Would someone check my hardware homework please?

[Stormweasel]

Hi everyone,

This is my first post but I have been reading the forums for a long time so first of all, hello! Thinking a year travelling might finally cure my addiction I find myself heading home wanting to multibox - good God....

Anyway, while I´ve been reading stickies galore and paying close attention, I wondered if someone wouldn´t mind going over my proposed hardware specs and answering a few questions just to make sure Ive got it right before spending a lot of money. Wasn´t sure whether Hardware or Newcomers was the right
place for it; hope this is the best place to post.

Here´s the rig:

Intel® Core™2 Quad Q9550 (4 X 2.83GHz) 1333MHz/12MB

8GB CORSAIR DOMINATOR 1066MHz

ASUS® P5K SE: DDR2, SATAII, PCI-e x16, 2 PCI, 3 x PCI-e x1

64 BIT WINDOWS® VISTA HOME PREM SP1

500GB SERIAL ATA II HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7,200rpm)

300GB WD VelociRaptor® SATA 16MB CACHE (10,000rpm)

1024MB GEFORCE 9600GT PCI Express + DVI + TV-OUT

600W Quiet Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan

ASUS SILENT KNIGHT II PURE COPPER ULTRA COOLER

I´m using a company called pcspecialist.co.uk to make this machine so any changes to the above are limited in terms of brands/cards. Yes - I know - but the last time I built a machine 3 years ago it was the most stressful thing I´ve ever done and I´d rather just pay someone else. Kudos to them that do it but for me - never again....

So, my questions are:

1) Is that power supply aqequate for the rig I´m planning?

2) Is that graphics card worth the upgrade from the 1024MB 8800GT or is the difference really not there atm?

3) I´m planning to put the OS on the 500GB hard drive and running two installations of WoW (one for the main, another for the slaves) on the Raptor drive. Is that the best idea for performance?

4) Processor wise am I seeing a worthwhile difference from the 6600 that´s recommended for multiboxing. The rig will be used not just for WoW but for future games/music processing apps so is it worth spending that extra for the difference?

5) I´ve read something about problems with SLI (not somethingI know much about) with Nvidia cards - am I affected by that or is it only if you try to run 2 cards in XP?

6) I was determined not to upgrade to Vista for a long time given how long it took for XP to get its act together but I understand there´s less driver support for XP64 and I want that 8GB - I also do some heavy audio processing so I can´t get enough RAM. Is Vista chugging along pretty well now or should I go the XP64 route regardless? (My spidey-sense tells me I´m opening a can of worms here, heh heh)

So, that´s it really. Thanks for helping and any advice will be gratefully received! I´m looking forwarding to joining in a lot more once I´m up and running!

[bugilt]

I'd stick with the 8800 for now. Unless you want to mail me the 8800?

[Stormweasel]

Have you even tried to multibox yet?

Or are you just throwing rather large sums of money at an idea?Yes, I´ve ran a druid and a mage together so only dual-boxing. Tried taking on more but it became a pain with my old PC.

If I´m in a position to do it, I like to replace my PC every 3-4 years anyway so I want to whack some extra umpf into the model so it lasts into the future. If it´s over-kill and it would be better to upgrade during the life of the PC as new upgrades come out, that´s advice I´m very willing to take.

[BigSmitty]

1) Is that power supply aqequate for the rig I´m planning?

The power supply WATTAGE isn't what's most important. You need to look at the specs on the PS and make sure the AMPERAGE (ie 12A, 20A) on the +12V rails that will be suppling power to your graphics card is high enough as that's what gets folks in a pinch early on. Generally speaking, anything 600W and higher will have enough of a current (measured in amps) to provide juice to the card. My guess is that since you're buying a pre-built system from a company that specializes in PCs, they SHOULD know what they are doing. If not, make sure you have a warranty when the video card toasts your power supply and have them fix it.

2) Is that graphics card worth the upgrade from the 1024MB 8800GT or is the difference really not there atm?

Personally I use an 8800GT when I rebuilt my system for the ungodly recommended specifications for Age of Conan...and I can run 4 800x600 WoW copies without so much as a hiccup. Both the 8800 and the 9600 use the same G92 based graphics processor. NVIDIA uses the x8xx to denote when they switch graphics chips currently. Your performance for just about ANYTHING won't be too noticeable. I would stick with the 8800GT if it will save you some pounds.

