory the hardest. I can run 8 clients on low on an e7200 (3.2ghz) with 4 GB of ram a hd5770 and a 7200 rpm sata drive. Watching the stats on that system I can clearly see that it's being limited by RAM and not CPU capability. In case you're wondering I use a separate hard drive for a page file and a 4 GB USB stick for readyboost. So 16 gb is what i would consider a bare minimum for a mulitbox system like this.

an eve client uses about 600-700mb of ram. add about 2g for your other system processes and you can get a good guess for what you need. honestly, ram is so cheap these days you can just buy a ton and not worry about it.

[Jacobsalt]

You came in here and made the claim without providing any evidence. Its not up to everyone else to prove you false. An amd can do better than an intel chip in some areas, but overall intel chips outperform. Just go read through tomshardware for a bit.
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/burden-of-proof



an eve client uses about 600-700mb of ram. add about 2g for your other system processes and you can get a good guess for what you need. honestly, ram is so cheap these days you can just buy a ton and not worry about it.

I would agree with this sentiment. I currently am multiboxing 12-15 and making the jump to 20+ hurts. I sit only at 60% cpu utilization at low gfx but once I hit 15 clients it starts getting super low. I also have plenty of ram... assuming that its not because Im a poor and dont have an ssd is upgrading from my gtx 770 going to be the thing i need to get back to normal fps? I cant decide if its the hard disk i/o going oh fuck me now or the 2gb card thats saying fuck all them vfx feeds....

[EaTCarbS]

I would agree with this sentiment. I currently am multiboxing 12-15 and making the jump to 20+ hurts. I sit only at 60% cpu utilization at low gfx but once I hit 15 clients it starts getting super low. I also have plenty of ram... assuming that its not because Im a poor and dont have an ssd is upgrading from my gtx 770 going to be the thing i need to get back to normal fps? I cant decide if its the hard disk i/o going oh fuck me now or the 2gb card thats saying fuck all them vfx feeds....

an ssd will only get you faster load times. once you're in game playing, the ssd makes little difference. You'd have to check your gpu usage to see if thats the bottleneck, but i've never heard of anyone running 20 on one system without having some kind of bottleneck issues. Though honestly VidFX feeds really do kill you. Just load up your setup and close all the vidfx and see the difference.

[Corinthian]

I'm looking to upgrade my hardware as well. Would like to be able to run 10-12 clients for incursions. Even at just low settings, zoomed out, 1360x768 resolution. What would I need to upgrade to get around 30fps? Obviously I'll need to get more ram, was thinking of getting the same memory to make it 16gb. It's the video card that I don't know yet what to upgrade to. And is the cpu enough or would I need to change that as well?

CPU: I5-3450
MB: MSI H77-G43 (H77 chipset)
Mem: 8gb (4gb x 2) G. Skill F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL
Vid: Radeon 5770

[EaTCarbS]

vid: Radeon 5770
vram?

[Corinthian]

1gb ddr3 iirc.

[Althanear]

My current setup is:

i7 4770K
24GB 1600MHz RAM
Dual R9 280X 3GB Graphics and I can comfortable run 10 clients. My main bottleneck is the horrible internet connection I get to home.

I was previously running 9 clients on an:

i7 2600K
16GB 1600 MHz RAM
Radeon HD 6970 2GB Graphics

With no issues other than me cooking my GPU because of the horrible cooling I had in the case.

I find that with 10 clients i use about 11GB of RAM so I defiantly say 16GB as a minimum for that many accounts.

[Alzuule]

i run 8 accounts at 90% ram usage with 8gb ram installed, each client use an average of 700mb ram for me with most being a bit under and 1-2 being 50mb or so over. Still im definitely upgrading to 16gb soon to be able to squeeze in 2 more accounts and have some extra buffer.