Building a 5-box system

[Owltoid]

My other thread was a bit too vague so I'm hoping this one can help answer a few questions. These questions all pertain to running 5 accounts on the new computer:

1.) Will there be any CPU bottlenecks using the i7-920?

2.) My initial configuration would have 6 GB of ram (upgradable to 12). Will 6 be enough or should I just plan on 12?

3.) Can I get away with one video card if it's the GeForce GTX 260 896MB 16x PCI Express? Or should I get two less powerful video cards?

4.) Will one hard drive be enough if it's Solid State? Specifically the 64 GB Ritek RiDATA 2.5 inch SATA Gaming MLC Solid State Disk. Will 64 GB be enough if I only am using this drive for gaming and not additional storage? If 64 is enough, then could I get away with the 32 GB version?

5.) Since my SSD is so small, can I store non WoW applications on a second slower hard drive? Is this where I would put windows?

6.) Can you see any bottlenecks for parts I have not asked a question about?


The system I have priced is $1600. Assuming I can sell my ASUS gaming laptop then I may just go ahead and make the transition to 5-boxing.

Thank you for your help!

[Owltoid]

i7's are all quad cores. Intel's previous (last year's) generation of chips come in both dual core and quad core. Last year's quads are called Yorkfields. i7 systems are somewhat faster than Yorkfield systems but much more expensive. At today's prices, I don't think the speed difference is worth the price premium so if I were buying now, I'd get a Yorkfield system. (When I say system I mean CPU, motherboard, and RAM. )

To be more exact I'd get either a Q9400 or Q9550 CPU, a P45 motherboard (Gigabyte makes good ones), 8 GB of DDR2 ram, a 1-TB mechanical hard drive, and 64-bit Vista. The video card depends on how big a monitor you want. You can build the whole thing for less than $1000 and it will run 5 WoW's fine.

Regarding video card/monitor I will likely be playing on a 42 inch HD LCD sitting about 5 feet away. I currently play on that and my laptop screen but I use the lowest graphic settings. It would be nice to be able to turn up the graphics a little bit so my toon could see more than 20 yards in the distance. My current video card is the NVIDIA GeForceGo 7700 GPU 512 MB and if I was playing one toon using the full settings then I'd be happy (I'm not that picky about how the video looks).

[Owltoid]

I'm guessing for smooth performance I'll need 8 gig of RAM and 2 video cards (this is really wild guessing on my part).

You DON'T want two video cards. WoW only renders to the primary display (first video card)*; by adding a second video card you are actually slowing your experience down as the system has to pump data across the bus to the other video card. My FPS dropped by around 20FPS by adding a second video card. I haven't had much experience with WoW and SLI'd video cards, but it might work.

My suggestion is to buy the fattest single GFX card you can afford. My Nvidia 8800GT 512MB runs 4 clones just fine, but I would buy a Nvidia 200 series now.

Also (IMHO) I prefer Nvidia over ATI video cards just because I perceive the driver support to be better. And I cannot see any reason for you not to go Vista 64bit.



*So I have read (and experienced); I have also heard that InnerSpace can force WOW to render on the second display, hence working around this issue; but not seen anyone post about it actually working.

That is good to hear, especially if I can get away with a video card less powerful/expensive than the GTX.

[Rin]

Owltoid --
Your system is very similar to a new one that I am building; If you have another week to spare, I'll be able to give you exact specifications and/or any benchmarks that you need.

My new setup consists of:

i7 920
evga x58 3x sli mobo
750w psu
2x Western Digital Velociraptors

6 GB DDR3 Corsair Dominator RAM * (just ordered today from Amazon)
eVGA e-GeForce GTX280 1GB DDR3 (just ordered this today from Amazon as well)

I'm going to be running the Raptors in a RAID-0 configuraiton, and I plan on upgrading the 6GB to 12 GB if 6 isn't sufficient.

As with anything.. Screenshot or it didn't happen (see attached).



Cheers!

Rin

[cairnz]

I have the opposite opinion of Jafula on the Nvidia/ATI matter - i've experienced ATI drivers (that have a regular release schedule of monthly) to be more stable.

But the most important aspect that i found - was that ATI was way superior when dealing with LCD TVs and multiple displays. I used to play main on 1080p LCD tv and 4 slaves on 24" monitor.

As for the questions:

1) No, CPU Will handle it fine, you might want to tinker with ProcessAffinityMask (but set this to 255 and forget about it).

2) If you can afford it, get 12 straight away, the more details you turn on your wow clients the more memory they will eat. i personally run on rather low details but end up using ~5-6.5 gb of ram for 5 clients. i hear people have way less mem usage, but i don't know what they do different.

3) you can live fine with 1 video card. get one with lot of memory since you'll be rendering on a lot of screen estate. (1gb - don't know if 2gb would make a difference for multiboxing, never heard of anyone doing a benchmark)

4)For Vista 64 - count 15gb for system, 5gb for other things, 10gb for your documents, downloads, temp storage and 15gb for wow. you'll then have a bit of free space. You should consider having one master wow-folder - and then symlink 5 wows to this master folder (for DATA-folder) - there are several different ways and practices do doing this, i don't know if one is better than the other, but just linking the data folder works nicely for me. (separate wtf config for each client makes it remember which char was last logged on for each wow for example. with a single wow launched 5 times, you'll overwrite the last-logged-on for each time you start).

5) yes you can - you can also buy an external usb harddrive or similar for backups and safe(r) storage. i would put windows on the ssd as well for the increased performance.

