How good computer for 10 toons

[Shania]

Im getting closer to my upgrade.

cards we looking at are: Gigabyte 1536M GTX580 PCI-E VGA Card
cpu i think we are going for Intel Core i7-950 3.06Ghz LGA1366 CPU, not even sure what is the new or old ones, fiance has a better understanding then myself.

With ram, all I know is, its ddr3 and think 12 gigs, Im not sure if anything special about ram is needed to be known ?

I want to run 5-7 clients in cities without 3fps and hoping to have vid settings on at least good or next one up.

[MiRai]

cpu i think we are going for Intel Core i7-950 3.06Ghz LGA1366 CPU, not even sure what is the new or old ones, fiance has a better understanding then myself.

I'm curious as to why he has chosen a 1366 processor over an 1155 processor? It's something I like to ask people... kinda like
a survey.

[Bollwerk]

I'm curious as to why he has chosen a 1366 processor over an 1155 processor? It's something I like to ask people... kinda like
a survey.

Wondering that myself. Why get an older, slower processor?
I suppose if you already have the motherboard and don't want to buy a new one, I can understand.

[coglistings]

I'm curious as to why he has chosen a 1366 processor over an 1155 processor? It's something I like to ask people... kinda like
a survey.

no known issue with a 950, plus you can nab them at a cool 200 bucks. 1366 was considered the enthusiast chipset, while the 1155's have won out in the end, didn't mean there was something wrong with the chipset, nor that 1155's can always outperform a 1366 though the instances where this is true do not appear to be in a wow client case. also, with the 1366 chipset, you can achieve 12 gig's on a single channel 4*3 where you have to use both channels on the 1155 to get pass 8 gig's. not certain if it applies to 1155's chipset, but I could have sworn I saw a post regarding a slight performance in running just one channel instead of using all channels on the 1366 side.

[lightstriker]

Get 12 cores

[EaTCarbS]

Get 12 cores

Waste money on Apple products

[MiRai]

no known issue with a 950,

Anyone building a PC should know exactly what happened with 1155 months ago. The only way you're going to get your hands
on a non-B3 revision board is if you actively seek one out.

plus you can nab them at a cool 200 bucks.

1366 Core i7 950 - $270
1155 Core i7 2600 - $300

1366 was considered the enthusiast chipset, while the 1155's have won out in the end, didn't mean there was something wrong with the chipset, nor that 1155's can always outperform a 1366 though the instances where this is true do not appear to be in a wow client case.

This benchmark was taken at 1024x768 resolution so that the GPU would not be the bottleneck and the CPUs could flex
whatever it is that CPUs flex [in this case, FPS]. Source: Anandtech

also, with the 1366 chipset, you can achieve 12 gig's on a single channel 4*3 where you have to use both channels on the 1155 to get pass 8 gig's. not certain if it applies to 1155's chipset, but I could have sworn I saw a post regarding a slight performance in running just one channel instead of using all channels on the 1366 side.

You're absolutely correct that filling up more banks increases the time that it takes the CPU/Chipset to access the memory.
However, the increase of access time is quite negligible. The only people who care about filling up RAM banks are those
trying to break overclocking records where milliseconds may actually mean something.

As Kicksome stated, he had to upgrade to 24GB of RAM (from 12GB) when he switched from 5 to 10 boxing on his 1366
setup. My 1155 board currently has 16GB in it and I use less than 12GB with very nice settings on all my windows. And...
when 8GB (non-ECC) DIMMs come out I can upgrade to 32GB if I think I might ever use that much. Which also means
that you'll be able to fill up 2 out of the 4 banks on an 1155 board and have 16GB and not worry about those extra
milliseconds of access time by filling up all 4 banks.

Get 12 cores

Here are some 8 and 10 core Intel processors.

[coglistings]

haha, don't buy CPU's from newegg!

http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...ct_id=0346210\

appears its onsale for $179.99. If you have a microcenter intown though, you can pick up an i5 2500k for exactly same price. no such limitation on the i7 950. mail order as you please

(there was also a bundle deal where you can get a high end asus mb with 1tb hitatchi for almost 300 but can find link)

the other things will need more research to answer without me just running my keyboard, but lets not forget that if you ever go for an intel extreme processor, you will be on the 1336 chipset, not the 1156. IDk about you, but I do enjoy hyperthreading that i-7's offer.

from this point, its really all just academic. the test that really matters is to actually get everything up and running and then report what you find to the community!

[MiRai]

haha, don't buy CPU's from newegg!

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0346210\

appears its onsale for $179.99. If you have a microcenter intown though, you can pick up an i5 2500k for exactly same price. no such limitation on the i7 950. mail order as you please

Exactly, you have to live by one in order to take advantage of that.

(there was also a bundle deal where you can get a high end asus mb with 1tb hitatchi for almost 300 but can find link)

the other things will need more research to answer without me just running my keyboard, but lets not forget that if you ever go for an intel extreme processor, you will be on the 1336 chipset, not the 1156. IDk about you, but I do enjoy hyperthreading that i-7's offer.

Sounds like you're confusing 1156 with 1155 -- we're talking about two totally different chipsets.

from this point, its really all just academic. the test that really matters is to actually get everything up and running and then report what you find to the community!

I agree, everyone's computer is different; but, the 1155 processors, from benchmarks I've seen, handle everything overall
much better than last generation's 1366 processors for practically the same price.

[coglistings]

Exactly, you have to live by one in order to take advantage of that.
Sounds like you're confusing 1156 with 1155 -- we're talking about two totally different chipsets.

no, you misread, or didn't fully read, you have to live by one to get the i5 for the same price, you can order as many i7 950's as you want online. Please, your quote of my post has that part in it :P


On another note, I just reread the specs on Intel extreme processors and they are on the 1336 sockets and 1336 sockets are not compatable with 1155 or 1156 anyway you read it / force push processor into slot. 1366 and 1336 remain the enthusiast chipset while 1155 and 1156 are considered more entry level, hense no extremem processor for the 1155 nor 1156 socket

So for a test, I took a i7 950 and disabled hyperthreading in the bios and found that most of the time, I was peggin all cores over 60 percent just sitting on a bird in org with five clients. when flying around, follow did not break on the characters, but core utalization pegged out at 100 percent on some cores with descent frequency. when i am in a pvp battle with hyperthreading, I don't get above 60 percent on my box as a refference. the feel also wasn't as fluid as it is with the hyperthreading enabled IMO. I only have 12 gig's on this rig but I will see how well I can push more clients to help the OP's decision

cont...

on another rig although with a i7 930, I was able to run 9 clients with low graphics settings. the ram consumption was not what I expected from Kick's setup, only used about 6.8 GBs, possibly cause it only reserves a certain portion of ram and not a set amount unless below the true mim requirements. anyone who has delt with citrix desktop virtualization of windows desktop application will have seen this result as well as this has been the only other place where I have cared to look. I think I saw this ram consumption result also on another dual xeon test rig that was setup by a friend. anyway, I also did a flight test just running over the population of org and found that there was no follow breaks. turning off hyperthreading resulted in clients breaking follow in the flight test. Of course, I can not be sure how the faster non hyperthreaded processor i5 will deal, but at least we have two systems, one by kicksome and another by myself, that can do what you want. still need someone to do a Proof of Concept for the i5. btw, the 9 client rig was running with a much older graphics card than kick's, a 260 Nvidia.

@OP, hope this helps

thanks for all the fish