Quote Originally Posted by d0z3rr View Post
Not sure why I have to say this so many times: multiboxing is aways limited by cpu/ram. You can easily 5box with that $130 video card (how do I know? I used a $75 card for quite a while). Shadows are retarded, so turn them off (name one video game where you were awed by the shadows). You don't need AA/AF, view distance, spell effects, water/grass on the alts, turn them off.

Unless you'll be doing a lot of instance swapping or whatever it is called with keyclone/IS, then you'll want the better video card. Or you'll be playing other games (dead space 2, black ops, rift).

Just my 2 pesos.
Multiboxing is not always limited by CPU and RAM - by making a sweeping generalization like this, you're just creating your own misconceptions. I'm not saying a graphics card upgrade is a magic bullet either, but most of the time there will be a combination of factors that will improve performance.

Sure you can 5 box with that $130 video card with all the settings turned down, just like you can drive around town in a shit-box Hyundai - doesn't mean you want to though. Some of us like the eye candy, it makes for a enjoyable playing experience - and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Quote Originally Posted by d0z3rr View Post
Again, another common missconception: Thinking that because your gpu/cpu utilization is at a certain percentage means it's time for an upgrade.

I can use calc.exe and peg my i7 at 100%, does that mean it sucks? Nope. If I'm rendering a video on a pentium 2 vs an i7, they both will be at 100% or whatever, the main thing that matters is how long it takes each processor to render.

F@H will use 100% of your GPU, whether its a 560, 5970, or a ti4200.

I'm not saying a new video isn't a bad idea. You can max out your main window and make everything look pretty, and if you decide to pick up a new game you know you'll be fine at least for a year or two.
We're not measuring performance in calc, rendering video, or F@H - we're talking about performance in WoW. The idea behind using tools like GPU-Z and CPU-Z, is to establish a scale of performance relative to WoW itself.

For example, previously on my system I was running dual HD 5780's. If I parked my group on Orgrimmar, turned all the settings down to their minimum on my main, I got about 80% GPU usage on average and 40 FPS. Dialing the settings up to 'fair' and I saw about 90-100% usage with a drop in FPS down to 20-30. Moving the settings up to 'good' and I saw a constant 100% usage, along with a big drop in FPS to about 10-15 . At the same time if I looked at my CPU and RAM usage, and saw that neither were maxed out, then its logical to assume that the video card had become the limiting factor at these settings.

Sure enough when I upgraded to the GTX 580's I saw a big jump in FPS - I can now run my main at 'Ultra' settings with shadows at 'good' and still get around 30 FPS in Org. To be fair, my system setup is probably a bit different to most (more on this in another post) - but my point is these tools are perfectly valid to use as point of comparison for performance within WoW.

Cheers,
S.