Need GPU upgrade help >.<

Been a while since I've logged into Azeroth, I blame it on the the lack of 5 shamans being able to burn through low level northrend instances but in reality its my system not being able to handle nothrend, v.v so my current system specs are:

CPU: Phenom 2.8 (forget the model >.<)
Ram: 8 Gigabytes of DDR2 800
GPU: Nvidia 8600 GTS SC
HD: 320 gig Seagate Sata

I assume its my GPU stopping me from 5 boxing, So I'm wondering whats a good route for upgrade to make this system 5box worthy? I was looking at maybe a 4890 or a 260, what does the community think? will this get my system up to par?

You have enough ram.

Not sure on the CPU power; chances are its enough to play, but not sure how smooth. CPU is often the bottleneck after ram.

Not sure on your budget, a 260 would certainly work.
I believe a 4870 is almost equal in power to a GTX 275.
Not sure where 4890 fits in.

I'll recommend a low end, generation 1 SSD, purely for your game folder.
Don't put the operating system on a low-end SSD.
You can get 30-40gb for $100-$150.
That is usually a massive boost, particularly in places where you load textures (cities).

You can run PerfMon (performance monitor), in the Performance tab of Task Manager.
Do this while 5-boxing, for 30 mins or so.
Then check where your bottlenecks are.

I really doubt its yer graphics cards that holding yeh back unless yeh have the wrong drivers installed?

The hardware yeh have should be more then able to run 5.

What res are yeh playing at?
Try playing from one installation of wow?
What operating system are yeh running?
How many addons are yeh running?
What effects are yeh running?

The performance monitor is usually the best option.
You can see what is actually topping out at 100%.

How do you get perfmon to show GPU usage?

Hmm.. good question.

Checking it out, its showing CPU, HD, Network and Memory.
Thought it had video in there, but apparently not.

Still, shows if anything is your bottleneck.

What's a good cheap SSD (32-64GB) that has been verified to work well for boxing? Would like to order somethin online

Quote:

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Originally Posted by heyaz

What's a good cheap SSD (32-64GB) that has been verified to work well for boxing? Would like to order somethin online

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I'd like to know this as well.

Also UALAA told me in PM that a computer built with those similar specs would run in dal @ 60 fps... but i also had a GTX 275 in my system when i showed him it and had 1600 ram.

I don't think I said a computer will run 60 FPS in Dalaran.
I know some people get that in some areas of Dal.

But the particle density sucks there, and you frequently get 20-30 FPS, even with very top-end systems.
Wintergrasp can also slow you down, from the sheer number of people all over the place.

But pretty much, every where else.
Any of the newer systems (i7 based or the AMD equivalent), should do well.

I'm running:

i7, 920 (stock speed)
12GB, 1600mhz ram (DDR3)
Asus P6T (x58) motherboard
GTX 275 (896 mb)
150GB Raptor (less then 50% full).

I have IS Boxer set to cap my FPS at 60 on the main screen and 30 on the slaves.
I get those FPS, pretty much everywhere except Dal/WG.

I have a Patriot Torq SSD on my Christmas list; retails about 250 (CDN$).
Patriot Torqx PFZ64GS25SSDR 64GB, Sata II, Internal SSD

Just searching on Newegg.com, you can get an idea of what is available.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...0%20-%20%24200
41 SSD's in the $100 to $200 range.

This might sound very weird, but yesterday i bought a new keyboard (logitech G11). And it looks like wow is running so much smoother now (mainlu during big encounters). Haven't changed anything on my computers end nor on my wow settings. At first i thought i was hallucinating, but i read a bit about the keyboard and i saw similar things. According to 1 user it's because the keyboard can handle more concurrent keypresses than a regular keyboard. It saved me from buying a new gpu.

I have no objective numbers as proof though, it's just what i've seen with my eyes. Might be worth a try though if you can get your hands on it before you decide to upgrade.