6) if you're getting an i7 system you're getting state of the art motherboard, memory and such. your videocard and the components will draw a lot of juice. you should consider putting money in the PSU if you have some spare. a more expensive psu usually means higher quality (personally i run a corsair hx 750w on a c2d quad with 8gb ram and ati 4870 512mb).

*Final Tip: Don't buy a fancy Computer case, get an Antec P182 and forget about it. It'll probably be the most quiet and sturdy case you'll ever owned. When you're in a computer store, look at some cases and tap them on the side. Most aluminum cases will go *plonk, wham, dang, bling* - while the p182 will go *thud, thud, thud* (quieter). You'll thank yourself later on.

[Freddie]

I looked up prices to make the Yorkfield vs. i7 comparison more concrete. Today's prices from Newegg not including rebates:

YORKFIELD
----------
CPU            Q9400 quad core 2.66 GHz    $229
Motherboard    Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R       $119
RAM            8 GB DDR2 - 800             $100
-----------------------------------------------
TOTAL                                      $448

i7 
----------
CPU                  920 quad 2.66 GHz     $290
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R          $200
RAM                  6 GB DDR3-1333        $280
-----------------------------------------------
TOTAL                                      $769

Here's how I would think about these numbers if I were in your shoes.

The systems aren't quite comparable because the Yorkfield has more RAM, but I'm assuming (assuming, I don't know!) that 6 GB in the i7 system is enough to play 5 WoWs with about the same amount of paging as on the Yorkfield. If that assumption is wrong, that's a point in favor of the older components. (The RAM numbers are different because Yorkfield systems take RAM in multiples of 2 but i7 systems take it in multiples of 3.)

The i7, according to reviews, will run applications (on average) about 20% faster than the older system. For that 20% speed enhancement you pay a premium of 333/448 = 74 percent.

Is it worth paying 74 percent extra for 20 percent faster performance? Well, it might be if you needed the extra speed. But I would assume (assuming, I don't know for sure because I haven't tested) that on either of these systems, your five WoWs will be bottlenecked by the hard drives and video cards, not the CPUs, so the extra speed won't do anything for you.

Btw I know your original question said four WoWs on the new machine but five will run just as well so I'm writing five.

[TheStig]

I would wait on buying a i7 right now. The current i7 chipset is due for an update this summer. Although, the i7 is very good for multiboxing. What changed from the i7 and the Yorkfield is the on die memory controller. The memory controller on die allows it to handle operations much faster because there is a shorter distance to travel. For memory I would go with 8 to start off with. Depending on what your graphics card is going to be driving, a gtx 260 should be fine for 2 24". I would suggest the XFX GTX260 Black Edition for a GTX. With your hard drives, I would suggest you get at least another 7200 drive, something like 160GB or even smaller. This would be where you store your OS. Then make sure you put your swap file on your SSD.
The only other bottleneck I could see happening is low quality memory, but if your throwing this much down, I don't think you would buy low quality memory.
I have a little experience with multiboxing but a lot with VMware machines, so thats where all my infos coming from.
-The Stig
"Some say he's made of a titanium absestos alloy....They would be right."

[Owltoid]

Owltoid --
Your system is very similar to a new one that I am building; If you have another week to spare, I'll be able to give you exact specifications and/or any benchmarks that you need.

My new setup consists of:

i7 920
evga x58 3x sli mobo
750w psu
2x Western Digital Velociraptors

6 GB DDR3 Corsair Dominator RAM * (just ordered today from Amazon)
eVGA e-GeForce GTX280 1GB DDR3 (just ordered this today from Amazon as well)

I'm going to be running the Raptors in a RAID-0 configuraiton, and I plan on upgrading the 6GB to 12 GB if 6 isn't sufficient.

As with anything.. Screenshot or it didn't happen (see attached).



Cheers!

Rin

I'm getting close to pulling the trigger on my new system, so definitely keep me updated! Why did you go with the Raptors instead of SSD? That's my biggest concern about my system so far, that there is some sort of bottleneck running 5 WoWs on a single hard drive, even if it's SSD.

[Owltoid]

I would wait on buying a i7 right now. The current i7 chipset is due for an update this summer. Although, the i7 is very good for multiboxing. What changed from the i7 and the Yorkfield is the on die memory controller. The memory controller on die allows it to handle operations much faster because there is a shorter distance to travel. For memory I would go with 8 to start off with. Depending on what your graphics card is going to be driving, a gtx 260 should be fine for 2 24". I would suggest the XFX GTX260 Black Edition for a GTX. With your hard drives, I would suggest you get at least another 7200 drive, something like 160GB or even smaller. This would be where you store your OS. Then make sure you put your swap file on your SSD.
The only other bottleneck I could see happening is low quality memory, but if your throwing this much down, I don't think you would buy low quality memory.
I have a little experience with multiboxing but a lot with VMware machines, so thats where all my infos coming from.
-The Stig
"Some say he's made of a titanium absestos alloy....They would be right."

What is special about the Black Edition? I'm a bit concerned with the GTX260 with running 5 WoWs since it has less than 1 gb of memory, but I'm not ready to pony up a couple hundred extra for a beefier version.

[TheStig]

Its fine for piping out to 2 24" monitors. The BE is an overclocked version of the gtx260. Also its not a big premium, its about $250 right now. Its pretty awesome, its in my personal/work rig right now. It ranks up with stock GTX280s for cheaper.
I think it should be fine. I don't multibox WoW, but I do do it for EVE and I run VMware. Not sure how those stack up to multiboxing WoW but I think its close.