Considering a Computer Upgrade

[Stealthy]

I'm currently running an i7-950 with 12GB RAM - with 5 WoW sessions open, I see about 8-9GB being used. The benefit of having 12GB shows when opening other apps (several IE windows, media player, excel, email, etc) - there's no reduction in the RAM available to WoW, so less impact on performance.

If you want to see how much of a limitation your video card is - download an app called GPU-Z (http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz), run it, and see what % of your GPU is being utilized when you multibox WoW. if it's near or at 100%, then you should probably look at upgrading your video card as well.

GPU-Z and it's sister app, CPU-Z are great for testing the utilization of GPU's and CPU's respectively, if you're looking for bottlenecks in your system (they provide good info if you're overclocking as well).

Cheers,
S.

[daanji]

I'm currently running an i7-950 with 12GB RAM - with 5 WoW sessions open, I see about 8-9GB being used. The benefit of having 12GB shows when opening other apps (several IE windows, media player, excel, email, etc) - there's no reduction in the RAM available to WoW, so less impact on performance.

If you want to see how much of a limitation your video card is - download an app called GPU-Z (http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz), run it, and see what % of your GPU is being utilized when you multibox WoW. if it's near or at 100%, then you should probably look at upgrading your video card as well.

GPU-Z and it's sister app, CPU-Z are great for testing the utilization of GPU's and CPU's respectively, if you're looking for bottlenecks in your system (they provide good info if you're overclocking as well).

Cheers,
S.

Thanks for this. I got GPU-Z and it is showing, with my current graphic setting, GPU load is around 80% with almost max GPU memory utilization. My x4 slaves are set to the lowest possible setting, the main window is set to fair.

So I'm thinking a Nvidia 560 Ti with 12 GB system memory will make everything better.

[daanji]

Here is a screen capture from GPUZ and Task Manager.

Both show the GPU load, GPU memory, System Memory, and CPU very loaded.


Perhaps it is currently CPU bound. Hmmm.

[d0z3rr]

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.




Getting a bit more offtrack. The biggest mistake I see people do is use Crysis as a benchmark. Crysis has one of the most unoptimized 3d graphics engines I've ever seen since City of Heroes. Compare it's graphics to Unreal 3 which runs silky smooth on almost any system. Going back to Quake 3 Arena days, that engine was incredibly optimized for it's graphics level.

[d0z3rr]

You need RAM, get another 6GB if possible, at least 10GB if you're 5boxing on one machine. Try that first.

[MiRai]

You need RAM, get another 6GB if possible, at least 10GB if you're 5boxing on one machine. Try that first.

Why would someone put a total of 10GB in an i7/1366 system? Couldn't afford that 6th 2GB DIMM?

[Stealthy]

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.

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.

[Noids]

Back to the OPs questions:

1. For $150 the best upgrade you can make to your current system is more RAM. I run a 12GB system very similar to yours and sit at 8-9GB utilisation.

2. You can perform this upgrade by either purchasing a 3 x 2GB kit (pick something that is rated to 1600MHz ideally) or a
3 x 4GB kit. The 2GB kit should slot into your empty slots quite happily as long as it is decently rated (ie. not 1066MHx or anything stupid). As I think Fenril mentioned mixing memory can sometimes have pitfalls. With your existing motherboard in Tri channel setup, adding a new 3 x ? kit should not be a problem. If you were to mix different DIMMs in the same channel you will run into problems but normally this may just reduce you to dual or single channel efficiency.

Personally I wouldn't worry about the 3x4GB kit if you want to go for 18GB total. Currently WoW is not allowed to use more than 2GB per instance so you will never use more than 10GB unless you have other programs open which also use a decent amount.

Where the 3 x 4GB kit would be nice though is if you want to overclock your CPU. I run my 920 at 4GHz very happily on air 24/7. The gear that you have should support this quite nicely. If you had all 6 of your DIMM slots full however, the memory subsystem on the X58 motherboards can often be a weak point for overclocking.

In summary if 3 x 4GB ram fits into your budget, then pull the trigger, no questions asked. Once you have the 12GB you can then play around with OCing the CPU at your leisure (even on the stock intel cooler).

If you would rather save the cash, go for 3 x 2GB for 12GB total.

I agree with the other guys, once you have the ram, save for a video upgrade next, but anything less than a 5xxGTX is probably not worth the cash. I also like NVIDIA over ATI for WoW performance in general. Check out the Tomshardware WoW performance summary if you want to compare hardware for single wow instances.

[Sajuuk]

I agree with the other guys, once you have the ram, save for a video upgrade next, but anything less than a 5xxGTX is probably not worth the cash.

DISAGREE.

While the 5XXGTX cards might provide the most performance/best performance if you've got the money, there's nothing that says you couldn't get a couple ATI/older cards and run multiples of them and split performance of slave instances between them. And while the power usage/heat might not be worth it, there's nothing saying a couple gray market (used) cards wouldn't be less expensive than a 5XXGTX card.

But this is just me arguing for the sake to argue.

[daanji]

Thanks for the feed back everyone.

I decided to order

GIGABYTE GV-N560OC-1GI GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PC
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 12GB (3 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)

Once I get them and installed, I'll report back on how my performance has improved.