*REVISED* $2,800 Budgit. specs sound decent/compatable? (EDIT)-might go hardware instead, are these specs compatable/decent? *REVISED*

[Yo-Yo Freak]

:EDIT: i am contemplating going hardware instead of software (5 comps instead of 1).
i have completely revised this post because i did not feel like making a new thread when i have this perfectly good 1 with plenty of very good info already in it.

5 Boxing on 1 Computer:
Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - $110
ZALMAN ZM850-HP 850W Continuous @ 45°C (Maximum Continuous Peak: 1050W) ATX12V V2.2 / EPS12V V2.91 SLI NVIDIA SLI Certified - $150
2x - ASUS EAH4870 DK/HTDI/1GD5 Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - $500 ($250 each and $20 mail in rebate each)
2x - Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - $130 ($65 each)
3x - Acer H213H bmid Black 21.5" 5ms HDMI Widescreen 16:9 Full HD 1080P LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 ACM 20000:1 Built in Speakers - $600 ($200 each)
G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory - $150
MSI X58 Eclipse SLI LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - $350 ($30 mail in rebate)
Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor - $300
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit English for System Builders 1pk DSP OEI DVD - $100
Total:$2,390 ($70 in mail in rebates) $20 shipping
ok so this, from what i have read and from everybodys replies, will work verey nicely for 5 boxing WoW. i am $400 under budget but that will quickly be used up by 4x battle chests and a new headset and some other stuff. i would have the 2 HDD's set in a Raid0 configuration to optimise speed for gaming.

5 Boxing on 5 Computers:
5x - Sunbeam AC-T Transparent Clear Acrylic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - $250 ($50 each - $5 mail in rebates each)
5x - ECS Geforce6100PM-M2 AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - $225 ($45 each)
5x - PNY VCG88512GXPB GeForce 8800GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - $575 ($115 each)
5x - RAIDMAX RX-380K 380W ATX12V Power Supply - $65 ($13 each)
5x - AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Brisbane 2.2GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor - $200 ($40 each)
5x - COOLER MASTER DK8-9GD4A-0L-GP 95mm CPU Cooler - $75 ($15 each)
5x - G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 533 (PC2 4200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory - $100 ($20 each)
5x - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3160815AS 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - $210 ($42 each)
3x - Acer X193Wb Black 19" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 2000:1 ACM - $390 ($130 each)
2x - Open Box: Acer X193Wb Black 19" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 2000:1 ACM - $178 ($89 each - darn 2 per customer limit :P)
25x - MASSCOOL FD08025S1M4 80mm Case Fan - $32 ($1.30 each)
Total: ~$2,300 ($25 mail in rebate)
the more i read about hardware boxing the more i like the idea of it. there are a couple problems with it though for me, mostly the fact that my mom more then likely wouldn't like me spending $2,300+ on 5 computers when i could spend the exact same amount and get a very very nice computer that will last as long as i keep up with it vs 5 computers that are on the edge of being outdated from the day they are built. other then that i love the idea of hardware boxing and would more then likely go with some form of it instead of 1 comp if i have a choice. as for these computers i have a couple questions. 1) are all these parts compatible? from what i have read on all of them they are but i have never built a computer before so i am not 100% positive. 2) can these computers handle running 2 instances of WoW (1 on each core) with medium to high graphics settings/fps? if these are capable of running 2 instances of WoW with decent results then it provides the possibility of moving from 5 to 10 boxing in the future. 3) would it be recommended i go with 4GB over 2GB of RAM on these? i have read people get by running 1 instance of WoW with like 1GB of RAM but if i may be running 2 per computer would 4GB be much better then 2GB?
i was looking at some other cases but i really like the clear acrylic cases. more then likely i will update this as i get more info on all this and i may look into 3 computers instead of 5. all advice/info/criticism is welcome!

Thanks in advance everybody!!^_^

Yo-Yo Freak

[spannah]

the nvidia on the name of that MB, should give it away that is not crossfire compatible, since crossfire is a AMD/ATI technology. An in my opinion not worth if your main intent is to 5 box something like WoW.
Consider the following:
- In order to fully utilize TRI_SLI you will need 3 top end nearly identical NVIDIA cards
- Most single computer multiboxers use two monitors (or more) as to have screen real state for all five instances
- Dual SLI support for two monitors was introduced recently, possibly the implementation is not very robust yet ;-)

With $2800 you could buy two computers and play 5 accounts on each ;-). Bottom line is, for multibox WoW it is overkill, and there is nothing wrong with that. The system will last you a long time and you will be able to play graphically demanding games such as far cry 2 and whatever is next. But if this your intent I would suggest additional research on MB/ Graphics card combination ;-)

Edit:
Read some of the comments on the new-egg page for that motherboard you list. let me paste some excerpts:
" nvidia really did a job with this one....constant freezes regardless of modding the (very messed up) default voltages"
"Very unstable. You should be happy if it runs a for a full day without freezing. Typically, 1-5 freezes a day."
"It has had random freezing since I got it. I have tried everything."

These are from 3 different folks all on the main product page (i did not go searching for them). I am sure there are people who had better luck with this board. But that should set some alarm bells.

[Clanked]

Ok well, under the assumption that you aren't out there to reach the best 3dmark score you can.
That computer looks overpriced for no benefit. I mean, a hard drive cooler? come on. Overclocking hardly nets you anything anymore in terms of performance. Long gone are the days of OC'ing your 486 to DOUBLE your frame rate. Shortening the life of components for an extra 2fps when you are already pushing out more fps than your monitor can handle is silly.

Ok rant off.

Here are my suggestions that could save you a ton of money, and net you the exact same real world performance. (I consider it improved performance due to quad monitor output)

Case: Your case is going to be a big. A full tower is a monster. You aren't stacking it full of drives, and nothing you have needs that much space. However Antec is a really good brand. You could easily go for the 900, and get the same case in a smaller form factor. If you want something that won't be as loud as the 900, there is the P180/182. (I personally love the P182, just picked up my second one for $80 on sale ) Save $50 by switching to the 900. You won't need extra fans. Save $13.58.

Processor: Very few things you do will be bound by the processor power. However, I think the processor you chose is fine.

Heatsink: Core2Quads have very low thermal output to begin with. In fact most people can easily reach 3GHz with the stock heatsink. (Thats what made the Q6600 with G0 stepping famous) Don't buy a heatsink. In fact I recommend you don't even OC, but thats your call. Save $29.99 not buying a heatsink.

Motherboard: Hmm, you chose an nForce motherboard with an ATI graphics card. Unless it recently changed, you can't xfire with nForce. Only SLI (if I am wrong someone please correct me.) Since I see below that you seem to want DDR3 I'll run with that. Here is a Gigabyte board that supprots Xfire, DDR3 (even at speeds faster than your procs FSB, so if you want to tweak it you can go out of sync with FSB) I personally love Gigabyte boards, and highly recommend them. $149.99 Gigabyte MotherBoard. Save $186

Power Supply: Well, I don't think you need that whopping powersupply you have. 1200 is a LOT. If you follow my advice below on video cards, I say you could easily get along with something thats provides 1000 (even less if you really calulate it out, but ATM I cannot access my video card power draw chart., being at work) Here is a 1000W 80% Plus Powersupply from Antec. Its $179.99 saving you $50 (even more on your powerbill).

Video Card: Ok, here is where I really hope you heed my advice. The 4870x2 is cool and all, but it scales horribly. If you look at these benchmarks you will see that 2x 4870x2 cards actually perform no better than 2x 4870 cards, or a single 4870x2 for that matter. So thats an extra $489.99 for ZERO benefit it you run them crossfire. Since you are looking to go multi(3+) monitor output, I suggest going with TWO 4870 cards. This way you can enable crossfire when you want to play games on one screen, and get the same performance as your 4870x2 card. Then when you want to multibox you can disable crossfire, and run on all three monitors. I strongly recommend going with 2x 4870's. $200 each. Thats $400 for both cards. Save $89.99 and gain up to 4 monitor output while maintaining the EXACT same performance as both a single and dual 4870x2's.

Memory: You will not get any better performance using 6-6-6-20 RAM vs 9-9-9-24. RAM is not a bottle neck. GPU is the main bottleneck in gaming (processor sometimes). RAM only comes into play when you don't have enough of it. If you have to access your hard drive, then you will be bogged down. You won't be able to tell a difference between different speed RAM. Unless you are running a memory test program, you won't even be able to measure it. I suggest you save some money by going with some looser timing ram. G.Skill makes a 4GB set for $95 I would go with two of these, to save another $100.

Your Hard Drive/OS/Monitor choice are fine. (Nice monitor BTW) Just toss that fucking hard drive cooler to the wind.

So that right there is $518 dollars saved. Hey look, enough to buy two extra monitors and guess what. Now you can output to all three of them. YAY!

Hope that helps.

[Tsunami]

So I am looking over your dream system and keep wondering why you are building it with second best technology. for about $50 less spent on your processor and MoBo you can get the 920 i7 processor and MoBo. Much faster than the vanilla quad core you are currently thinking of ordering.

plus with the added feature of build in raid0, for $120 you can put two 7200rpm 500 gig HDD's in raid0, this will be much faster than your 10k 74gig raptor HDD, with the added bonus of having 15x more storage. for an additional $65 you can add another 500 gig HDD for data or for back-up. raid0 with a data drive is much better than what you are planning. for the same money you get 1.5TB of storage.

RAM: for $145 you can get 6GB of tri-channel ram ....again tri-channel ram is faster because of the memory controller is now on the i7 processor and not on the MoBo so you are not limited by your FSB speed. you can get 12gig of tri-channel memory for the same price you are planning to spend on 8gig.

I totally agree with clanked view on your videocard choice. beside not matching the video card to your MoBo/processor (I hope newegg would have caught that before shipping it to you) your again over paying for the performance you are getting. 2 ati 4870's are more than enough.

since your building a quad core why build last years quad-core computer?

