AMD Threadripper 2950X versus i9 line?

[Apatheist]

Hey,

Upgrading soon and I'm having a hard time evaluating the core count versus clock speed ratio for boxing purposes.

2950X with 16c/32t comfortably boosts to 4GHz.
Something like the i9-7920X 12c/24t will hit 4.4GHz.

4 Fewer cores, 400MHz higher clock speed.

There's also the optimization factor. I've heard a lot of reports that are difficult to quantify about AMD's platform being poorly optimized or even crashing in various games and older software that was developed exclusively with Intel architecture in mind. The RAM compatibility seems to have been fixed with Zen+ at least.

Anybody had any hands on experience with Threadripper/Ryzen?

[MiRai]

How soon is "soon?" The Intel X299 Basin Falls refresh should be available sometime in Q4, so if you can wait that long to see if Intel can actually be competitive, then I'd say wait and see.

Other than that, I don't have any experience with the high-core-count Threadripper chips to really comment on how well they might perform.

[WOWBOX40]

Im thinking if you prefere to have your main game on a 144 hz 1080p panel with settings on 7+ and then run your alts on settings 1, 30 fps background (any lower looks terrible to me), it most likely will be a let down, as the cpu will be clocked at 4 ghz on all cores, if you are lucky. So you wouldnt really be able to maximize your main screen at the same time, wow fps wise experience, if you are used to the newer intel 5 ghz ish cpus.

Though, i would absolutely loved to have tried this cpu as a secondary pc, with all clients at 1080p and settings 1. Wonder how many it would run while looking good.

Hope someone takes the chance and gets it, so we can get a review :)

All that memory and that op gfx card etc thats needed is going to make a big dent in the wallet though. If i would have bought this i certainly would have aimed for 23 accounts. Also if you plan to overclock it you most likly need proper watercooling. And hopefully you have or will get aircondition. That helps in general and worth every penny. Buy a quality one.

[Apatheist]

Leaning towards AMD. I just can't see how a few hundred MHz is going to be more valuable than extra cores across a large number of clients.

Also kind of disappointing that NVIDIA decided to go with 11GB of VRAM on their new RTX2080Ti instead of the "speculated" 16GB. Oh well!

[MiRai]

Leaning towards AMD. I just can't see how a few hundred MHz is going to be more valuable than extra cores across a large number of clients.
Well, 1 MHz from Intel is not the same as 1 MHz from AMD, but they're somewhat close these days. At a similar core count, Intel is going to do better, but AMD pulls away in the area of multi-tasking when they have a higher core count (which should be expected).

[WOWBOX40]

Leaning towards AMD. I just can't see how a few hundred MHz is going to be more valuable than extra cores across a large number of clients.

Also kind of disappointing that NVIDIA decided to go with 11GB of VRAM on their new RTX2080Ti instead of the "speculated" 16GB. Oh well!


You would want to pair your 32 core with this one ;)


https://www.anandtech.com/show/13004/nvidia-limited-edition-32gb-titan-v-ceo-edition

[Apatheist]

Definitely not going for the 32core. The 16 cores seems like a good compromise between core count, speed and thermals.

Also, I've been watching a lot of tech shows talking about the new RTX line from NVIDIA. Almost everybody is saying there's a negligible (~10%) speed difference between a 1080 Ti and the new 2080 Ti. Most of the difference in performance comes from the new "ray tracing" technology which only functions in supported titles -- meaning I'll get basically no use out of it since all of the games I play are old and I can't see any MMO being that graphically demanding.

If the benchmarks support the speculation after launch next month I might be better off waiting a short while until the 1080 Ti prices drop and picking up 2 of them for close to the same cost of a single 2080 Ti. AMD still seems nowhere to be found on the GPU front. Vega was a huge flop.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Definitely not going for the 32core. The 16 cores seems like a good compromise between core count, speed and thermals.

Also, I've been watching a lot of tech shows talking about the new RTX line from NVIDIA. Almost everybody is saying there's a negligible (~10%) speed difference between a 1080 Ti and the new 2080 Ti. Most of the difference in performance comes from the new "ray tracing" technology which only functions in supported titles -- meaning I'll get basically no use out of it since all of the games I play are old and I can't see any MMO being that graphically demanding.

If the benchmarks support the speculation after launch next month I might be better off waiting a short while until the 1080 Ti prices drop and picking up 2 of them for close to the same cost of a single 2080 Ti. AMD still seems nowhere to be found on the GPU front. Vega was a huge flop.
So, just like every other new model NVidia or ATI card, then? ~10% real-world speed improvements is about what I see every generation. A few outliers here and there where new optimizations come into play, but we don't see many truly ground-breaking advances that e.g. double performance in current titles.

[Apatheist]

Bright side of a new generation of cards even if you don't plan on buying one, I guess. 1080 Ti prices are already down 15% where I live. The stupid RRP of the 2080 Ti line is pretty much the same cost as two 1080 Ti's.

Still on having a hard time choosing which CPU. I would have thought someone else here would have picked up a Threadripper by now to give some hard numbers.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Still on having a hard time choosing which CPU. I would have thought someone else here would have picked up a Threadripper by now to give some hard numbers.
<anecdote>I think some of us are very leery of AMD processors just from a general compatibility standpoint. Too many experiences with certain hardware items (chipset, memory, GPUs, NVMe drives) not working properly with them. I've had similar issues with their GPUs, too, though I haven't had one since the introduction of the 290 family, so I wouldn't take my position as Gospel. ;)

On a related note, there seem to be a fair number of complaints with various apps (e.g. some Adobe products like Premier) that require a manual edit of some special "flag"[?] file to trigger better usage of the threadripper's cores, whereas the same app on an Intel just works. This may be a failure on the part of that app developer, though it does fall into the bucket of "may be tricky to get the most out of it if you're not tech savvy." My marketing folks here at work have a hard enough time getting a freaking MAC to work properly with Adobe products or VMware/Virtualbox VMs. Getting them to use a PC with the threadrippers would be a net productivity loss to all involved.

Again, just my 2 copper as a third-party observer.

