A few quick questions / possible upgrades?

Hello everyone,

First time posting here, but long time viewing. Here is what I currently run:

OS - Windows XP Pro - 32 bit OS - updated to SP3
Processor - Intel Core 2 Duo E6420
Motherboard
- Asus P5WDG2 WS Pro
RAM - 4 x Patriot Memory 1024 MB (clock 400 MHz)
Video Card - 2 x (SLI bridged) PNY Verto GeForce 9800 GT with 1025 GPU memory
Dual monitors - one Acer and one Samsung (24 inches each).

Drives - 3 hard drives (SATA) and 1 DVD/R.

I know that the 32bit OS will not run/see more than 3-ish gigs of RAM, however it currently only recognizes 2 out of post BIOS - after doing research on this it may be a motherboard issue but I'm really not sure, I'm not fantastic with hardware on systems.

I was looking into some upgrades or at least swaps and was thinking of moving to a quad core and a different motherboard for it... I was hoping the update to SP3 would help with the RAM issue but it's not, my system is still seeing the 2gigs out of 4 at this point.

I have been able to box up to 5 accounts at once so long as I stay out of most...any populated zones (remote locations, dungeons) and then I get some serious lag even then. I've been goofing around with 4 80's doing the holiday events and such, but I would like to seriously start reliably 5-boxing and working on heroics.

Any suggestions to improve system performance and/or possible upgrades will be helpful, and I thank you ahead of time for any feedback. :)

A 32-bit operating system will only see 4gb of ram in total.
That includes ram on things like a soundcard (some Soundblaster cards have ram) and your video card(s).

Looking at your system, video is not an issue for 5-boxing.
The processor will work fine, although a Q6600 can easily be overclocked to 3.0 ghz and are a lot cheaper then going to an i7.
I'd really look at more ram, 6gb as a minimum and 8gb is more preferable.
For more ram to work, you'd need a 64-bit operating system.
Windows 7 seems to be far superior to Vista or XP.

It's been mentioned time and again for over a year. Get an SSD if you don't have one. Hosting WoW on an SSD should be a staple of all multiboxers' rigs. Even a cheap $100 one makes a difference in how fast player & item textures can be found and loaded in busy areas.

Ideally, here's what I'd consider a minimum for multiboxers today:
Quad core CPU - we're multitasking with all these instances of WoW, and more cores will be better. Q6600 is cheap and fast.
6+GB RAM - at least 1GB per WoW instance, plus extra to handle video buffer & OS tasks. 8GB DDR2 is cheap and plenty.
Solid State Drive - at a minimum, host the WoW/Data directory on the SSD. Use a symlink to do this, or just install the entire WoW folder on it if you don't know how and have a large enough drive. $100 for a 30GB drive is plenty.
Multiple monitors - at least two, preferably large enough to hold at least 800x600 windows of WoW. A 24" (1920x1200) monitor can display 4x 960x600 windows. 24" displays are under $300.
Videocard - at least an 8800GT or HD4850, but preferably a GTX 280 or HD 5870. With two 1920x1200 monitors full of WoW windows, more video memory will be better.
OS - 64-bit Windows XP/Vista/7. You need to be able to utilize all that RAM.

If a multiboxer's rig doesn't have the above, better think hard about why not.. (multiple monitors only really needed for 4+ instances of WoW.)

Thank you all for your help and advice, they were really useful in getting my system re-setup and ready to go. Now to just finish getting everything I need on it in and going.

Again, appreciate the help!

A 64 bit OS is 100% necessary, especially when you first 2gb of addressable memory is spent on video cards.