Building a new box for 5 mans!

[kalos72]

So I have read through alot of the threads here about hardware but no one seems to be able to lock down the minimum to run 5 WoW accounts on low settings. I am sure people know but not sure if its ever been documented maybe?

I do not have $1000 to spend on a PC that really only has one purpose, boxing WoW. I am thinking of getting my own parts and putting it together myself over a few months maybe?

I have been looking at the "Logical Increments" site and thinking of the "Good" build as a minimum. Thoughts?

Please keep Legion in mind if there are hardware requirement changes/challenges expected there.

[Hor]

In terms of minimum spec rig, I'd probably aim for something like this:

PCPartPicker part list (http://pcpartpicker.com/list/Rvnccc) / Price breakdown by merchant (http://pcpartpicker.com/list/Rvnccc/by_merchant/)

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor (http://pcpartpicker.com/product/PnxfrH/amd-cpu-fd6300wmhkbox) ($105.98 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (http://pcpartpicker.com/product/hmtCmG/cooler-master-cpu-cooler-rr212e20pkr2) ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard (http://pcpartpicker.com/product/Vrdqqs/gigabyte-motherboard-ga970aud3p) ($61.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (http://pcpartpicker.com/product/4wGkcf/kingston-memory-hx316c10fb8) ($27.88 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (http://pcpartpicker.com/product/4wGkcf/kingston-memory-hx316c10fb8) ($27.88 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Kingston HyperX Fury 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (http://pcpartpicker.com/product/ZvLypg/kingston-internal-hard-drive-shfs37a120g) ($42.99 @ Adorama)
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (http://pcpartpicker.com/product/Qt2kcf/hitachi-internal-hard-drive-hde721010sla330) ($44.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon RX 480 4GB Video Card (http://pcpartpicker.com/product/sH2rxr/sapphire-radeon-rx-480-4gb-video-card-21260-01-20g) ($199.00)
Case: NZXT Source 210 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (http://pcpartpicker.com/product/fXw323/nzxt-case-s210001) ($36.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (http://pcpartpicker.com/product/qYTrxr/evga-power-supply-220g20550y1) ($70.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $626.67
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-07-05 17:40 EDT-0400

You could come in under $600 if you've got a case, or hard drive laying around to use. You're also not going to be using the best settings on your five box team like this, but I think for people looking to box on a budget, this is probably a foregone conclusion. You can also get a little extra bang by shopping used. For regular 1080p gaming this should also work just fine actually.

I haven't seen Logical Increments before, but it's a nice little reference. Though, it points out one problem I have with similar listing sites, it's all using the price from Amazon. Because affiliate links.

Which means, you're not getting the best deals on your parts, but the guy who's getting click revenue probably is. I was really hesitant to post on this, because we don't really have a budget here, just a minimum for boxing question. And pinning that down is almost impossible without more information. Like the size of the monitor you'll be using, what graphical settings you're hoping to use, addons, etc. All those things can contribute in a big way to making the whole thing work/not work.

If you are willing to build on a slightly looser budget over time, I would suggest something a bit beefier in general. Especially in the processor department. But, that's the real question. What are you willing to compromise on? Do you want it fast? Do you want it cheap? Do you want it powerful? Can't really have all three, depending on where you're willing to compromise the holy trinity is where a build like this will land.

Also, I'd recomend scouting Newegg and other sites daily for those daily deals/flash deals. You can pick up some good stuff cheap. I grabbed 2 sticks of ram free with my SSDs that way. Saved me a good chunk of cash.

[kalos72]

Thank you Hor. This is along the lines I was hoping for in a reply. :)

Monitor is another question, right now I run a crap tv/monitor thing because all I have a dedicated rue monitor is a old 19in model. Running 5 accounts on that thing sucks...

How big of an impact will the monitor quality have on performance, I dont care about looks. I cant afford too really...

[Hor]

As far as monitor goes, I would recommend something like this

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Perfect-Pixel-X-STAR-DP2710-LED-2560x1440-Samsung-PLS-27-Monitor-Glossy-/321135502506?hash=item4ac52ae4aa

Having said all of that, I would add one more thing. If you're willing to delay gratification, I would recommend spending more in the CPU/Motherboard department. I'm confident the 6300 listed above can handle wow and other games you throw at it. However, with a couple hundred more you could get into an Intel based solution that would be newer, better feature set in general. IE it's not going to feel old in a hot minute. In which case, I would recomend something like this...

PCPartPicker part list (http://pcpartpicker.com/list/PRbFd6) / Price breakdown by merchant (http://pcpartpicker.com/list/PRbFd6/by_merchant/)

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (http://pcpartpicker.com/product/7V7CmG/intel-cpu-bx80662i76700) ($297.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (http://pcpartpicker.com/product/hmtCmG/cooler-master-cpu-cooler-rr212e20pkr2) ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: MSI B150M MORTAR Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (http://pcpartpicker.com/product/kGcMnQ/msi-motherboard-b150mmortar) ($83.88 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (http://pcpartpicker.com/product/TTnG3C/crucial-memory-ct8g4dfs8213) ($28.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (http://pcpartpicker.com/product/TTnG3C/crucial-memory-ct8g4dfs8213) ($28.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Kingston HyperX Fury 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (http://pcpartpicker.com/product/ZvLypg/kingston-internal-hard-drive-shfs37a120g) ($42.99 @ Adorama)
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (http://pcpartpicker.com/product/Qt2kcf/hitachi-internal-hard-drive-hde721010sla330) ($44.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon RX 480 8GB Video Card (http://pcpartpicker.com/product/c6rcCJ/sapphire-radeon-rx-480-8gb-video-card-21260-00-20g) ($249.00)
Case: NZXT Source 210 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (http://pcpartpicker.com/product/fXw323/nzxt-case-s210001) ($36.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (http://pcpartpicker.com/product/qYTrxr/evga-power-supply-220g20550y1) ($70.98 @ Newegg)
Other: X-STAR DP2710 LED 2560x1440 Samsung PLS 27" Monitor "Glossy" ($189.90)
Total: $1093.70
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-07-06 12:27 EDT-0400

This one comes in just over 1,000 total including the monitor. Additionally, there's plenty of room to upgrade later, grab a second 480 for example or add more ram/storage if you so desire. You won't be overclocking on this, but for the price you should have a pretty good experience in normal 1440p gaming as well as 5 boxing. As with the first list I provided, you can get it a little cheaper if you don't need certain things (hard drives, case, etc). When on an extreme budget, recycling can come in handy for those and save you a hundred bucks or so.

[kalos72]

I was going to confirm that if I had more cash to throw at this would CPU/GPU be the best please, which you just confirmed. I think I can make that updated system happen by 8/30 but I will have 4 accounts to upgrade too now....

/sigh

[MiRai]

So I have read through alot of the threads here about hardware but no one seems to be able to lock down the minimum to run 5 WoW accounts on low settings. I am sure people know but not sure if its ever been documented maybe?
The problem with this is how do you define "low" settings? Are you referring to the lowest possible settings in game, or something that falls somewhere near low-ish? No matter your answer, we can ask another person the same question, and their answer is likely going to vary, and that's because there are literally tens of thousands of combinations of video settings (if not way more than that) which you can choose from.


I have been looking at the "Logical Increments" site and thinking of the "Good" build as a minimum. Thoughts?
That site is built around giving advice on people playing solo, not multiboxing. So, if you don't choose a higher-end build from the site, you could easily be disappointed in the results when you're trying to run five game clients on a machine which was recommended for one game client.


Please keep Legion in mind if there are hardware requirement changes/challenges expected there.
The minimum system requirements for the game have gone up every single expansion, and Legion is no different.


I haven't seen Logical Increments before, but it's a nice little reference. Though, it points out one problem I have with similar listing sites, it's all using the price from Amazon. Because affiliate links.

Which means, you're not getting the best deals on your parts, but the guy who's getting click revenue probably is.
Everyone should be encouraged to shop around, but I personally prefer bundling as many items as I can from a single retailer, even if it means I'm paying just a little bit more, because it usually minimizes any potential headache of dealing with multiple sites if returns need to be made. So, while I use PCPartPicker a lot to piece things together and give general estimates, I always take its quoted price with a grain of salt because I'm assuming that it's going to be a bit more since I do have my preferred sites which I buy from.

Also, people who are buying online should take into account which sites charge them tax, and which do not, because this could easily save you hundreds of dollars if the hardware you're looking to buy is expensive.