[Kayley]

Some of you are really going a bit overboard with computing power here.

I run 30 WoW clients on 4 cores (8HT) - i7-5960x - and I play my main on settings 10, everything on, 3440x1440p with the remaining 4 cores WHILE goofing around on twitch/youtube/movies. When I played 12 accounts the CPU would throttle itself because it wasn't being utilized enough lol. Now a single 980ti for the slaves (34% utlization in world pvp- big groups). A single 980ti for the 'main' .. 80fps in Uldir, pretty constant.. roughly 45fps in Boralus (tanks hard here for some reason). Yes my PC parts are overclocked and yeah they are ollldddd :)

i9-7900X is roughly 5-8 frames slower than the 5960x, but it has 2 extra cores sitting around doing nothing.
1920x is roughly 8-12 frames slower than the 5960x, but has 4 extra cores sitting around doing nothing.
2990WX was roughly 35 frames slower than the 5960x. It was shit for gaming, so gosh darn amazing with everything else. Turns out this was caused by the GPUs and nvidia have released a patch which corrects it in quite a few gaming titles-- haven't tested it myself but did the old google and it seems legit. I've only tested the above hardware.

Certain games will run better on certain hardware; that part wont change. No matter what you buy for multiboxing you will not even come close to maxing it unless you run an INSANE amount of clients.

[EaTCarbS]

Certain games will run better on certain hardware; that part wont change. No matter what you buy for multiboxing you will not even come close to maxing it unless you run an INSANE amount of clients.


Pretty much this. I'm still using a i7 930 (overclocked) for multiboxing and have 0 issues.

[MiRai]

I run 30 WoW clients on 4 cores (8HT) - i7-5960x -and I play my main on settings 10, everything on, 3440x1440p with the remaining 4 cores WHILE goofing around on twitch/youtube/movies.


Now a single 980ti for the slaves (34% utlization in world pvp- big groups). A single 980ti for the 'main' .. 80fps in Uldir, pretty constant.. roughly 45fps in Boralus (tanks hard here for some reason).

Just to be clear, you run 30 (thirty) game clients, all rendering at 3440x1440, and they're all crammed onto 8 threads? That's almost 149 million pixels to render. However, you don't mention the framerates you're using.

To put things into perspective, I run five game clients at 3840x1630, which is about 31 million pixels, and while my 10C/20T CPU is fine (although much higher load than you're reporting), my 1080 Ti is easily pushing beyond 50% when I'm in BFA zones. To add to that, none of my game clients are using anywhere near a 10 preset for in-game video settings, and I'm running 60/25 fore/background framerates.

To provide an additional example case, MadMilitia, who plays at about the same resolution you do and has very similar hardware, was having a difficult time running 8 game clients back in Legion (https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/54383-10-*-3440x1440-hardware-suggestions?p=413918&viewfull=1#post413918) (with only one of his characters at 7 on the in-game settings slider).

I also went ahead and matched your core/thread settings with my setup, and below is the result of five game clients using the same settings up above, but in Silvermoon City, which has old textures and doesn't produce the same amount of load as MoP/WoD/Legion/BFA do.

https://i.imgur.com/wNgZ140.png

So, you can see that something might not be adding up here. I'm going to say that either I'm missing something, or you're, perhaps, misunderstanding how your setup is configured/rendering, and if you're using ISBoxer, then perhaps you should share your profile (http://isboxer.com/wiki/Configuration_Sharing) so that we can at least verify what your setup is doing.





Certain games will run better on certain hardware; that part wont change. No matter what you buy for multiboxing you will not even come close to maxing it unless you run an INSANE amount of clients.


Pretty much this. I'm still using a i7 930 (overclocked) for multiboxing and have 0 issues.
As stated above, we're missing a ton of details. Game? How many game clients? Resolution? In-game settings? Foreground/Background framerates? All of this is necessary information when telling others how your hardware performs.

Personally, I have my doubts that I'd be able to run my multiboxing setup on only an i7 930 system from almost 9 years ago. I have an old 2600K system that I fired up in Warlords of Draenor to see how it'd perform (single game client), and if I'm remembering correctly, I was both both CPU and GPU limited, and I was barely capable of pushing max settings at 2560x1080 @ 60 FPS.

[Kayley]

I forgot how to get ingame readings like what you posted MiRai. The main is in Boralus and my alts are in Dalaran--- beating on a turnip. I found that while dpsing it puts a realistic stress on the CPU/GPU to give a more accurate reading.

I lowered my CPU OC to 4.4ghz to match your cpu better. I removed the GPU's OC entirely.
Renderscale 100%. Slaves set to 1. DX11. Physics Interaction Player only. Main settings 10, 3440x1440p. Here (https://imgur.com/JCu8EH0)
*edit* Slaves are 20fps background and the foreground is 144fps *edit* 30 'slaves' and my main. So 31.

I then thought maybe it's some weird 21:9 vs 16:9 bug. So I messed with the renderscale and had it output @ 5120x2880 (renderscale 200% - 2560x1440, XB270HU- old monitor) . Had my girls fighting a turnip in dalaran, took my main into LFR. 45-55fps consistent. I then had my friends pull all the trash and unload AOE style~ that caused my poor little 980ti to be overwhelmed; stuttered and dropped frames (20fps). Here (https://imgur.com/1qKfBvv)

Notice how under normal WoW gameplay (first picture) my GPU doesn't really even come out of powersaving. Goes up 30w. When I changed the resolution to 5120x2880 it went to 250w.

FWIW a friend is playing 20 on a 3570k. Although he has optimised his setups to allow it to work out ok. (renderscale 0.1 on alts etc etc).

*second edit*
Due to RAM being so overpriced I just bought a extra SSD and use it as a dedicated storage for Pagefile.sys.
Frees up physical RAM and the performance hit is really negligable. Maybe that helps too? I don't know.

*third edit*
I had a look at MadMilitia's setup as you mentioned.. the 1080 gtx is better than my 980ti's for sure, but the CPU is very different. 8mb cache vs 20mb. 16 pcie lanes vs 40. The Memory bandwidth is half- 34gb/s vs 64gb/s. I'd expect it to struggle a little bit-- but not as much as it was.

[EaTCarbS]

As stated above, we're missing a ton of details. Game? How many game clients? Resolution? In-game settings? Foreground/Background framerates? All of this is necessary information when telling others how your hardware performs.

Personally, I have my doubts that I'd be able to run my multiboxing setup on only an i7 930 system from almost 9 years ago. I have an old 2600K system that I fired up in Warlords of Draenor to see how it'd perform (single game client), and if I'm remembering correctly, I was both both CPU and GPU limited, and I was barely capable of pushing max settings at 2560x1080 @ 60 FPS.

I do mainly EVE Online these days, but recently dipped back into wow to try it out. I'm certainly not running everything at a buttery smooth 60fps constantly but it is certainly playable. I have 5 wow accounts all running with default graphics (7) @ 1080p, with background limited to 30, and the main client averages around 40fps. CPU utilization hovers around 50%. This is on an i7 930 oc'd to 4.22ghz and a gtx 1070.

In EVE I do 20 clients but you more or less need 0 graphics on your alts, so setting them to absolute minimum settings is common.

[MiRai]

I forgot how to get ingame readings like what you posted MiRai. The main is in Boralus and my alts are in Dalaran--- beating on a turnip. I found that while dpsing it puts a realistic stress on the CPU/GPU to give a more accurate reading.

I lowered my CPU OC to 4.4ghz to match your cpu better. I removed the GPU's OC entirely.
Renderscale 100%. Slaves set to 1. DX11. Physics Interaction Player only. Main settings 10, 3440x1440p. Here (https://imgur.com/JCu8EH0)
*edit* Slaves are 20fps background and the foreground is 144fps *edit* 30 'slaves' and my main. So 31.

I then thought maybe it's some weird 21:9 vs 16:9 bug. So I messed with the renderscale and had it output @ 5120x2880 (renderscale 200% - 2560x1440, XB270HU- old monitor) . Had my girls fighting a turnip in dalaran, took my main into LFR. 45-55fps consistent. I then had my friends pull all the trash and unload AOE style~ that caused my poor little 980ti to be overwhelmed; stuttered and dropped frames (20fps). Here (https://imgur.com/1qKfBvv)

Notice how under normal WoW gameplay (first picture) my GPU doesn't really even come out of powersaving. Goes up 30w. When I changed the resolution to 5120x2880 it went to 250w.

FWIW a friend is playing 20 on a 3570k. Although he has optimised his setups to allow it to work out ok. (renderscale 0.1 on alts etc etc).
Some things to note...

Your first screenshot shows all cores being worked, when you said you were only using four out of eight. This isn't a big deal since your overall load isn't much different than what you originally said, but I just wanted to point that out.
Are you changing focus before taking screenshots? The reason I ask is because the moment you pull focus away from the game clients they usually fall back to their background framerate, which can greatly reduce load.
The first screenshot shows you only using 1.8GB of VRAM. When I log in a solo character and use a render scale of 2986x1680 that almost matches the pixel count of 3440x1440, I eat up almost 1.3GB at an in-game slider setting of 7 (no AA). You're running 29 more game clients and you're only eating up 500MB more than my one game client.
You're pumping out 724 frames across 30 game clients (29 x 20 + 144) and your GPU load is only ~30%. Using the same in-game settings from my previous bullet, I barely achieve 320 FPS and I'm zoomed into first-person while staring at the ground with my UI disabled, and my 1080 Ti is pegged at 100% load at this point. If I try to play normally (still solo), my FPS bounces around between 120 and 190.


Do you see how things aren't adding up... at all? Ultimately, what I would like to know is whether or not you're using ISBoxer. This is a huge missing detail that may reveal why you're able to do what you can do. If you are using ISBoxer, then I'm going to, once again, ask to see your profile (http://isboxer.com/wiki/Configuration_Sharing), and if you aren't, then I'm going to ask that you post the bit of your script that has your layout in it, since you're obviously doing something much different with your setup, that the vast majority of multiboxers aren't.


*second edit*
Due to RAM being so overpriced I just bought a extra SSD and use it as a dedicated storage for Pagefile.sys.
Frees up physical RAM and the performance hit is really negligable. Maybe that helps too? I don't know.
It wouldn't make any difference in loads being produced on the CPU and GPU while standing still. Not only that, but a PageFile is unlikely to be used when you still have RAM available, which, according to your screenshots, you do.


*third edit*
I had a look at MadMilitia's setup as you mentioned.. the 1080 gtx is better than my 980ti's for sure, but the CPU is very different. 8mb cache vs 20mb. 16 pcie lanes vs 40. The Memory bandwidth is half- 34gb/s vs 64gb/s. I'd expect it to struggle a little bit-- but not as much as it was.
Both chipsets have PCIe 3.0, and any piece of hardware can only have access to 16 lanes at any given time. Just because you have access to more lanes, overall, doesn't mean his GPU will be bottlenecked—your GPU is plugged into an x16 slot, and his GPU is plugged into an x16 slot.

If there was any difference, it would be between 8x and 16x, and even then, the difference between those, for the past several generations of GPUs, and has been shown to be negligible (plenty of reviews out there on this topic). Also, the cache is not going to be the deciding factor between 30 games clients and 8 game clients.

----------


I do mainly EVE Online these days, but recently dipped back into wow to try it out. I'm certainly not running everything at a buttery smooth 60fps constantly but it is certainly playable. I have 5 wow accounts all running with default graphics (7) @ 1080p, with background limited to 30, and the main client averages around 40fps. CPU utilization hovers around 50%. This is on an i7 930 oc'd to 4.22ghz and a gtx 1070.

In EVE I do 20 clients but you more or less need 0 graphics on your alts, so setting them to absolute minimum settings is common.
There we go, more details! :)

What I take issue with is that, in your previous post you said you had zero issues, but, for me, not being able to maintain 60 FPS (when using a 60 Hz panel) would most definitely be an issue. You may not find that to be an issue, but I guarantee that someone else will, and by throwing a blanket statement of "I have zero issues" when referring to only a 9-year old CPU can easily give people this false sense of what they need to buy—not to mention you also have a 1070, which is not a 9-year old GPU.

