Need help with Building a Machine

[Sinkaitos]

Hello, Im Trying to start 5boxing with 1 machine, however the Machine im currently using isnt nearly good enough so I've decided to build a completely new machine for Multiboxing specifically. I wanna try and keep the price tag reasonable and so here are the parts I have looked at so far (note that I have absolutely NO experience building PC's)

NVIDIA GeForce 880GTS

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Processor HH80562PH0568M - 2.40GHz, 8MB Cache, 1066MHz FSB, Kentsfield, Quad-Core, OEM, Socket 775, Processor

EVGA nforce 780i SLI Motherboard - A1 Version, NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI, Socket 775, ATX, Audio, PCI Express 2.0, Dual Gigabit LAN, S/PDIF, USB 2.0, Firewire, Serial ATA, RAID

4-8gigs RAM?

does anybody have any advice?

Im looking to use this setup for PvE 10mans with a multiboxing friend and Casual PvP if that has anything to do with the parts.

Thanks in advanced.

[suprafro]

My rig was pretty outdated (single core amd, 7200, 4gb memory), 5boxing was "ok" in instances but performance was still very jittery and far from being acceptable for doing anything in PVP...shatt/org were basically inaccessible. Anyway I put together a new rig a few weeks ago:

1333fsb setup
Q9550, P45 Asus board (forget the model), 8gb memory, 64bit vista, 280gtx, 64gb SSD (OS and wow configuration/instance directories are on a standard drive)

No idea if it's an optimal setup or not, just seemed like a good bang for the buck. Anyway i'm totally happy with the new rig, about $1,000 worth of stuff (and my AV box got hooked up with the handme downs!) game runs 100% flawlessly with 5 clients, you can spin the camera anywhere at anytime and theres never any jitters or stuttering. Craziest thing was how fast PIP swapping became. Before it would take ~5 seconds, now its literally instant (using keyclones PIP)

[faspalma]

That setup is close to what I was running before I added a few upgrades. It was perfectly capable of running 5 accounts. For reference this is what I'm currently using:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 Yorkfield 2.83GHz 12MB L2 Cache LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor
Asus P5E motherboard
8 Gigs of DDR2 800 MHz RAM
One 7200 Rpm SATA Hard Drive
Nvidia 8800GTS 512 graphics card
Vista 64

Use symlink on the Wow folders to help with I/O performance. One thing I would really recommend is running two monitors and using PIP. Hope that helps.

[pengwynman]

that setup sounds pretty good, i have the 750i motherboard from EVGA and it works fine, quad core... i'd recommend 8 gb of memory just because it's cheap right now and that would give you a bit extra (i would imagine wotlk will take more memory than bc so it's best to be prepared). also, look at the geforce 9 series, they have the smaller processing tech than the 8 series which should mean less power consumption, less heat, and better performance. you can get good deals on 9800's

[Sinkaitos]

about the 9800 Series, would an XFX GeForce 9800 GT Video Card Suffice? and if so is an Intel Core 2 Duo E4700 2.6GHz Processor an improvement on the one I originally mentioned? If so i could get a pretty good deal for them in a Bundle Pack.

I'm Definitely going for 8Gigs of RAM, from reading alot of the other Topics.

so that just leaves me with figuring out the motherboard, Hardrive and Power Supply. Any advice? if the previously stated motherboard is fine let me know, and thanks everyone whos already helped out, I know I ask alot of stupid questions, i just don't want some huge mistake because of my lack in experience.

[Manarath]

from the computers I have been looking at the motherbaord you mention in your OP seems to be really good.

[pengwynman]

about the 9800 Series, would an XFX GeForce 9800 GT Video Card Suffice? and if so is an Intel Core 2 Duo E4700 2.6GHz Processor an improvement on the one I originally mentioned? If so i could get a pretty good deal for them in a Bundle Pack.

I'm Definitely going for 8Gigs of RAM, from reading alot of the other Topics.

so that just leaves me with figuring out the motherboard, Hardrive and Power Supply. Any advice? if the previously stated motherboard is fine let me know, and thanks everyone whos already helped out, I know I ask alot of stupid questions, i just don't want some huge mistake because of my lack in experience.

a 9800 gt would be just fine-- i would tend to lean towards the quad core you originally mentioned, quad core will give you better multitask-ability, should give better performance for running more than 1 instance of wow. motherboard you originally listed should be good, shop around for a good power supply, i've had good experiences with Thermaltake's (i believe the min req power for the 9800gt is like 400w, i'd get bigger than that though). hard drive... people here have been talking about SSD's a lot lately, if you want to put the wow directory on there and symlink it you should get really good read speeds. I'm running a raid1 with regular 7200 500gb drive, 5 symlinked wow directories on it and it doesn't seem to get any slowdown (except in shatt, i think it's because my memory is being maxed out... putting some bigger sticks of ram in when i get home, so we'll see how it is then)

[Sinkaitos]

Yea, your right on the CPU, so im going to get a 9800GT, with the Quad I mentioned earlier.

as for the power supply how does a ThermalTake / PurePower W0129RU / 600-Watt / ATX 2.2 / 120mm Fan / SATA-Ready / PCI-E Ready / Active PFC / Power Supply look?

I'm also pretty sure that i will stick with the already mentioned motherboard aswell.

im going to look into the Hardrive now, and I will post back after I see one.

also, thank you so much for helping me out this much, I really appreciate it ^^

EDIT: I have been looking at an SSD Hardrive, Patriot Warp 32GB Solid State Hard Drive - SATA-300, 2.5", hows that look? Im especially worried about the hardrive since its the part i know the LEAST about, and the 32bg sounds small for 5different WoW directories.

and on a side note, will i be able to Dual screen with the setup thus far?

thanks in Advance

EDIT: Also, i will be getting Vista 64.

[pengwynman]

Yea, your right on the CPU, so im going to get a 9800GT, with the Quad I mentioned earlier.

as for the power supply how does a ThermalTake / PurePower W0129RU / 600-Watt / ATX 2.2 / 120mm Fan / SATA-Ready / PCI-E Ready / Active PFC / Power Supply look?

I'm also pretty sure that i will stick with the already mentioned motherboard aswell.

im going to look into the Hardrive now, and I will post back after I see one.

also, thank you so much for helping me out this much, I really appreciate it ^^

EDIT: I have been looking at an SSD Hardrive, Patriot Warp 32GB Solid State Hard Drive - SATA-300, 2.5", hows that look? Im especially worried about the hardrive since its the part i know the LEAST about, and the 32bg sounds small for 5different WoW directories.

and on a side note, will i be able to Dual screen with the setup thus far?

thanks in Advance

EDIT: Also, i will be getting Vista 64.

if by dual screen, you mean 2 monitors then yes. SSD hard drives are a little hit-and-miss from what i've seen, tons of people swear by their speeds, others have weird issues, but i was looking at those patriots and if i remember correctly they seem to be pretty solid. 32GB would by fine for the wow directories if you are symlinking, because it doesn't actually copy the ENTIRE wow directory... it basically reads the symlinked directories as shortcuts pointing to the same files, and only loads the symlinked files once for all clones as opposed to 5 different files. (correct me if i'm wrong on that, i'm kinda new to the symlinking thing) I forget exactly how big each symlinked directory is, but I know it's under 1GB. You would want to get a regular HDD as well, because 32GB is most likely not going to be big enough for all your other apps.
also, that power supply should be fine, i had the 700watt version with my 8800 gtx and it was really stable. i don't believe the 9800's use pci-express 2.0 power connectors so you shouldn't have an issue there either.

[Sinkaitos]

Thanks for the quick reply.

well, how does a Maxtor Basics STM305004N1AAAS-RK 500GB Hard Drive - 7200, 16MB, Serial ATA-300, Retail look?and if so, would I need the SDD one? the reason i ask is it seems a bit complicated, and all that symlinking sounds confusing. if this hard drive is good enough the 500gb would be more then enough for the rougly 50gb for 5 directories, with a ton of room left over for other apps, not to mention its the exact same price (maybe a bit less).

and really, these are the only parts i would need to build my PC other then the sound card, and DVD/CD Burner correct?

for the DVD/CD Burner im thinking Sony DRU-V200S/BR DVD Rewritable Drive SATA - 20x DVD±R, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW, 8x DVD+R DL, 12x DVD-R DL, 12x DVD-RAM, 16x DVD-ROM, 48x CD-R, 32x CD-RW, 48x CD-ROM, Black, its pretty cheap since i wont be using it a whole lot unless im installing my WoW, or some FPS.

as for the sound card, I have absolutely no clue. I dont want crappy sound but i dont wanna be spending $200 on one either. TurtleBeach 7.1/5.1 Audio Advantage SRM looks alright but its external and im looking for one that I can put inside.

after all that I think all i will need is a case (Correct me if im wrong) and then im on my way. :love: