i5 760 or i7 870/875 for 10 boxing?

[echo]

Hi all,

Question for those with experience 10 boxing. Assuming the rest of the system is the same, Will the i7 870/5 offer significant/noticeable improvement for 10 boxing vs the i5 760? I see the 760 for $175 right now, with the 870 at $220 and 875 at $250. I dont mind spending the extra $ if it will net me tangible benefits for 10 boxing, but if I can just overclock the 760 and have it offer similar performance I'm fine with that also, especially since I would only be using the hyper threaded 8 core of the 870 for multiboxing, for all my other daily computing use I'm sure the 4 non hyper threaded core of the 760 will do me just fine.

If it makes a difference, I'm listing the other parts that might be pertinent to wow multiboxing. Please advise if anything should be adjusted.

video - ATI 6870
Memory - Patriot Sector 5 G series 8gb DDR3 PC3-10666
OS - Win 7 Professional 64 bit
SSD - OCZ Vertex 2 60gb
Power - Cooler Master Silent Pro M700 series Modular 700w

To recap. to those currently multiboxing or has experience boxing with the 760 or 870/5; which one should I get? Thanks in advance to any that can help.

[EaTCarbS]

Will the i7 870/5 offer significant/noticeable improvement for 10 boxing vs the i5 760?

short answer: yes.

[Owltoid]

You sure you have enough RAM to 10 box? I only bring this up because if you want to do it on one machine, and if that requires more RAM, then you may need a different MB which means other chips may be better too.

[echo]

Thank you for the feedback Eatcarbs.

And thank you also owl. Well, I think I'm only getting the 8gb to start but I'm getting it as 2x4gb and most of the LGA1156 P55 mobos that I've looked at have 4 memory slots. I fully plan on getting another set of 2x4gb to increase total to 16gb if I 10 box. But for now I'm waiting on Cata to see how viable 10 boxing will be then. Mostly I just want to build a system now with room for upgrades to 10 box if I choose to pursue that once cata comes out, but for now 8gb will be plenty for any non multiboxing endeavors. But you bring up that maybe other chipset might be better for 10 box? Do you have any recommendations? I am not set on any particular brand or chipset, so if you have experience with something that will do the job just as well, I would love to hear your suggestions. Thank you also for taking the time to reply.

[Owltoid]

There are lots of guys on here much better at hardware than I am... I'm just here to play devil's advocate

[EaTCarbS]

I personally prefer the 1366 sockets

[ParanoidPenguin333]

Not talking about chips from a WoW perspective…

But the i7 930 and beyond offers “true” hyper threading. Currently Newegg has an i7 950 for 279.99. If your willing to pay 250 for the 875, you should def consider the 950 to add another 6 months to a year of lifetime use on your machine on the back end (if you find yourself upgrading a lot, then ignore this comment on upfront upgrade cost optimization)

You should be aware also that the 930 and beyond also requires some upgraded demands from the motherboard and ram due to its true hyper threading capabilities.

If my comp sci theory classes from ages ago holds true in the practical world, a true hyper threading should give you significant performance improvement (as in not just benchmark numbers, but human observable results)

Side note: J&R is offering some ram at huge discounts…it may curve some of your cost as well…but the problem is you may have to buy it tonight…or this weekend at the latest

[burningforce]

I thought I read somewhere (anandtech?)that hyper threading when playing games would actually be a small performance drop due to the coding of the game software.
I also read that an i7 950 is not a good overclocker, so if you want to overclock I would stick to the i7 930.

As for the OP question
I do not think there would be a huge jump from i5 760 to i7 870. I believe the i7 870 features updated instruction sets and clocked higher then the i5. Other then that I would not pay a premium for the i7 870 unless it was only a $10-$30 more.
I would also look into getting more memory, not sure if 8GB will cut it with 10boxing with the updated WoW graphics

[echo]

Thank you penguin and force! I will go read up a bit more on the issues you two raised. Also thank you for the heads up on the ram sale Penguin. More research is always good before I actually commit to a build.

[Ualaa]

I personally get the best performance with each of the four physical cores (i7 920) on each of my five games, and none of the virtual cores (hyperthreading) assigned.

Assigning the virtual cores to games, is a very minor performance hit.