Now, to be fair, the OP doesn't mention how many clients they'll be playing, nor what resolution they'll be running at, so we don't have that to go off of, but I do have two final questions:

1) What zone(s) are you in where you're seeing the performance you report?
2) Why not just drop the slaves down to 20 FPS to achieve that buttery smooth 60 FPS on the main?

[WOWBOX40]

Could we get a complete spec sheet of that pc with cpu of 4 cores 8 threads that is able to run 30 instances of wow please. And a video taken externaly to showcase it in action, while riding around new dalaran, attacking target dummies and whatnot. That would be aaaawesome. Oh and remember to add a overlay that shows the current usage of cpu, ram and vram, and temps. Oh and the fps. Ty.

[Kayley]

Hiya :D

I actually agree in that some things don't add up. So I backed up my config, deleted WoW, reinstalled and did the same tests (stricter).

Sorry Mirai I thought I made it clear (I failed) that I had my main running along with the 'slaves' (not this time). I tried my best to close down any other programs that might intefere with the testing. 30 accounts running, 20fps background, settings 1, triple buffering disabled, reduce input lag disabled, msaa none, multisample alpha Enabled, Post-process AA none, resample quality none, Graphics API DX11, physics interaction player only, UI scale on max. Here (https://imgur.com/bCHvjko) I let it 'record' via hwinfo for 7 mins so you can get the idea of the averages etc. CPU0 is being used by windows to manage everything I assume. No WoW processes are attached to it.

This is my Main, I changed the resolution to 2986x1680 to match yours. Settings are 10, everything enabled except Vertical Sync. Here (https://imgur.com/BLa4sUG)
I said I would chug down to 45-55fps in boralus usually, same time of day, same crowded area... yet after the reinstall I have 79-85 fps and my 980ti is being utilized more. I can only assume I had changed a config file in the past and forgotten about it. Double and triple checked everything was on the highest ingame setting.

It's monday and I'm at work etc now, but the coming weekend I can do what wowbox40 suggested and film it externally with the usage monitors up. Until then I dunno.

*pagefile*
haha, before when I let windows assign the pagefile size my PC would eventually BSOD due to lack of Memory with 21 accounts + me on my main. I dedicated a SSD to it (pagefile) and now I run 30 accounts with my main + a stupid amount of random crap and it says I have 10gb RAM spare. It's insane.

*second edit*
We have two data entries Mirai. Yours and mine. Is there any standardised benchmarking tools we can use to simulate this mboxing load?

*third editzzzzzzz*
Can I please have a HWinfo report like the one I gave so I can see what your power draw, VRAM usage (etc) is like too? Just 5 mins standing around a crowded boralus (if alliance) or you wailing on a turnip in dalaran. tyty.

You helped build this pc years ago and I really don't mind you remote logging in to poke around at some point.
My ISBOXER profile is basic-- I literally just set the cpu wizard to no strategy then assigned the 'slaves' the bottom half of the CPU and the main the top half.

[MiRai]

We have two data entries Mirai. Yours and mine.
We have plenty of data from over the years since BFA didn't increase the hardware requirements all that much more than what was needed in Legion. Throughout that time, myself and others have helped numerous people build computers for multiboxing—both new multiboxers and already established multiboxers who began to realize that their current machine could no longer perform up to their expectations—and if someone came to me and told me they wanted to run 30 game clients (you originally wanted to run 10), I would never recommend that they attempt to do so on a single machine with modern day hardware.


You helped build this pc years ago and I really don't mind you remote logging in to poke around at some point.
I don't want to remote log in, I want you to share your ISBoxer profile.


My ISBOXER profile is basic-- I literally just set the cpu wizard to no strategy then assigned the 'slaves' the bottom half of the CPU and the main the top half.
Then why not just share it? I've asked two times now for you to share your profile, but for some reason, you aren't (or won't).

[Kicksome]

This is my personal experience, yours may vary....
I have that same processor, same video card - great processor (although I retired it a couple years ago, so it's sitting around somewhere). I was able to run max 12x or 13x wow instances (13th just sat minimized). I had another machine next to it that ran 12 or 13x instances. For a total of 25/26 (The 26th acct was for phasing purposes - so it was just doing nothing). But I had to split them between the two machines. (Very cool innerspace/isboxer can do that!)

I tried running more than 12x actively and it s... the bed. on that machine. So I had to buy another machine. And I ran at like a 3 graphic level. 45 max frame rate, 12 on slaves in background.

Even with my i9-7980XE 18/36 core,, overclocked to ~4.2ghz, 64 gigs ram, with raid 0 NVMe drives. 1080ti's etc... it's really not possible to run more than 26 instances with Isboxer USING the built in FTL - you run out of the 6 key combos that make it possible - an issue I ran into. Maybe you could open more instances and use some other method to do FTL that would work? No clue.

With 10 characters, using graphics level 3 on my i9-7980xe (18/36 core), with a 1080ti using only a single 3440x1440 Ultrawide, I get about 45 FPS in town. Note the ~52 fps doing nothing - with no one around, and that's a 1080 ti card - at 3 graphic level. 60 foreground/15 background.
Although the main window is big. I will say it's still silky smooth, just not capped FPS wise - with 10 instances of wow at graphic level 3.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/263709751223910402/495959975164641281/unknown.png

[Kayley]

Then why not just share it? I've asked two times now for you to share your profile, but for some reason, you aren't (or won't).

Because of two reasons really.
1) A little paranoia after being wrongfully banned.
2) I just didn't want to. But since you've gone all passive aggresive on me.. here you go. BORING AND BASIC SETUP FOR FARMING. (http://penyacom.org/p?q=ZlhWYXk) (pastebin wouldn't let me post something so 'large'. I had to use a pastebin alternate).

Now i'm going to go over what I said originally once more, just to make sure you have followed along.

A Single 980 ti running my 30 'slaves'.
A Single 980 ti running my Main.
One screenshot showing the CPU and GPUs in action (stress testing with the main in Boralus, alts in Dalaran). - https://imgur.com/JCu8EH0
You helped fix it for me. it wasn't working as it did in Legion - https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/54359-First-time-dedicated-GPU
We had to rename the cards in order for World of Warcraft client to split the load properly.

So 4 cores, 8 HT runs the 30 accounts. Nvidia GPU #2 in the first screenshot.
The remaining 4 cores, 8 HT runs my main/windows/twitch etcetc with no throttling or bottleneck. Nvidia GPU #0.

C:/PassiveAggresive/Behaviour.exe /disable =]

You said you did a similar test in Silvermoon with your 5 clients and this was the result - https://i.imgur.com/wNgZ140.png
Your second GPU is at 0 because you aren't rendering your main right? the 5 clients are on settings 1 (etc) to mimick my 30 slave setup?

I was originally posting about the CPU differences and what they can achieve in WoW based on some testing I did with different hardware, I was bored at work one day.


This is my personal experience, yours may vary....
I have that same processor, same video card - great processor (although I retired it a couple years ago, so it's sitting around somewhere). I was able to run max 12x or 13x wow instances (13th just sat minimized). I had another machine next to it that ran 12 or 13x instances. For a total of 25/26 (The 26th acct was for phasing purposes - so it was just doing nothing). But I had to split them between the two machines. (Very cool innerspace/isboxer can do that!)

I tried running more than 12x actively and it s... the bed. on that machine. So I had to buy another machine. And I ran at like a 3 graphic level. 45 max frame rate, 12 on slaves in background.

Even with my i9-7980XE 18/36 core,, overclocked to ~4.2ghz, 64 gigs ram, with raid 0 NVMe drives. 1080ti's etc... it's really not possible to run more than 26 instances with Isboxer USING the built in FTL - you run out of the 6 key combos that make it possible - an issue I ran into. Maybe you could open more instances and use some other method to do FTL that would work? No clue.

With 10 characters, using graphics level 3 on my i9-7980xe (18/36 core), with a 1080ti using only a single 3440x1440 Ultrawide, I get about 45 FPS in town. Note the ~52 fps doing nothing - with no one around, and that's a 1080 ti card - at 3 graphic level. 60 foreground/15 background.
Although the main window is big. I will say it's still silky smooth, just not capped FPS wise - with 10 instances of wow at graphic level 3.


Hiya Kicksome :D
I appreciate some extra data with the X-series processors. 'Not built for gaming' my butt amirite. Yeah the FTL running out of key combinations is funny (to me anyway). Run your followers on Settings 1, dedicate a single 1080ti to it, then dedicate your second gpu to your 'main' client only. Mirai showed me how to get it to work for BFA correctly. Do it all on one PC <3

Post some HWINFO logs after it runs for 5-10 minutes people :D
I want to see evveerryyyttthhiiinnngggg.

[mbox_bob]

C:/PassiveAggresive/Behaviour.exe /disable =]
Hey, I've been following along and appreciate the extra info. You're right it started to get a little pass/agg, but that is mainly because what you are saying is rather outside of the realms of others experiences with their hardware, so much so that they seem a little unbelievable, and if it is really possible to get away with more limited hardware, then hey, we've been steering others the wrong way with some of their questions about what they need, and it would be really good to have some concrete data about what you can do with what hardware, and with what limits. Please don't take the prior incredulousness the wrong way, it was more the jaw hitting the floor type moments.

p.s. as we worked out the other day, ISBoxer's FTL can have upto 63 combos. The WoW macros can work with left and right modifiers of the same key, so leftshift + rightshift actually works, which opens up a bunch of extra settings that the default wizard currently excludes by default; yes it limits to 26 currently, but you can always fix up the remaining ones.

[MiRai]

I just didn't want to. But since you've gone all passive aggresive on me.. here you go.
It's as bob stated—you were saying things outside of the realm of anything we had heard, or personally experienced before, and I just didn't believe it.

When people are asking for help in building a computer for multiboxing, it's only fair that I provide accurate information when I give them an answer, especially since I tend to dabble in this area of hardware. Now, if someone is saying that they can multibox 30 game clients on a 4C/8T CPU with a 980 Ti, well... that sets off an alarm, not only because I regularly speak to people who struggle to run five game clients at a lower resolution on hardware that's just a few years old, it's wildly different than anything I've personally experienced throughout the several hardware configurations I've used over the years. However, I had a sneaking suspicion of what was actually happening, for which your profile would reveal, and as I suspected, it contains the answer.

Whenever you are running a large amount of game clients, you are running them at a minuscule resolution, and this vastly reduces the overall load required from your hardware. So, let's break this down...

You have two configurations where you're running 30 game clients:


(573 x 240) = 137,250 Pixels (x 30) = 4,125,600 Total Pixels (21:9 Layout)
(426 x 240) = 102,240 Pixels (x 30) = 3,067,200 Total Pixels (16:9 Layout)


To put this into perspective:


Display Size


1920 x 1080 Display = 2,073,600
2560 x 1440 Display = 3,686,400


3440 x 1440 Display = 4,953,600


3840 x 2160 Display = 8,294,400




Multiboxing Setups
(1920 x 1080) = 2,073,600 Pixels (x 5) = 10,368,000 Total Pixels
(2560 x 1440) = 3,686,400 Pixels (x 5) = 18,432,000 Total Pixels
(3840 x 1630) = 6,259,200 Pixels (x 5) = 31,296,000 Total Pixels (My Setup)
(2752 x 1152) = 3,170,304 Pixels (x 10) = 31,703,040 Total Pixels (Kicksome's Above Layout)

Looking at these numbers, you can see that the total pixel count being driven by your GPU, when multiboxing 30 game clients, is less than the actual total pixels of the 21:9 display itself. The same applies for your 16:9 setup, where you're pushing less pixels than the actual 25x14 display. So, naturally, this would be a very light load for the system to handle. In addition, the game clients in your 21:9 setup are running at a resolution of 573x240, which is nowhere near the 3840x1630 that I'm running mine at. As you can see above, both Kicksome and myself are driving a very similar pixel count, with the same GPU, and our hardware usage is probably also similar (in-game settings can differ).

