Multiboxing on a Laptop

[mrdsp]

Hi All,

Been boxing for a while now, really enjoying playing 5 on my PC and works fine.

I've got a new role that will see me travel a lot, so I'm going to look at my options to keep boxing on the road!

Work device is a Surface Book Pro with dGPU... doesn't work well but can just about handle 5 (no wPvP as too laggy).

So, I'm tempted to buy myself a personal machine.

I'm really interested in getting a Razer Blade 14, but for the price want to just run it past anybody who has experience of playing on a laptop.

Spec would be;



Intel® Core™ i7-7700HQ Quad-Core Processor with Hyper-Threading 2.8GHz / 3.8GHz (Base/Turbo)
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1060 (6GB GDDR5 VRAM)
16GB (8GB x 2) dual-channel slotted memory (DDR4, 2400MHz),
Full HD screen (not putting 4k on it with that card)


So my main questions are;

1. Will it handle boxing 10 accounts?
2. Has anybody experience of playing this number on a Laptop screen. Even if the device can play them is it practical?
3. And for the hardware nuts - would you wait for the i7 8th Gen at this time of year?
4. If you had this budget (must be mobile) - would you go for this as a halfway house between performance/portability? Any other suggestions (I also work freelance so would need something I can get out at a meeting that will not glow the room up or take up half the conference table!!).

Dan

[mbox_bob]

1. Possibly. Laptops are far more likely to thermal throttle though. Also the CPU is weaker than the desktop counterpart, so YMMV.
2. 10 on 1920x1080. I wouldn't be keen myself. You can always try it on a desktop first. things to remember is that a 17" screen is small these days, and boxing tends to require pixels and realestate (or you just need to really squint). I find 5 or 6 on a Full HD hard.
3. No. Maybe. Depends on whether you really want no interruption. You could end up waiting for the next GFX after that, and then the next CPU, and then the next GPU, and then the next SDD, and then the next memory gen.
4. I've ended up with multiple laptops. If your role supplying the Surface Book limits you so you can't use that during a meeting (presumably for notes or a demo/powerpoint), then I'd be inclined to go work laptop and separate play laptop. I have a reasonable, but not over the top Dell for work (actually using it now too. Actually I have two of them for work, one is the portable one and the other is my work desktop replacement. Then there is the gaming machine. Going through airports is not fun, but other than that it works out. The most annoying thing is keeping a few things in sync that I want to be.

[mrdsp]

1. Possibly. Laptops are far more likely to thermal throttle though. Also the CPU is weaker than the desktop counterpart, so YMMV.
2. 10 on 1920x1080. I wouldn't be keen myself. You can always try it on a desktop first. things to remember is that a 17" screen is small these days, and boxing tends to require pixels and realestate (or you just need to really squint). I find 5 or 6 on a Full HD hard.
3. No. Maybe. Depends on whether you really want no interruption. You could end up waiting for the next GFX after that, and then the next CPU, and then the next GPU, and then the next SDD, and then the next memory gen.
4. I've ended up with multiple laptops. If your role supplying the Surface Book limits you so you can't use that during a meeting (presumably for notes or a demo/powerpoint), then I'd be inclined to go work laptop and separate play laptop. I have a reasonable, but not over the top Dell for work (actually using it now too. Actually I have two of them for work, one is the portable one and the other is my work desktop replacement. Then there is the gaming machine. Going through airports is not fun, but other than that it works out. The most annoying thing is keeping a few things in sync that I want to be.

Thanks for the feedback, shares a lot of my thoughts.

I think the Razer Blade 14 or simalar (Alienware etc) should be OK with the stress, I don't really play with high settings so don't miss much if they are all on GFX quality 1. I have my main toon with max view distance and that's the only deviation from low gfx.

I think even the nVidia 1050 chip and i7 in there will out perform my current desktop by a large margin so even heat throttled should be ok.

So, I've taken your advice and run 10 accounts (not played) on a 13.5" Surface book Pro running - I'm pretty surprised and think it might be doable;

1953

Might not be as comfortable as running dual screen but beggars can't be choosers if it works right?

Another option would be adding one of these to my purchase and using them for preview, although I'm now concerned about the GFX card!

1954

My only worry with the 8th Gen i7 is there is apparently a big performance increase on the mobile version, I'm also conscious though Razer is not like the tier 1 vendors and will take time before it adopts the new chipset, especially as their current model is less than a year old.

In realty I have many devices I can use for work so I suppose it can just be a play laptop, not sure about lugging a beast around after previously having an Alienware although admitidley this was a M9750 and in 2007!

[mbox_bob]

Cool screen attachment. Not seen one before. Got a link?

Covfefe Lake is rumoured to be sometime in 2nd half 2017 possibly 2018. On 14nm. As Kaby Lake was pushing 14nm to the limit, I'm not sure whether 14nm Coffee Lake will be much better, although it will have more cores in mainstream.

7nm is expected 2018. That would be the one worth waiting for IMO. You get the second gen architecture and a die shrink, unless they just use first gen arch get a die shrink out. Hard to say.

Of course the rumoured dates are also for desktop CPU, not mobile, which is typically 6-12months behind, plus they've just released Kaby Lake R in August, so the chances of Coffee Lake are much slimmer. On the odd occasion they have released simultaneously, and sometimes mobile even came first, but certainly the last few releases mobile has been months behind.
For my latest work book, I waited for the 7th Gen mobile CPU's to arrive, and it was several months behind the desktop release. There was also a "big performance increase", which turned out to be FA (more noticeable with games of course).

Only thing about current gen laptops is making sure you get an i7 4+4core rather than an i7 2+2core. They were a bit sneaky with that one, although most gaming laptops do run the 4+4.

[mrdsp]

Cool screen attachment. Not seen one before. Got a link?

Covfefe Lake is rumoured to be sometime in 2nd half 2017 possibly 2018. On 14nm. As Kaby Lake was pushing 14nm to the limit, I'm not sure whether 14nm Coffee Lake will be much better, although it will have more cores in mainstream.

7nm is expected 2018. That would be the one worth waiting for IMO. You get the second gen architecture and a die shrink, unless they just use first gen arch get a die shrink out. Hard to say.

Of course the rumoured dates are also for desktop CPU, not mobile, which is typically 6-12months behind, plus they've just released Kaby Lake R in August, so the chances of Coffee Lake are much slimmer. On the odd occasion they have released simultaneously, and sometimes mobile even came first, but certainly the last few releases mobile has been months behind.
For my latest work book, I waited for the 7th Gen mobile CPU's to arrive, and it was several months behind the desktop release. There was also a "big performance increase", which turned out to be FA (more noticeable with games of course).

Only thing about current gen laptops is making sure you get an i7 4+4core rather than an i7 2+2core. They were a bit sneaky with that one, although most gaming laptops do run the 4+4.

There are a few on the market, I've looked at this one as it's USB powered and DP (many are USB powered and use the USB to run the GFX). It's called Packed Pixels - https://www.packedpixels.com/

I know these things are never exact, but can I read into what your saying is the new gen Intel i7's are not around the intimidate corner (eg before Christmas)?
Start my new job in 2 weeks so thinking of using it as a reason to justify the new machine :))

As you seem to know alot more than me, can I be cheeky and ask if you had a budget of around £2k ($2650) what would you go for?

Thanks,

Dan

[mbox_bob]

I wouldn't count of me being totally right with predictions of what Intel will do and when, but certainly, my guess is that Coffee Lake for mobile will be next year as Laptops are just beginning to be announced with Kaby Lake R.

As for laptops under £2k
https://www.scan.co.uk/products/173-asus-rog-g752vs-gc054t-fhd-i7-6820hk-32gb-ddr4-512gb-m2-pcie-ssdplus1tb-hdd-8gb-gtx-1070-dvdrw-w

If I had a slightly better budget of £2.5K
Slightly newer version with GSync.
https://www.scan.co.uk/products/173-asus-rog-g752vs-laptop-g-sync-core-i7-7820hk-8gb-gtx-1070-32gb-ram-512gb-ssd-plus-1tb-hdd-usb-ty

Not that I'm hard set on ASUS products, but out of the features they happened to come in at the right level.
I also prefer a 17" screen over 15", so you can get the same other features at about £200 less if you go down to a 15"

Also, for portability, yes, they are heavy to lug around, but as it is usually between home and a hotel room, and this is via car/plane/train, I'm not carrying it for miles on end. If it was a daily work machine, 3Kg starts to get rather tiresome after a mile, although backpacks are better than shoulder bags, but you end up with a bunch of extra peripherals, like PSU/Mouse/etc. For gaming, I have a decent gaming mouse.

I have a lightweight wireless mouse for the work notebook (logitech m525), which I am happy with. Also have an external KB for it too (K270), but I don't always take that, depends on what I'm doing for the day.

[mbox_bob]

For the Coffee Lake roadmaps, everything is pointing to desktop SKUS for October. http://wccftech.com/intel-coffee-lake-8th-gen-desktop-cpus-pre-order/
http://wccftech.com/intel-coffee-lake-300-series-z370-z390-chipset-leak/
I cant find anything on Mobile release, although the conjecture is that it will be next year for that.
The Kaby Lake R (i7 8xxxU) series do seem to be 4+4core, which is a good thing for mobile, although the GHz is dropped (note, this says Coffee Lake, but the Intel roadmaps have since been shown that this is Kaby Lake R).
http://hexus.net/tech/news/cpu/108865-mobile-coffee-lake-processor-spotted-acer-nitro-5-laptop/ It is also not a CPU I'd be after in a gaming laptop. A lower power battery lasting work machine yes; gaming, I'd rather the higher GHz HK/HQ/Q series.

[mrdsp]

Thank you for the comprehensive reply's.

I've got a feeling I've got to make the decision as to performance vs portability and get the right mix. The bigger devices seem to have the better performance (35-40%) on the GFX card. I'm also imagining they have the thermals to cope a little better too.

Not sure if I'm now less certain what I want, but this is a good thing as means I need to do a little more research.

I really don't like the thought of getting the bigger systems as they look like boys toys in some ways but then I suppose if I'm only using it myself the fact it looks like a UFO is something only I need to put up with.

Thinking Asus ROG Zephyrus GX501 might be worth the extra investment (scan link (https://www.scan.co.uk/products/156-asus-gx501vi-gz021t-zephyrus-max-q-fhd-120hz-g-sync-i7-7700hq-16gb-ddr4-512gb-nvme-ssd-8gb-gtx-1)) still only 15.6" but makes up with the 1080... not sure what the keyboard will look like in person though?

Edit: What is the bottleneck in terms of multi boxing 10 toons? Does the main strain hit the GFX or CPU or does it all need to equally come together?

[mbox_bob]

Bottlenecks are a combination of factors. This is exacerbated when there is one item in the setup which is underperforming on the load.

Just saying "what is the bottleneck" is a hard one to answer unless you actually have some data to look at. In this case it is just conjecture until someone actually 10 boxing on a laptop steps in.

Could you 10 box on the GX501? Sure. Do you need the 1080 to 10 box? Not really if you are prepared to accept lesser graphics. You've already indicated you are, so Would a 1070 work, sure. A 1060 probably would too. I wouldn't go lower than that as it helps to have Vram and grunt. As for the CPU. In a laptop, I'm going to say just get the best you can afford. You usually want 1 core per game, but you wont get a 10core laptop (not yet anyway), besides as you go up in games, you don't strictly need that ratio. A 4+4 should stretch for most things, and then it just comes down to GHz, which is pretty much the differentiator.

You've indicated you have better eyesight than me, so you can save £100 or so in the screen size, although I note your gx501 was £2700. I thought for what it is you get a slightly lighter laptop and smaller screen for more £££, over the 17" I suggested. Can't see it performing much better despite the "advanced cooling". My preference would be to go bigger because I wouldn't be trekking all over town with it (although those 24" monsters (https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/asus-rog-1080m-laptop)are not my scene - there's big, and then there is just stupid).

[mrdsp]

You are swinging me again! I'm multi boxing from a hotel room so like you mention it will spend its life in a backpack when being lugged around!

Do you have any knowledge of how the Alienware stuff is these days?

Alienware 17"
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1080 with 8GB GDDR5X
Intel® Core™ i7-7820HK (Quad-Core, 8MB Cache, Overclocking up to 4.4GHz )
16GB DDR4 at 2667MHz (2x8GB) (http://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/laptop-and-2-in-1-pcs/alienware-17/spd/alienware-17-laptop/n00aw17r412?selectionState=eyJGUHJpY2UiOjIwMTYuNSw iT0MiOiJuMDBhdzE3cjQxMiIsIlF0eSI6MSwiTW9kcyI6W3siS WQiOjMsIk9wdHMiOlt7IklkIjoiMTZHMjY2NyIsIlByaWNlIjo yMTYuNjJ9XX0seyJJZCI6OCwiT3B0cyI6W3siSWQiOiI1MTIxV EIiLCJQcmljZSI6MzYwLjg0fV19LHsiSWQiOjQ2MywiT3B0cyI 6W3siSWQiOiI0NzU2MTMiLCJQcmljZSI6MzQuMH1dfSx7IklkI joxMDAyLCJPcHRzIjpbeyJJZCI6IjUyMzIzNCJ9XX0seyJJZCI 6MjUsIk9wdHMiOlt7IklkIjoiUFBHODMifV19XX0%253D)
512GB PCIe SSD (Boot) + 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s (Storage) (http://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/laptop-and-2-in-1-pcs/alienware-17/spd/alienware-17-laptop/n00aw17r412?selectionState=eyJGUHJpY2UiOjIwMTYuNSw iT0MiOiJuMDBhdzE3cjQxMiIsIlF0eSI6MSwiTW9kcyI6W3siS WQiOjMsIk9wdHMiOlt7IklkIjoiMTZHMjY2NyIsIlByaWNlIjo yMTYuNjJ9XX0seyJJZCI6OCwiT3B0cyI6W3siSWQiOiI1MTIxV EIiLCJQcmljZSI6MzYwLjg0fV19LHsiSWQiOjQ2MywiT3B0cyI 6W3siSWQiOiI0NzU2MTMiLCJQcmljZSI6MzQuMH1dfSx7IklkI joxMDAyLCJPcHRzIjpbeyJJZCI6IjUyMzIzNCJ9XX0seyJJZCI 6MjUsIk9wdHMiOlt7IklkIjoiUFBHODMifV19XX0%253D)

Comes in at around about the same price?

Never been a fan of Asus but also have nothing to base that on other than working with cheap Asus laptops in the past!

[mrdsp]

1958

Humm. So I know I'm on a desktop so slight different comparison but this machine is like 7 years old or so.

Ran 5-box wPvP for around 2hrs and had a look at my CPU activity (as above).

Will 10 box really need the huge grunt of a full fat i7-7700k or will a i7-7820HK cope ok?

My box is currently 2x Xeon E5620's (2.4Ghz) but very old!

[MiRai]

What is the screenshot of the Task Manager showing us? Were you in the middle of large-scale combat when you took that, or were you just standing around in an empty area?

[mrdsp]

I was playing wPVP in the Guru arena for 2 hours Outland-Eu around 30 players or so. When I did that screenshot I was doing some mouse broadcast as that's what's lagged on other machines for me.

Trying to see if there is any motion in the newer chips being so much better now that the mobile variations of the i7 will out-perform a desktop Xeon from 7 years ago.

Edit: On paper the Alienware chip 80% faster, grunt wise but the Xeons are 2 chips and therefor double the cores;

http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-7820HK-vs-Intel-Xeon-E5620/m224965vsm6971 (http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-7820HK-vs-Intel-Xeon-E5620/m224965vsm6971)

Have a friend with a i7-6700k so might borrow his laptop for a bit and see if he'll let me install WoW.

Suppose what I'm trying to find MiRai is somebody who is doing it mobile at the moment to give me the head nod or shake as to if it's worth investing the money into a gaming laptop to multibox on.

From this thread I'm pretty sure I now need to be looking at 17" so been a big help that way, now at the point of basically do I get a mainstream unit like Alienware or MSI etc and take the hit on 30% less i7-7700HQ or go for a monster looking thing and get a fullfat i7-7700k.

Second Edit: I suppose the real point of the screenshot is the numbers are very small, like very very small considering it's running 5 game instances. I suppose this continues some talk on the IS-Boxer discord that the CPU's on laptops are going to work hard or struggle. I'm thinking out loud sorry.

[mbox_bob]

I think the reason MiRai was asking is because Task Manager is a snapshot of a point in time, not a historical record. As soon as you stopped playing the game and switched to Task Manager, then the profile of the CPU usage is different to you running around controlling your toons and killing stuff, which is causing the game to use a bunch of processing power, rather than idle because nothing is going on in the game. If you happened to have been standing around in Dalaran or somewhere busy, the game would still be doing updates, although it would still not be the same as you actually playing.