I was really hesitant to post on this, because we don't really have a budget here, just a minimum for boxing question. And pinning that down is almost impossible without more information. Like the size of the monitor you'll be using, what graphical settings you're hoping to use, addons, etc. All those things can contribute in a big way to making the whole thing work/not work.
I agree, because everyone defines "playable" or "tolerable" or "low" as something different.

1280 x 720 (x5) @ 60/20 FPS @ Good
1440 x 900 (x5) @ 45/30 FPS @ Fair
1920 x 1080 (x5) @ 30/15 FPS @ Fair
2560 x 1440 (x5) @ 60/60 FPS @ Low

Everyone would define each of these examples differently, and we're barely taking video settings into account outside of some general presets.


Also, I'd recomend scouting Newegg and other sites daily for those daily deals/flash deals. You can pick up some good stuff cheap. I grabbed 2 sticks of ram free with my SSDs that way. Saved me a good chunk of cash.
Slick Deals (http://slickdeals.net/) is a nice site to find deals on, and Amazon Prime Day is next week too.


As far as monitor goes, I would recommend something like this

Video Card: Sapphire Radeon RX 480 8GB Video Card (http://pcpartpicker.com/product/c6rcCJ/sapphire-radeon-rx-480-8gb-video-card-21260-00-20g) ($249.00)
Other: X-STAR DP2710 LED 2560x1440 Samsung PLS 27" Monitor "Glossy" ($189.90)
I'm not entirely confident that an RX 480 will be able to drive five game clients at 2560x1440. If OP was to resize their game clients down to 1920x1080 then I'd say it's do-able, but then they should probably just go with a 1080 display to begin with.



Additionally, there's plenty of room to upgrade later, grab a second 480 for example
A second AMD GPU would not be useful for CrossFire, as CrossFire does not work in windowed mode. It would be useful for splitting the load of the game clients across multiple displays, but that's not normally a route I'd tell people to plan ahead for. SLI works in windowed mode, but then people have to pay a premium for nVidia GPUs.

Anyway, OP it's difficult to operate without a budget because not only are everyone's expectations different when it comes to a playable or tolerable multiboxing experience, but the expansion is literally weeks away from releasing and requirements to multibox are most likely going to increase (as they always do).

It's very difficult to create a "budget" build when people wait years to upgrade their machine because they're stuck having to buy all new hardware since almost nothing can be carried over to the new build, and this all becomes very expensive. If you decide to go with a build that can only handle the lowest possible settings right now, then what happens next expansion? You now have to upgrade the motherboard, CPU, and GPU again, all of which are the most expensive components.

It might help if you could tell us what you consider to be a playable experience, but my guess is that if you're willing to drop your resolution down to 1280x720 or 1440x900 right now, that that would increase your performance by a lot (but now your windows are a bit smaller). You can also, assuming you're using ISBoxer, disable Instant Swapping in your Window Layout. Adjusting this setting will remove your ability to utilize the 1:1 mouse broadcasting feature of ISBoxer, but you can sort of work around that by adjusting some settings in your Repeater Profile. However, disabling Instant Swapping might also mess with your characters' interfaces depending on the resolutions you've chosen to run.

[Hor]

You make a very excellent point about Crossfire, and I should have clarified that in my original post. When I suggest that one could get a second card later, my intent was for playing 1440p titles like Witcher or something.

Additionally, I would clarify my intent with my suggested build more clearly. When I think of someone getting into boxing, I don't think of them doing a lot of character switching. I don't, and I started boxing a long, long time ago. I suspect most people getting started will run similar to what I do, with a large 1080p window for the tank, running at 60+ FPS at high settings. With the minions running at 720p or lower, capped at 30 fps and low settings. Entry level boxer is likely imo going to be letting isboxer configure those windows, which will not be the full 1440p on each window. Yeah, it's a little jarring if I switch to another character to do something specific, but I'm not too bothered by it. Personally, I see running everything full tilt as being a luxury, high end boxer type of thing.

In that case, I can attest to the 480 working perfectly fine. I had one in for testing not long ago, and tested it with my team on my normal rig and saw perfectly acceptable performance using the settings I described above. Obviously, it's not as good as running a 980 TI or a 1080, but it's not meant to be.

As for online shopping, I agree with you generally speaking Mirai. I have a short list of dealers I am willing to deal with. After I built this rig late last year I learned I will never, EVER do business with NCIX again for example (a month before they even shipped my water cooler from Canada, I got my monitor from Korea faster than that). You can however edit the price sources in pcpartpicker to show only the stores you want to shop from, including down to a single store.

Additionally, looking at full rig bundles on newegg is not a bad idea either, if nothing else to get a ballpark of what you can get in a certain price range. Here's where they list all of the available DIY Super Combos.

http://www.newegg.com/DIY-PC-SuperCombos/PromotionStore/ID-33?name=DIY-Super-Combos

Also, I would add in addition to Slick Deals, Dealzon is nice (if a little bit of a pain to navigate). However, Tek Syndicate does a weekly list of deals from both eBay and Dealzon on their front page.

https://www.dealzon.com/

https://teksyndicate.com/

MiRai maybe we should make a sticky for online sources like this?

[MiRai]

I suspect most people getting started will run similar to what I do, with a large 1080p window for the tank, running at 60+ FPS at high settings. With the minions running at 720p or lower, capped at 30 fps and low settings. Entry level boxer is likely imo going to be letting isboxer configure those windows, which will not be the full 1440p on each window.
ISBoxer's default behavior is to render all of your game clients at the same size as Region 1 of your Window Layout, which is how it's able to broadcast the mouse cursor like it does. I feel that a lot of people who use ISBoxer believe that the smaller windows are rendering at a smaller resolution, when they're actually not, unless they have specifically told ISBoxer to do so. I talk about disabling Instant Swapping in my prior post for this reason.


As for online shopping, I agree with you generally speaking Mirai. I have a short list of dealers I am willing to deal with. After I built this rig late last year I learned I will never, EVER do business with NCIX again for example (a month before they even shipped my water cooler from Canada, I got my monitor from Korea faster than that). You can however edit the price sources in pcpartpicker to show only the stores you want to shop from, including down to a single store.
That's funny you mention NCIX, because I had a similar experience with them last year. They gave me a tracking number which I could not get to work on neither the Canadian UPS site, nor the US UPS site, so I just had to sit around waiting for something to arrive. Whether that was their fault or UPS's fault, I don't know, but they also took their sweet time processing my order before sending it out.


MiRai maybe we should make a sticky for online sources like this?
I have no desire to maintain something like that, and it's probably easier for people to just watch other hardware forums for deals that are posted there, which are normally seen on sites like Slick Deals. That, and the fact that we'd need to maintain deal sites not only in the US, but in the EU (and UK >_>), as well.

[kalos72]

Well, for example, I run at LOW "game settings" with everything turned down as low as possible. Always have...I have never enjoyed this game at High quality to be honest. My bar is pretty low... :(

From the looks of it, the best bang for my buck is to jack the CPU/GPU up as high as I can afford and most of the rest of the parts are interchangeable, performance wise that is.

I am going to look for a "Manage your CPU" post or something to try and help. Maybe something about Win 10 configs too, I always feel like there are 1000 things running in the background of this thing cause there are dozens "if you turn this off Windows will blow up" entries...

[mbox_bob]

I am going to look for a "Manage your CPU" post or something to try and help.While you may not be using ISBoxer, there is a WIKI article for managing CPU, but the main recommendations that always come up are, just assign all CPU cores to all instances. This lets Windows manage the CPU allocations and as MS have spent a buttload of money on the CPU scheduler, it will generally be better than just about anything else out there. On another note, there are some things you might want to check out to make sure other features of Windows are not hindering your multiboxing experience. http://isboxer.com/wiki/HOWTO:Disable_CPU_Throttling_in_Windows


Maybe something about Win 10 configs too, I always feel like there are 1000 things running in the background of this thing cause there are dozens "if you turn this off Windows will blow up" entries... I like this guys site for streamlining a Windows setup. Used it for reference for forever and a day. http://www.blackviper.com/
If nothing else it always provides some useful info.

[Pazgaz]

I used to run 5 @ 4k res on a 290x.
Pretty sure a 480 can handle 5 @ 2k res.
I used MiRai's on the fly gfx settings switching to keep slaves at low settings and everything was fine even with only 4gb vram.

[kalos72]

Are there resolution settings per region or are we talking about res settings in game?

[Ughmahedhurtz]

What Paz is (I think) talking about is things like RenderScale and all the detail stuff in macros.

See this thread: http://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/52701-Console-Variables-for-Video-Settings-(Warlords-of-Draenor)

[kalos72]

But changing the resolution between regions/characters will affect broadcasting no?