3) I´m planning to put the OS on the 500GB hard drive and running two installations of WoW (one for the main, another for the slaves) on the Raptor drive. Is that the best idea for performance?

If you're running the installations separately (as I do) then having them on a dedicated (non-OS drive) that's roughly 35% faster disk access then yes, I would say how you plan on setting up your drives would be the best. But then again, WoW was designed in 2004 to run on a moderate system back then...which is an antique by 2008 standards.

4) Processor wise am I seeing a worthwhile difference from the 6600 that´s recommended for multiboxing. The rig will be used not just for WoW but for future games/music processing apps so is it worth spending that extra for the difference?

My brother in law runs a quad core Intel 6600, I run an overclocked AMD 5000+ Black Edition that was about $250 less and I keep up with him performance wise. I don't run many applications in the background (iTunes + 4 instances of WoW) and never use more than 35% of the processor's capability. That being said, I'll probably upgrade to a quad core if I need the 2 extra cores if I'm editing in game video, burning DVDs from TV captures, etc. If higher end applications are what this system will be used for down the road, in my opinion that would justify the extra for the quad core processor.

5) I´ve read something about problems with SLI (not somethingI know much about) with Nvidia cards - am I affected by that or is it only if you try to run 2 cards in XP?

SLI issues (as far as I know) only stem when running TWO cards in SLI mode. NVIDIA is sneaky. Both cards generally have to be not only the same model (8800GT and 8800GT, not 8800GT and 8800GTX) but sometimes from the same MANUFACTURER. I don't run SLI so I can't really comment any more than that. My 8800GT by itself chugs along quite nicely, and even though I pushed up the clocks, it doesn't get too warm inside.

6) I was determined not to upgrade to Vista for a long time given how long it took for XP to get its act together but I understand there´s less driver support for XP64 and I want that 8GB - I also do some heavy audio processing so I can´t get enough RAM. Is Vista chugging along pretty well now or should I go the XP64 route regardless? (My spidey-sense tells me I´m opening a can of worms here, heh heh)


When I built the system for my brother in law (late April), he insisted on Windows Vista. To my surprise, not only was the installation a breeze, it hasn't crapped out on him yet. I believe he went with the Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1. Only had to update a couple of drivers and uninstall some old software that wasn't compatible with Vista... and he wasn't using it anyways.


I hope this helps out some. I've been building systems for the better part of the past 10 years or so, and try to offer up opinions or suggestions based on MY OWN experiences. I don't work or get paid by any of them, so I have no reason to blast or sing the praises of any particular brand/type/manufacturer.... Hmm, that almost sound like legalese. I'm just an ordinary electrical engineer who loves to tinker.

If you have any other questions, PM me here and I'll try to get them answered for you.

[Stormweasel]

My reply went walkies!

Thank you for your advice. What I may do is scale back on the graphics card and upgrade it during the life of the PC.

Knowing my luck, it´ll end up multi-boxing like a 486 and I´ll spend the first 6 months looking for some obscure set-up bug :-)

[mikekim]

1) Is that power supply aqequate for the rig I´m planning?


It will do the job, but you have not really thought about future expansion - you are probably better off with an 850w modular PSU

2) Is that graphics card worth the upgrade from the 1024MB 8800GT or is the difference really not there atm?


The 9000 series is not that better to warrant the price difference

3) I´m planning to put the OS on the 500GB hard drive and running two installations of WoW (one for the main, another for the slaves) on the Raptor drive. Is that the best idea for performance?


I would put the OS on the Raptor rather than the 500 if you are looking to upgrade to vista - as it accesses the hard disk far more than XP

4) Processor wise am I seeing a worthwhile difference from the 6600 that´s recommended for multiboxing. The rig will be used not just for WoW but for future games/music processing apps so is it worth spending that extra for the difference?


The 6600 G0 will see you quite happily for what you need to do regarding multi boxing - I wouldn't waste your money on the other chip

5) I´ve read something about problems with SLI (not somethingI know much about) with Nvidia cards - am I affected by that or is it only if you try to run 2 cards in XP?


you can run in wow in SLI - but if you intend to run multiple instances then SLI is NOT the way to go, as you will get better results running multiple monitors from your second card and a single monitor on your main card (for you main character) - SLI works by utilising both cards to cut down on the rendering on one monitor