If you want a record over time, then perfmon would be more useful. Even OpenHardwareMonitor would be more useful as it least it tells you the min/max over time. (i.e. since it was started), so it would give you at least the max CPU usage while playing (assuming you start it, then go playing for a bit).

As for CPU, and whether you go for a desktop replacement or a luggable (neither are really laptops in the 17" gaming category), then it is as you say, either you need someone with the current mobile gear (or close enough) who is 10 boxing or more to chime in, or you'll need to test it out yourself, or just suck it and see.

A desktop CPU is always going to outperform the current mobile model as they are build for different purposes, and the desktop has higher base clock (2.9GHz vs 4.2GHz), although that gap is smaller in Turbo, it is still between 600MHz and 1GHz. Memory bandwidth is also slightly lower on a 7820HK

It is possible to overclock a mobile CPU to around similar levels as the desktop, and in fact most of the time they will even outperform the desktop while being undervolted, but the downside of this is the cooling systems are limited in the amount of heat they can remove. A desktop CPU cooler is large, a mobile cooler is not. Less surface area means less ability to remove heat, so fans spin faster, louder, etc. As the desktop CPU will be limited with the same mobile cooling solutions (or at least not full desktop cooling solutions), then they will be stuck with the same limitations as the mobile CPU.

The other problem with desktop CPUs/GPUs in laptops is the bricks that come with them. They are usually much bigger, or there are two of them, or they actually down supply enough juice so the components underclock to compensate. A

All in all, it's about trade offs. If you want to have the power of a desktop, then you need a desktop (I have known people to build themselves a mITX system and take that to their hotels with a 24" monitor). If you want to have something portable (and contained), then you get a luggable, and cope with the inevitable loss of grunt. Whether you can then still 10 box on it is about testing it out.

Also, get the right to return on your purchase. State up front what you want it to do, and then your purchase is conditional on the item being able to perform the job. I.E. get it in writing as part of the purchase - you send them an email saying what you want to do and ask for their recommendations for suitable gear, then if it doesn't perform you have a leg, because you made it clear at the outset the task the item was required to perform.

[mrdsp]

Quick update on this - started the job and done my first 4 nights away!

Going to wait for the i7-8700k - apparent release is this week so will order from PCSpecialist or similar and get the full desktop CPU, I think it will work fine with the extra cores.

In the meantime, I've managed to plod around running 5x toons on a Surface Book, it's not ideal but can do WQ and a little light wPvP (random people attacking whilst questing.. wouldn't like to be in fights that I need more coordination).

Have had a play with LiquidSky.com (some sort of cloud VDI for gaming) will let you know how that goes.

[totalbest]

Do you have any knowledge of how the Alienware stuff is these days?

[mrdsp]

I am pleased to give an update on this. My new laptop came yesterday, I went with a custom from www.pcspecialist.co.uk (http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk) (UK custom builders).

Running 10x toons, I've had zero problems (the fans hardly kick in). Run my main toon at quality 5 with max view distance and 9 slaves at quality 1.

I've only tested 8 in full PvP (when doing 10 had trial accounts) but the workload is not even kicking the fans in playing all night and even Dalaran / other high pop areas.

Specs of note are;

Intel® Core™i7 Six Core Processor i7-8700k (3.7GHz) 12MB Cache
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE 2400MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 16GB)
500GB SAMSUNG 960 EVO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3200MB/R, 1900MB/W)
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1080 - 8.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1

I would highly recommend for anybody looking for a mobile game rig that has the CPU grunt for a bit of multi boxing.

@totalbest

I looked at AlienWare but was worried they run the mobile chipsets when it comes to CPU.

[Megaman3]

I know it’s and Old thread but can you or anyone update how the multi boxing has gone with crap hotel WiFi ? I travel weekly for work and real hit or miss with the hotel WiFi even with same hotel brands ?

[MiRai]

I know it’s and Old thread but can you or anyone update how the multi boxing has gone with crap hotel WiFi ? I travel weekly for work and real hit or miss with the hotel WiFi even with same hotel brands ?
WiFi is still garbage; don't necro old threads.

Thread closed.