Computer for Dual-Boxing & Single Play.

Hey guys,

I was just looking for some advice/suggestions. I'm not too bright on the hardware side of things, or what specs produce what results, etc - so I thought I'd ask here.

Right now, I play World of Warcraft on a great computer I've had for about two years. Single play, I produce 60 FPS in most areas and have no noticeable lag. In Dalaran the FPS drops in busy areas by approximately 20 frames. So Dalaran is on average anywhere from 30-50 FPS as I ride around.

So, here's the actual question: What type of specs would I be looking for if I wanted to produce even better results than that? For example: anywhere from 70-100 fps. (I never hear of people running at 100 FPS, though...but maybe I just haven't crossed many people with uber machines). I'm satisfied with my current computer, it has no problems, but I'm just curious what specs (RAM, video card, processor, etc) would produce even better results than what I produce currently.

As well, what would be appropriate for dual boxing with still decent FPS on both windows?

not to sure myself, but I would assume a quad core 2.8Ghz+ and lots of dual channel ram for world of warcraft multiboxing. I only 2 box but I have my main window doing 60FPS on the slave running at 30FPS with the settings high(shadows turned off). I use innerspace and have it limit how much FPS I can reach. Everything is smooth and dandy on both windows. not sure why you would want to go over 60FPS, I do not see a difference except in crowded areas, but i do not stay there long

my specs

quad core Q6600 @ 3.0Ghz
2x 2 gig g.skill dual channel 1066 ram
gigabyte motherboard (forgot the version)
geforce 260 core 216
corsair 620tx(modular one) power supply
2x 22" monitors

I would guess any thing with a I7 + GTX 200 series would make this easy. Not sure if anything over 60FPS adds any benefit though. Normally uber boxes are required when you do 4+ on a single PC.

I think I read somewhere that the human eye can only see at 59 fps anyways, anything over that you're not noticing any visible benefit.

However, lag spikes due to machine lag DO happen and the higher your average framerate the more of a cushion you have to reduce the impact of the lag spike.

I personally hate it when I log into a single toon only in Dalaran and I can't even move (frozen on the spot) for 30 seconds while it loads all the textures and graphics and the hard drive thrashes away. At least in TBC and Vanilla, it would take forever to load graphics but you could MOVE while it was loading. For some reason in WotLK they decided to make it so you cannot move while your machine fetches things.

Yep, remembering the old days of logging into an Ironforge that was nothing but shadows moving on the ground for the first couple minutes...but at least I could steer my shadow around! My buddy was worse off, he had to zoom in to first person and point his camera at the ground at his feet, navigating only via the minimap, if he wanted any hope of being able to not lag out to 0fps in front of the IF auction house...