6) I was determined not to upgrade to Vista for a long time given how long it took for XP to get its act together but I understand there´s less driver support for XP64 and I want that 8GB - I also do some heavy audio processing so I can´t get enough RAM. Is Vista chugging along pretty well now or should I go the XP64 route regardless? (My spidey-sense tells me I´m opening a can of worms here, heh heh)


I run Vista Ultimate 64 with 8GB of RAM ( I have a hot swap cradle with an XP installation that I hardly ever use any more) as the more ram you have helps. People complain that Vista is a worse OS, this is true in many respects (ie the security model, idiot mode for doing most things), but i have found that in most cases it is faster on my system than the Standard Xp build. My Q6600 runs 5x instances of WoW quite happily with no problems. people have mentioned that as WoW is a 32 bit program it cannot access more that 3.5 GB of RAM, this might be true, but as you are running 5 copies of it at once you will not be assigning that much ram to the application, so running a 64 bit OS will help you greatly, as you will have more memory available for other processes, that you might wish to run. people will also mention that problems with 64 bit drivers - the only problem I have found is running iTunes and trying to sync with an iPhone!! (hence the XP build on another disk ;) )
As for the Audio side - I have spent the best part of 15 years working in the industry (from Atari's to present day) and having 8GB is a godsend when you are loading loads of VST's

I hope that some of my insights help you in your decision

[Stormweasel]

having 8GB is a godsend when you are loading loads of VST's

Hell yeah :)

Cheers for the advice

[-silencer-]

So, my questions are:

1) Is that power supply aqequate for the rig I´m planning?

2) Is that graphics card worth the upgrade from the 1024MB 8800GT or is the difference really not there atm?

3) I´m planning to put the OS on the 500GB hard drive and running two installations of WoW (one for the main, another for the slaves) on the Raptor drive. Is that the best idea for performance?

4) Processor wise am I seeing a worthwhile difference from the 6600 that´s recommended for multiboxing. The rig will be used not just for WoW but for future games/music processing apps so is it worth spending that extra for the difference?

5) I´ve read something about problems with SLI (not somethingI know much about) with Nvidia cards - am I affected by that or is it only if you try to run 2 cards in XP?

6) I was determined not to upgrade to Vista for a long time given how long it took for XP to get its act together but I understand there´s less driver support for XP64 and I want that 8GB - I also do some heavy audio processing so I can´t get enough RAM. Is Vista chugging along pretty well now or should I go the XP64 route regardless? (My spidey-sense tells me I´m opening a can of worms here, heh heh)
Quick answers:

1) Yes, *if* the specs on the amps on 12V rails are capable of handling that CPU & videocard. I wouldn't add too many more drives or push it overclocking on that PSU though. I was using a 620W Corsair (SeaSonic), Q6600 oc'd to 3.2GHz, 8800GTX, 2x Raptors, and 3 other drives.. power was fine because I was using about 10A less on max load than the 12V rail could support.

2) The 8800GT 512/1024 and 9600GT are very, very similar. I don't recall a manufacturer ever coming out with a 'next-gen' card that was nearly identical to an upper-mid level card like this. Stick with the 8800GT 1024.

3) No. You may load into a map a little faster with WoW on Raptors, but you want your OS on your fastest drives. (In fact, some large drives are faster than Raptors for sustained transfer rate anyway - that's what you'll be using WoW for.) I have my OS and main WoW install on my Raptor Raid0 array, and 4x WoW installs on a separate 500GB drive.

4) I'd always choose the latest generation for a CPU, especially when the price difference isn't terribly large. Personally, I'm waiting for the new Nehalem architecture CPUs until I upgrade again. I'm currently 5-boxing on an overclocked E6600, and it's fine.

5) Better to just use two separate cards to discreetly power each monitor.

6) Stick with Vista64 - it handles dual-view MUCH better in case you choose to run two displays from one videocard. Many people run it without major issues. Microsoft has too much invested in the OS to not continue to improve it.

[Stormweasel]

LOL - actually what the hell, 3rd edit, Ill rephrase my question to be absolutely sure...

As I understand it, you could use one graphics card to power two monitors and then use Vistas span mode to create one big desktop resolution which you would then turn into regions with Maximiser. In my example, I would have the main running on the left monitor in full-screen and the second monitor would contain the four slaves split equally into squares.

Will an 1024MB 8800GT handle that load adequately (It looks like the max resolution wouldnt allow me to keep each screen at 1280 x 1024) or is it better/easier/more efficient to just get 2 x 512MB 8800s and have them each power one monitor?

Am I making sense?