This is why your numbers are wildly different than others—you aren't running 30 game clients at 3440x1440, you're running 30 game clients at 573x240, and they just happen to be on a 3440x1440 display.

Mystery solved; case closed.

[Kayley]

Goofed hard it seems, gonna load them up 1 by one manually and check ;3

*edit*

siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigggggggggggggg ggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

What I didn't realise was when I used the Tiled, stacked profile it reduced the resolution the way it did :(. Of course anytime I would change the layout to stacked fullscreen (testing purposes) it would do this - here (https://i.imgur.com/TnLtTkB.jpg) . Giving me the silly illusion it was rendering them all that way when stacked, tiled. zzz

I genuinely thought it was still rendering everything in the same way kicksome and yours was when used like this (https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/263709751223910402/495959975164641281/unknown.png) .
Can't win em all.

So if I choose a profile that enables swapping-- it will keep the resolution in the same way yours and kicksome's was working.. but if I choose one without swapping.. it will just use whatever resolution the client is scaled at in order to
fit on the screen?

Here (https://i.imgur.com/5VWtmT3.png) is 25 accounts manually loaded @ 2560x1440p 8 fps background and 30 fps foreground with settings 1. That's in dalaran doing nothing.. obviously it's not happy when I cast spells. Worked well until I went past 20 aaannnddd theeeeen plenty of stuttering... which is what you were saying ;3

Been quite sick which is why I hadn't responded until now.
Cheers and LE SIGH.

*edit*
Yeah. Tested it. So I learned something new. When you used Stacked, Tiled, no swapping it will just render at whatever the size of the client is at in order to fit on the screen. When using <any layout> with swapping it will maintain the resolution even if the size of the client is teeny tiny... sigh (however if you load them up with a swapping layout then change to a non-swapping layout without resetting the client, the resolution stays the same. The resolution is only lowered if you open the clients with a non-swapping layout first).

However.... if you renderscale 0.50@2560x1440, so 1280x720... 32 accounts is quite playable... :D

[WOWBOX40]

It is ofc possible to achieve a lot of things on a crappy pc, but it will look like garbage. To me anyway. Thats why i personally dont accept anything less than 1080p, 2 cpu cores and minimum 30 fps background/60 fps foreground, for each game. And max 9 games per monitor, so its atleast possible to see clearly whats going on.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

*edit*
Yeah. Tested it. So I learned something new. When you used Stacked, Tiled, no swapping it will just render at whatever the size of the client is at in order to fit on the screen. When using <any layout> with swapping it will maintain the resolution even if the size of the client is teeny tiny... sigh (however if you load them up with a swapping layout then change to a non-swapping layout without resetting the client, the resolution stays the same. The resolution is only lowered if you open the clients with a non-swapping layout first).

However.... if you renderscale 0.50@2560x1440, so 1280x720... 32 accounts is quite playable... :D
Well, in your defense, fast-swapping is a modestly recent addition. In The Beginning, nobody had fast-swapping-enabled boxing apps, so that was just the way everyone did it, and why it "looked" like people were able to 5-box on really old i7 CPUs and lower-end GPUs.

And yes, that renderscale options is *AMAAAAAZING*. ;) Best part is it leaves your UI at normal size so you can read/see UI things properly via dxNothing repeater windows.

[Kayley]

haha. nice of you to give me an outing there Ugh ;D
I am just salty at myself for not actually checking properly and just assuming it worked the same. xx

[Kayley]

A few things I've noticed going from the intel line to a 2950x and 2990wx. This is also based on 'stand-still' farming. Some quirks between the two.

So with the intel (5960x) chip you could semi-abuse the pagefile to make up for lack of Memory. For example I could run 40 accounts with no memory related issues by having a dedicated SSD host a large pagefile (160gb+) while only having 32GB of RAM installed. CPU worked well with windows to handle it all.

I tried to do the same with the 2950x and 2990wx and the performance was terrible. The whole system would 'micro-freeze' and stutter. CPU was pegged at 100% when using a larger pagefile. With the intel cpu I could farm at 15-20fps on all the slaves quite happily. The AMD line wouldn't give me anything over 3fps when the pagefile was in use (heavily). I bumped it up to 64gb of Memory and a smaller pagefile.. same issue. I went to 128GB and everything THEN ran amazingly.

Intel would run on standard Windows power profiles. AMD requires you to install a 'dedicated amd' (https://imgur.com/ZrkOEQG) power plan which gives the cpu controllers access to do its thing. Works better as a result and you have a few more things to play with.

OVERCLOCKING!
So I happily spent 6 hours overclocking (each) the 2950x and 2990wx in the Bios. Quite finicky and you need to be precise for the cpu to shine. For example you can get it to post at 4.5ghz yet it's performance can be well under stock if you don't dial in the power right. My best cinebench (only 2950x) was 3850; which took 6 hours to hit. I decided to set everything back to stock and use the windows program 'Ryzen Master'. Oh my god what a treat. You enter how many watts you are happy to have over the cpu, how many amps it can draw... SO NICE. I put down 250w for cpu, leave the amperage (spelling?) default.. it uses the CPU temps.. press one button and bam, done. So in 6 hours my best cinebench was 3850, 2 minutes with the Ryzen Master tool and I hit 3830. Its beautiful.

*will type more after raid*

Isboxer doesn't register all the cores in the CPU wizard.
So you need to go into your character set and manually select cores to characters. It's not so bad if you have 5 characters.. but when you mass box you need to go through over 40 characters and select up to 34/64 threads each... PITA :D

Temperatures? My 5960x @ 4.8ghz would hit 70c under constant load with my custom WC loop. My OC 2950x hits 32c under load with the same WC setup. The cpus are so large and easy to cool. When I find out how to safely load it up with more power i'm gonna hammer this thing and see what I can get out of it.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

So with the intel (5960x) chip you could semi-abuse the pagefile to make up for lack of Memory. For example I could run 40 accounts with no memory related issues by having a dedicated SSD host a large pagefile (160gb+) while only having 32GB of RAM installed. CPU worked well with windows to handle it all.

I tried to do the same with the 2950x and 2990wx and the performance was terrible. The whole system would 'micro-freeze' and stutter. CPU was pegged at 100% when using a larger pagefile. With the intel cpu I could farm at 15-20fps on all the slaves quite happily. The AMD line wouldn't give me anything over 3fps when the pagefile was in use (heavily). I bumped it up to 64gb of Memory and a smaller pagefile.. same issue. I went to 128GB and everything THEN ran amazingly.

Intel would run on standard Windows power profiles. AMD requires you to install a 'dedicated amd' (https://imgur.com/ZrkOEQG) power plan which gives the cpu controllers access to do its thing. Works better as a result and you have a few more things to play with.

OVERCLOCKING!
So I happily spent 6 hours overclocking (each) the 2950x and 2990wx in the Bios. Quite finicky and you need to be precise for the cpu to shine. For example you can get it to post at 4.5ghz yet it's performance can be well under stock if you don't dial in the power right. My best cinebench (only 2950x) was 3850; which took 6 hours to hit. I decided to set everything back to stock and use the windows program 'Ryzen Master'. Oh my god what a treat. You enter how many watts you are happy to have over the cpu, how many amps it can draw... SO NICE. I put down 250w for cpu, leave the amperage (spelling?) default.. it uses the CPU temps.. press one button and bam, done. So in 6 hours my best cinebench was 3850, 2 minutes with the Ryzen Master tool and I hit 3830. Its beautiful.
Very interesting data, there. Thanks for sharing.

[Apatheist]

Great info.

Have you tried PBO yet on the AMD system? From the reviews I've read if you have solid cooling PBO manages overlocking more efficiently than trying to manually configure it. I've also read that AMD"s "infinity fabric" CPU die interconnect is heavily dependent on RAM speed and timings so paying extra for a 3200+ CL15 kit might be worthwhile.

I wonder if ISBoxer's wizard not detecting cores is an AMD issue or will occur on any system above a certain number of cores? I've read some people use the 7900X with no mention of this issue.

I've decided to wait until the end of November for the rest of the Intel refresh. The 9920X or 9940X seem like they'll be solid performers both for multitasking and single threaded without all of the quirks of AMD processors that I was concerned about. The 7920X can hit 4.5GHz comfortably so I imagine the 9920X should be capable of a few hundred MHz more with its improved heat management. Hopefully I'll actually be able to buy a GPU by that stage, too. They've released but you can't find an 2080Ti in stock anywhere near where I live.

[Kayley]

PBO is amazing. I've never been more happier about any feature EVER than I am with this.

I think the ISBoxer wizard doesn't see it because of how AMD register their CPU cores. An intel 8 core (with hyperthreading) CPU will display it as 0-15 cores/threads. AMD has it registered like THIS (https://imgur.com/hn9LROb); as you can see it registers the cores 'Core #0 Thread #0 and Core #0 Thread #1' which probably confuses ISBoxer. I haven't really looked into it much if i'm honest.

Intel has been stagnant for quite some time. The refresh doesn't really bring anything new to the table barring the extra cores. Its good to wait and see how it all performs before committing to one thing or another; as always.. get the best deal for what you require :D
(and if you go the intel route.. PLEASE PLEASE do a custom WC loop for awesome OCing)

[Apatheist]

I can barely be bothered with AIO's. I don't plan on a custom loop. I just want something that performs solidly with a reasonable overclock and minimal fuss/maintenance, I don't need to squeeze every Hz out of it. If I can get a 12-16 core CPU to 4.5GHz+ without being able to bake cookies in my case I'm more than happy.

Not sure about the Intel refresh not offering anything new. Soldered CPU's have a significant thermal improvement over the lidded goop Intel used last generation. More cores, less heat, higher frequencies. There's no jaw dropping new tech or anything but it's a significant boost across the board for everything that matters.

I'm still not dead set against AMD, I just don't want to dump that much cash on a machine only to find out it performs poorly for one of my primary uses. The new Intel stuff isn't due until the 25th (probably even later where I am in Australia) so if you can be bothered I'd definitely be interested in more detail about how your threadripper system performs.

Out of curiosity, what is your CPU sitting at with PBO enabled? You said 4.5GHz all core manual. Is it hitting that with PBO on? Also, which RAM are you using?

-- Nevermind. Just saw your other thread. Have you overclocked your RAM? I'm told if you're benching that bumping your RAM to 3200 can have a more significant impact than increasing your CPU frequency.

[Kayley]

This is the RAM x2 (https://www.ple.com.au/Products/627505/GSkill-64GB-4x16GB-DDR4-Flare-X-C15-2400MHz-For-AMD) and yes I was able to OC it to 3200ish. - it's expensive in AUS. Ram and Voltage is more important than frequency for sure. As I mentioned in the other thread some reviewers had 4.35ghz / 4.5ghz and their results were terrible. I do pass things on to some of the more well known people but they typically don't go back and change anything. Sometimes you get a shout out though which is fun :D

I also forgot about the soldered thermal interface.. mostly because I would delid if I was doing an extreme OC. Didn't have to with the 5960x as it was soldered anyway. A friend wanted to really push their 8700k, so I took it apart and we used Grizzly conductonaut then smooshed it back together. At stock and even a moderate OC there was only a 4c difference in thermals. It only makes an impact if you are going hard with it-- we pushed it to 5.1ghz and it was a temperature reduction of 10-16c (which stopped it from throttling). So while I think it's neat they are changing it up.. I don't see it being that amazing unless you really do go nuts. But hey, lower temps for no effort is still a win! :D

I have fixed the paging issue (for the most part). I also had a look into the CPU affinity when I manually set it in ISBoxer-- it doesn't set it up correctly in windows when you load the game. Turns out half the CPU is still idle. I mean look how it sees itself in windows lol (https://imgur.com/xNrRLd2)

I don't think you'll be unhappy with whichever you end up buying. Just make sure it's a good deal for you haha. Both sides are performing well!
When the intel refresh is out i'll pick one up and do some fun comparisons.

[Kayley]

Update on the 2950x.
I was able to (with my stand-still farming, resolution talked about with Mirai before) run 86 accounts without an overclock.
When I tried to load up 87 that's when I started getting CPU hiccups (fps dips).

As I mentioned before I corrected a lot of the weird quirky behaviour I experienced-- however it turns out my motherboard was just faulty lol.
So who knows how much misbehaving is due to the new architecture vs just a POS motherboard.

When a working motherboard arrives i'm going to try out the 2990wx and see if I can push 150+ accounts at my farming spot.
Due to the low rendered resolution (573x240) the GPU hit is negligible however the CPU is thrashed when calculating all those numbers. For example, with 86 loaded and just standing around the 2950x idles at 30-33% CPU, the moment I start spamming my 1-2-3 it all jumps to 90-97% across the board.

I remember struggling to run through Orgrimmar back in the day on my Q6600 with only 4gb RAM... stuttering through... taking 10 minutes just to reach the warlock NPC... with just 5 characters.. good times.

[Apatheist]

Update on the 2950x.

I can't see myself ever needing more than 25-40 concurrent clients open depending which server/expansion I'm playing on. Currently getting into TBC and I'd like to try to solo Kara but my current PC can handle that many clients. 40 For vanilla servers running MC, etc. but the vanilla client is much less demanding. I'd never need to run 80+.

One thing I'm curious about is do you notice stuttering while PBO is manipulating the frequency? For example, if you're at 4.4 and PBO drops you down to 3.9 during heavy load is that change is noticeable during gameplay? Seems like it'd be annoying if so.

Still waiting for the Intel refresh and some comparison reviews to make my purchase.

[Kayley]

The way PBO works (at least from what I can see on the surface) is it will internally bench a few cores, run them at 4.4ghz for example. But it will have an 'all core' speed ready which is on average 200mhz lower. So it fluctuates a little bit based on what you are doing but there is no noticeable performance 'stutters'. For a one button auto-OC it really decent.

It also turns out the CPU I had was faulty too. Hoorah for quality control gone bad.

[Apatheist]

Wonder what the odds are on getting a bad CPU and MoBo in one purchase? You should buy a lottery ticket with that kind of luck.

If you're getting a new CPU could you re-test and see if it works out of the box with ISBoxer? Would be good to know in case the Intel refresh reviews turn out not to compare favorably with Threadripper and I end up going with AMD.

[Kayley]

2 of the RAM kits were faulty (Memtest errors), CPU and Motherboard too. I swear they just grabbed my stuff out of their RMA pile ;)

CPU wizard is still the same as before at the moment.
Some programs see the 2950x as a 16 core, 32t CPU and adjusts things accordingly.
However some other programs see the 2950x as CPU#1 and CPU#2 with 8 cores a piece.

Black Friday sales in AUS are decent.. too bad I didn't wait xD

[Apatheist]

Several vendors near me have added preorder links for the new Intel CPU's and the prices are still pretty steep.

i9-9920X. 12 cores, 24 threads. $1849. ~4.4 all core OC.
TR-2950X. 16 cores, 32 threads. $1415. ~4.1 all core OC.

No reviews available but the AMD system is starting to seem more appealing.

Have you managed to find a solution to get ISBoxer to correctly assign cores on the Threadripper yet? I imagine this would be a tough one to get fixed since Lax is unlikely to fork out a grand for a CPU to test on.

[Kayley]

Nah isboxer doesn't manage the affinity well and I don't expect it to now that I've had a pretty good look into it. You can google the AMD CCX and AMD windows scheduling conflicts and make your own opinion on whose fault is whose. I use a program that was recommended to me; 'Process Lasso'. It enables me to do BULK affinity swaps with a click of a couple of buttons-- very handy. It also balances the load a bit better than default windows and i'm able to specifically target a processor group quickly/easily.

The romance phase has ended-- while the 2950x is powerful as heck-- it has it's drawbacks.
So you can see the CCX (Die packages / processor groups) here (https://imgur.com/AJ69Lwu). I'm using a 2950x as a demonstration, it has two CCX cores.
If I max out either CCX core it will lag the hell out of your windows OS-- the games run amazing, but doing anything from windows is sluggish. It's best shown with this (https://imgur.com/b0kO6Ke). The little red dips are when the system is struggling to understand what is going on and the cursor (in windows) has micro-stuttering. All I did for this to happen was to put an unrealistic load on one die package. I left one die package, 8 cores FREE yet windows was still trying to move things around and involve the secondary processor group which was being stomped by my mboxing clients.

In order for this to happen you really do have to overwork the CPU. It took me 45 clients in a busy area smashing on a turnip (number calculations) to create this type of scenario-- but it exists. When I did my 85+ client test I didn't care that the OS was a bit sluggish as I expected that.

Linux doesn't suffer from these problems as the kernel handles the i/o operations better-- for whatever reason the Windows kernel doesn't.

So if you are going to 20-box, pvp, high traffic areas etc-- This CPU can handle that and it's better than anything intel has in the same price range.
However if you are gonna run 30+ accounts, have youtube up, stream, bitcoin mine, just thrash your CPU with monster computational demands... you wont like the OS experience.

[Apatheist]

it has it's drawbacks.

This was my concern. I don't like hassles. I'd rather pay a little more and not have to screw around with extra programs and micromanaging stuff that should just work out of the box.

[Kayley]

The comparative Intel chip is 1k (AUD) more expensive-- which would put you in 2990wx territory lol. Hell that's the price of an extra 2080 :D
i9-7920X (from OP) can't compete and the 2950x.
i9-7960x .. all the reviews show each chip being 1% better/worse than each other, which to me is margin of error when testing things.

9th to 12th of January 2019 (CES (https://www.ces.tech/)) is when AMD will be 'hopefully' announcing their new Ryzen lineup. Which could shake the prices of current tech a little more in your favour.

If it was my money? I'd 99% buy Intel, fangirl for life.