[Herc130]

So I am looking over your dream system and keep wondering why you are building it with second best technology. for about $50 less spent on your processor and MoBo you can get the 920 i7 processor and MoBo. Much faster than the vanilla quad core you are currently thinking of ordering.

Same thoughts. You are buying last years tech at this years prices. I do not understand why you are not going i7, because you are certainly within budget for it. I do not understand why you choose a 790i mobo.....and then match it with an AMD 4870x2. Why you choose an ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 64 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler which is specified as being

Compatibility: All AMD Sempron, Athlon 64, Athlon 64 X2
and Athlon 64 FX (Socket 754, 939, AM2)
All AMD Opteron

when you are using an LGA 775 motherboard?????

Western Digital Raptor WD740ADFD 74GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 1.5Gb/s Hard Drive ????? That is not even a veloci-raptor...which I also doubt is worth the $$, but what you choose here is diffinently not worth the money. A current 7200 rpm 640GB + drive is faster then that, has more space and is cheaper.

[Moga]

Hey Yo-Yo I am actually looking at building my own system as well just a little over that price range. However I think I am going to go for the I7 version. I know this system is completely overkill for just playing 5x wow, but I am doing it not jut for WoW. Here is a list of the items I am currently looking to get:

Thermaltake ArmorPlus(Armor+) VH6000BWS Black Aluminum / Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case - Retail - Huge I know, but I plan on adding alot on later.

EVGA 132-BL-E758-A1 LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80601920 - Retail - Plan on overclocking to around 3.2-3.5

ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler - Retail

CORSAIR CMPSU-1000HX 1000W ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply - Retail

Intel X25-M SSDSA2MH080G1C5 80GB SATA Internal Solid state disk (SSD) - Retail - For Windows and Wow

Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000GLFS 300GB 10000 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM - backup storage

G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9T-6GBNQ - Retail x2 -For a total of 12GB of RAM

EVGA 896-P3-1260-AR GeForce GTX 260 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail x2 - Going to try out the new SLI dual monitor display. should be interesting to see how well it works with the new drivers.

LG 22X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe Black SATA Model GH22LS30 - OEM - I might through in a blue ray down the road depending on how the technology goes.

Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 64-bit English 1pk DSP OEI DVD for System Builders - OEM



Logitech G15 2-Tone USB Wired Standard Gaming Keyboard - Retail

Logitech MX518 2-Tone 8 Buttons 1 x Wheel USB + PS/2 Wired Optical Gaming-Grade Mouse - Retail

BELKIN F8GFPC200 N52TE Tournament Edition - Retail - i might wait and get the G13 that Logitech is coming out with next month

Total Price $3014.99

I already have the monitors I want and mainly I am building this system to triple SLI in the future. I am probably going to need another fan or two. Again I know this is complete overkill. But again any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Yo-Yo Freak]

thank you everybody verey much for the info it has helped alot, i have never built a computer befor and i have been trying to learn as i go. i guess i have to completely re think everything lol. i'm not looking at a computer for just wow i am looking more toward an all around gaming comp. thanks again everybody for the info its helped a lot.

[Tsunami]

MOGA-

you linked your PSU twice, so i guess one of those was supposed to be your video card.

the one suggestion i have for you is: your motherboard supports raid0/1 so you don't need to get the adaptor card, saving you $100. so i would change the HDD from the velociraptor 300gb spinning at 10000 rpm to a raid0 setup (2x 500gb spinning at 7200) and bumping the capacity up to 1TB. the access time and data transfer rates are faster using the raid setup, my guess is you want to build the best gaming system you can, and the best way is with raid0.

[Clanked]

The Core i7 is a very nice chip indeed. Its by far the best there is right now.
I say that, even though I just dumped a few grand into AMD stock.

I stick by what I say earlier. CPU's are generally not a bottleneck for gaming. If you are into CPU intensive apps such as encoding/decoding/simultaion then I say go with a strong CPU.
You will pay a premium for early adoption. The benefits in my opinion aren't worth the cost. At most it will be 5-7 more FPS in crysis. I am not the type to pay $200+ for that small of a gain. In fact the computer I build when I get back from Iraq will consist of a good ole Q6600, but with 8gb of ram, and 2x 4870's.

[Tsunami]

MOGA-

Didn't realize how expensive that SSD was (WOW) $500......for the money i would recommend going with a raid5 setup.....get 4x 160gb HDD for $45 each. and then get a 1TB data drive to keep it all safe. you'll save yourself $500 or more going this route and will be a better setup. I read those SSD have some problems getting them setup properly.

or. doubling up on the velociraptor and going raid0 with them....then get a reg. 500-1TB data drive for back up.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...822136075again,

SSD drives are the newest latest thing, sure they have near instant data read but data transfer is not instant. this raid5 setup will be just as fast with accessing data, and transfer data much faster with the added value of having 8x the capacity. with 1TB data drive as a back up for your raid5, you protect your data if any drive fails plus have space for more porn than you can watch. :thumbsup: