New Build Advice for 5 Boxing

[Hor]

I can absolutely understand the confusion MiRai. Originally I was building an AMD based system, I ordered the bare bones and ended up with a bum processor and motherboard. I RMAd them, Newegg wouldn't exchange the processor so I decided to switch to Intel after seeing how much more optimized Intel is for WoW than AMD. So, today I ordered the NEW motherboard, cpu, case, os, cooler, and fan controller. The price listed above is not correct, as it's only showing the parts I hadn't already purchased at that point. The actual price of the rig is at $1163 after Mail In Rebates.

So, now I'm thinking of how I want to expand, yes I'm okay having multiple monitors on my desk. I'll be moving out to my office/cave in a couple of months after I finish the furniture and cabling out there. So, space for monitors is not a concern at all. My main concern right now is do I do it all in one PC, all in 2, or all in 5. If you have suggestions for scaling this machine up for running 5 mans, I'm all ears. I haven't boxed at all since early Wrath, and then I was doing it on 3 computers rather than 1 with Keyclone. So, yeah I've got a lot to unlearn and relearn I'm sure. Ideally, I think I would like to have two capable machines and box across them with DPS and heals on the second machine. Possibly powerful enough to ten box with five on each once in a while. But mostly 4 on one machine and 1 on the other. In that scenario, I'd have the second machine for web browsing, music, etc when I'm running solo. Which would be handy imo.

As of right now, I'm focused on getting the main rig up and running, then messing around and finding what works for me afterward.

[MiRai]

The price listed above is not correct, as it's only showing the parts I hadn't already purchased at that point. The actual price of the rig is at $1163 after Mail In Rebates.

This is true. I didn't take that into account.

If you have suggestions for scaling this machine up for running 5 mans, I'm all ears.

In my opinion, it pretty much comes down to this...

If your game clients are being displayed in their full resolution, each on their own monitor, it's nice and easy to just look over to that monitor and see what they're doing, but where are these monitors going to be placed? Wherever they're placed, most of them are likely going to be outside of your immediate line of sight, or even your peripheral, and when you begin tunnel-visioning on your main character/screen you're going to have no idea what's happening on another character/monitor unless you physically turn your head away from your main and move your mouse cursor way over to another screen (assuming you have to interact with them in the heat of battle).

When all of your game clients are on one or two screens, they're just a quick glance away, as well as a fraction of the distance away in terms of the amount of pixels you have to move your mouse to get to them, and then back to your main.

Sure, a setup with a bunch of monitors looks cool in screenshots and in person when you show it off, but if you have to do so much head turning and mouse moving... well, that's only increasing your reaction time, and I would say that the game is a bit less forgiving than it was back in Wrath. Disclaimer: The end of that statement is dependent on many variables.

As for what hardware you should be using to run five game clients—I don't know, what's the budget? You're going to need a much better GPU, and in turn, a much better PSU to run it. If it's in the budget, you might as well just start off by getting an i7 with hyper-threading rather than an i5 without it. I would have said some of this in the beginning, but the thread started out as an AMD thread.