Need advice for 5 box on 1 computer

[Hideo]

Hello,
I'm waiting for the delivery of my Power Supply corsair 550W, but I'd like to discuss about multiboxing in advance :)

I'll play on

CPU Intel E2220 (2.4Ghz dual core)
MB : Asus P5K
GC : MSI 8800GT 512MB
Ram : 4Go DDR2 PC6400
OS : Vista home basic 64bits
HD : Seagate 500gb SATA barracuda 7200.11

24" LCD screen + old 19" CRT screen

I know the CPU sounds weak, I hope it will be enough

My questions are :

Can a single hard drive handle 5 Wow.exe running ? Or should I install my 2 old IDE 5400rpm and 7200rpm drives (20GB / 120GB)
How is it best to divide the 5 wow.exe among this 3 Hard drives ?

I've got extra money, and the E8400 / Q6600 CPU are the same price (150 euros), should I replace the E2220 with one of them ?

Can the 8800GT handle a 1920*1200 resolution on my main screen + 4 others on the separate screen ?

Thanks in advance :)

Hideo (from France ^^ )

[Bovidae]

I think everyone will agree that a Q6600 will provide the biggest upgrade per Euro.

The 8800GT can display a maximum resolution of 2560 x 1600 Using that 24" screen would use a lot of this capability. Now if your 19" crt displays 640 x 480 :rolleyes: , then you should have no problems at all. But I'm not an expert on multi-monitor.

[Hideo]

Ok thank you :D
I'll test the e2220 and publish the results here to say if it's powerful enough, if not ==> Q6600
for the 24" lcd I guess I can play on a lower resolution then, because the minimal one for the 19" is 800x600

for the Hard drives I'm thinking :
1Wow.exe on the old IDE 20GB maxtor 5400rpm
2 wow.exe on the old IDE 120G seagate 7200rpm
2wow.exe on the new S-ATA 500GB seagate

And with my main screen coming from the 20GB one maybe...

[Khazrael]

for the Hard drives I'm thinking :
1Wow.exe on the old IDE 20GB maxtor 5400rpm
2 wow.exe on the old IDE 120G seagate 7200rpm
2wow.exe on the new S-ATA 500GB seagate

And with my main screen coming from the 20GB one maybe...

Junctions damnit! - NTFS junction points ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&postID=17763&highlight=junction')

Unless you really need the space that is. Otherwise, unless you get one drive for each, even then that's arguable I guess. But junctions/symlinks ftw imo.

[Hideo]

oh ^^
it looks like a nice trick, I'll give it a try eventually
thanks

[daviddoran]

I only Dual box (so far) and I've got the q6600, OC'd to 3.3ghz, 8gb ram, a raptor drive, and an 8800GT 512, and I run 1 37" screen at 1920*1080 and a 17" screen at 1280*1024 and get between 60-100fps in each. What resolution is your monitor? I have a 24 at work and it's "only" 1920*1200, which is not much more than 1920*1080. I bet you will be just fine on the video card and ram side, but the CPU will be the deciding factor. My computer is mostly idle even when playing 2 instances of wow. I bet you can run 5 instances pretty well with that setup. You might have to turn off some eye candy on all but the main character, but I think you'll be just fine.