Is there a guide to things to look for to help improve latency/game quality issues?

I am running 5 clients on a low end HP laptop:
Processor: AMD A10-7300 Radeon R6, 10 Compute Cores 4C+6G (4 CPUs), ~1.9GHz
Memory: 8192MB RAM

But I am close to being able to pull the trigger and get new PC soon...

[kalos72]

Would something like the ASUS - GL552VW 15.6 Gaming laptop work for 5 mans ya think?

http://store.asus.com/us/item/201510AM170008064/A18486

[kalos72]

Ok so the laptop wont work, not enough HP and upgrades arent an option really. Back to a desktop...

So it seems like I am really just gonna buy the whole hog, go I7-6700@4.0ghz and a GTX 1070, 16gb RAM or something.

I assume 5man is not a problem now, possibly 10 man with this hardware depending on settings? I am not a 4k kinda guy yet so tops ill run the main account at 1920 and the slaves on super low.

Please give me your feedback as I am close to pulling the trigger here....thanks!!!

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Acer apparently has a "new" gaming desktop (Predator) that's reviewing pretty well. Not super expensive like some of the boutique builds I keep seeing around here. Some odd choices (e.g. power supplies) but seems legit.

[kalos72]

Most people are still saying that I can get more bang for my buck if I build it myself. I am just nervous about the warranties really...having to break down the machine to return a single part sounds tough. I guess though if you buy quality parts, your pretty safe.

I am going to go and buy the pieces and build it myself I think...

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Most people are still saying that I can get more bang for my buck if I build it myself. I am just nervous about the warranties really...having to break down the machine to return a single part sounds tough. I guess though if you buy quality parts, your pretty safe.

I am going to go and buy the pieces and build it myself I think...

That's generally true when building an 80% plus rig. If you're OK with 75% or lower hardware (e.g. i5 6th gen, GTX 960 or lower, 16GB 2300 RAM, HDDs or single smaller SSD instead of RAID or large SSDs, etc.) then the white box builds or major manufacturers will be able to beat most individual build prices (excluding taking advantage of a bunch of sale/closeout or promotional stuff) simply due to economy of scale.

If you're building bleeding edge, you'll get a much better deal building it yourself as people like Alienware or the other boutique shops tend to charge a premium for everything.

The big savings on home-built is that we can buy standard, quality components that you can upgrade piece by piece for 3-5 years before you need a new PC again rather than having to buy a new laptop or desktop that can't be upgraded.

You have a budget number you're trying to hit?

[kalos72]

Something around the 1200-1400 mark I think...I need that to go I7-6700K@4.0ghz and a GTX 1070, 16gb RAM, small SSD I would think.

[Hor]

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/ZhQfPs

As of this writing, it's 1249.72 with a 1070, 6700k, 16 gigs of ram, and a standard HDD. You can of course, sub in an SSD for the HDD, for a little more a 250g SSD would fit in there nicely. And of course, you'd have room to upgrade down the line. I did a blog post about this build a couple of weeks ago outlining potential areas to upgrade and reasoning behind specific parts.

http://srsbsns.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-ironclad_12.html

[kalos72]

Thats about what I was looking at, thats pretty high end for multi boxing I think. Should be 5-10man no problem at average/normal settings, nothing 4K. :P

[Hor]

It's basically what I have, and I've had zero problems running ten. And yeah, for the price it's hard to beat as far as I'm concerned. For 5, you can run it with the settings turned up pretty nicely.

[kalos72]

So its done! A I7-6700k@ 4.0ghz, 16gb RAM and a 1070! Now all I need is to upgrade the monitor.

My vision is failing honestly so I assumed getting a bigger screen would help, I got a 32in LED 1080p TV a few months ago. Will I get much better performance/video quality if I go with that 27in you recommended earlier inn this thread? I am not running anything more the 1920x1080 honestly...I dont think anyways. :)

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Graphics performance-wise, 1080p is 1080p regardless of size. Only when you move up to 1440p or 4K does performance take a hit. I have a 4k on my work laptop and I run it at 1080p to save battery and cut down on heat. The new panel types are pretty variable on display saturation, black levels, and such.

I got an Asus MX279H (https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-MX279H-1920x1080-AH-IPS-Monitor/dp/B00B17C5KO) for my parents and they love it. Wasn't expensive, either.