First a gaming NIC now keyboards tuned for gamers, and only 3x as much for that 10%.
Sorry, I am VERY skepical about KB improving game play. Your system seemed like it would be fine to 5box WoW, better than mine. Like people said, a minor thing like a driver or BIOS tweak maybe

Sadly I built this rig for multiboxing, I had an extra 4 gigabytes of ram and the quadcore overnight shipped the day wrath launched >.< and I boxed for maybe a week in wrath v.v It might be the way i'm setting everything up, and I'm pretty sure i need to update my gpu, I'll check the perf monitor once i get all my accounts back up i suppose, I've got about 300 bucks to spend if that, but I want to be able to box again, I think im missing it a little too much,

I also changed the registry for my power usage, that might be a big step to overcoming my issue as well, but i just cant handle 12 FPS its disgusting thanks for the help all

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Moddersunited

Sadly I built this rig for multiboxing, I had an extra 4 gigabytes of ram and the quadcore overnight shipped the day wrath launched >.< and I boxed for maybe a week in wrath v.v It might be the way i'm setting everything up, and I'm pretty sure i need to update my gpu, I'll check the perf monitor once i get all my accounts back up i suppose, I've got about 300 bucks to spend if that, but I want to be able to box again, I think im missing it a little too much,

I also changed the registry for my power usage, that might be a big step to overcoming my issue as well, but i just cant handle 12 FPS its disgusting thanks for the help all

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Make 4-5 trial accounts, run to org, get someone to port you to dal, test your fps

tada.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shodokan

Make 4-5 trial accounts, run to org, get someone to port you to dal, test your fps

tada.

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Trial accounts can't get to Dalaran, since you need the Wrath Expansion. Please stop posting misinformation before someone thinks you actually know what your talking about.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shodokan

Make 4-5 trial accounts, run to org, get someone to port you to dal, test your fps

tada.

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You sure have learn a lot about multiboxing in 6 days!

/sarcasm off

Please stop posting things that you know nothing about. As super has pointed out, trial accounts can't go to Dalaran. If you actually played WoW, you'd know this. Stop trolling and go away.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fursphere

You sure have learn a lot about multiboxing in 6 days!

/sarcasm off

Please stop posting things that you know nothing about. As super has pointed out, trial accounts can't go to Dalaran. If you actually played WoW, you'd know this. Stop trolling and go away.

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Don't forget to repay daddykun.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fursphere

You sure have learn a lot about multiboxing in 6 days!

/sarcasm off

Please stop posting things that you know nothing about. As super has pointed out, trial accounts can't go to Dalaran. If you actually played WoW, you'd know this. Stop trolling and go away.

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Svper = Batman
Fursphere = Robin

Evil has no chance!

hahahahhaha :D

Im reporting this thread, youre all trolling. I vote that all LOB members be removed from the boards immediately.

/hides sig

Spoilsport.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Redbeard

Im reporting this thread, youre all trolling. I vote that all LOB members be removed from the boards immediately.

/hides sig

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But I need this thread >.<

And for the record all my accounts are eligable for scroll of resurrection ^.^ so these "trial" accounts are unnecessary and redundant, Tonight is Windows 7 upgrade, and clean out all unnecessaries, and tomorrow The World! (of Warcraft) We'll see what windows 7 does for my MB experience and if it fails miserably then the upgrading time comes

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Moddersunited

But I need this thread >.<

And for the record all my accounts are eligable for scroll of resurrection ^.^ so these "trial" accounts are unnecessary and redundant, Tonight is Windows 7 upgrade, and clean out all unnecessaries, and tomorrow The World! (of Warcraft) We'll see what windows 7 does for my MB experience and if it fails miserably then the upgrading time comes

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Before you go and do anything TOO drastic.

Here's what I run:
Quad 2.6ghz, 8 gig ram, nvidia 7600GS 512mb. My bottleneck is my GPU. I get 25-30 fps on the active window, 12 on the slaves (I lowered it to 12). I'm playable, Dalaran sucks, but I can get around.

So it could be a configuration issue.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by heyaz

How do you get perfmon to show GPU usage?

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Get GPUZ. Google it. Download it. Run it while multiboxing.

It is the GPU perf mon. A very good tool.

You may find this on your system in Dalaran while multiboxing ->

from perf mon-->

Ram usage 68-88%
CPU 80-100%

from gpuz-->

GPU 30-40%

These are the numbers I get. I 5 box on 2 monitors. I have a q9550 (quad core 2.83 ghz), 8gb ddr 800 ram, ati 4850x2. I have all resolutions at 1920x1200 for all 5 wow clients. Slaves have all video options at the minimum. Main is max video with max viewing distance with shadows set on minimum. I get 20-30 fps in dalaran while slaves are maxed to 15 fps. I also have a Intel xm-25 SSD dedicated to WoW using symlynked folders. I run windows vista ultimate 64 bit. I have found that on my system that the CPU is the bottleneck if I go higher graphic settings. WoW uses the CPU primarily for graphics is what I conclude from this. So if I were to upgrade anything, it would be motherboard+cpu.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ualaa

I don't think I said a computer will run 60 FPS in Dalaran.
I know some people get that in some areas of Dal.

But the particle density sucks there, and you frequently get 20-30 FPS, even with very top-end systems.

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On 3.3 patch day Bonechewer instances went down (all of them) and I got ported into Dal, my effects are set to high except for texture filtering and shadows. There were several dozen (uncountable) number of people who got ported into Dal just like me. FPS was 59/60fps. i7-975, 1gb nV 260m GTX, 4 other clients were running at the time, they were ported into Shatt. Top end systems shouldn't struggle in Dal at all, though if all 5 of my toons ported into Dal i'd probably have noticed a more significant drop.

I play windowed mode, maximized to 1920x1200, 32bpp.

For the OP, I previously ran a core2 2ghz, 4gb ram, w/ and nV 8900m 512MB. A full AV would drop my FPS to 6fps (with all toons present, effects on all set to lowest, playing at 1024x768), I blame this entirely on the GPU as CPU use appeared the same. The 8900 series (and prior) were excellent for 'their time' but are 'fairly low-end' compared to what is currently available from nV/ATI (as usual for gfx tech).

You know what would really benefit all of these performance threads is if someone could update the wiki with a breakdown of all current graphics options (available from blizz UI, e.g. nothing specific to the console) and what each option depends on. For example, particle density is CPU heavy, whereas shadow detail is GPU heavy. Something like this may help people diagnose what they need to updgrade in their particular rig.. for example, if sliding particle density down doesn't really seem to help then it may not be a CPU issue, or as another example, if reducing model detail doesn't affect FPS but a reduction of texture detail drastically improves performance, it may be time to find a gfx card (and perhaps also a mobo/cpu) with a higher bus xfer rate, as this is something that depends on the bus bandwidth and clock rate of both the mobo/cpu and the gfx card moreso than the number crunching power of either the CPU or GPU.

Just a thought.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Moddersunited

Been a while since I've logged into Azeroth, I blame it on the the lack of 5 shamans being able to burn through low level northrend instances but in reality its my system not being able to handle nothrend, v.v so my current system specs are:

CPU: Phenom 2.8 (forget the model >.<)
Ram: 8 Gigabytes of DDR2 800
GPU: Nvidia 8600 GTS SC
HD: 320 gig Seagate Sata

I assume its my GPU stopping me from 5 boxing, So I'm wondering whats a good route for upgrade to make this system 5box worthy? I was looking at maybe a 4890 or a 260, what does the community think? will this get my system up to par?

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Stay away from the ati 4850, it has a lot of issues with wow.

Don't know about 4890 but google around to check...i did'nt so now i'm in trouble :mad:

My 2 cent