Minimum pc for 5 box

[Xraptorx]

I got rid of my pc 2 years ago when I quit wow. Now I want to come back and 5 box again. My wife likes iMac and the nice design and quiet operation. So I need to consider noise and hopefully can find a near silent pc. I was thinking of running on 2 24" monitors and want a pc that can power 5 clients across such a display with great resolution and frame rates

What is the min spec I should consider? Besides wow, I might use the pc for xmbc and skyrim

Another thought.

Can a i5 iMac run 5 box using VMware without problems? I would only have 1 27" monitor, but that might be the easiest solution. Just not sure if it all runs smoothlynon VMware

[Ualaa]

If you're boxing, I'd strongly consider a PC.
Far greater choice in available software.

IS Boxer is the top candidate, and that is for PC's.



If you're just playing the game, I'd go with an i5 2500K system.
But if you'll be streaming and doing videos too, an i7 2600K system is about $100 extra.
The i7 has virtual cores (hyperthreading), while the i5 does not.

Get a decent motherboard for your chip.
I like Asus boards, but Gigabyte have been good too.
Everyone has a preference.

In general you want 1GB of ram for your Operating System (get a 64-bit version of Window 7).
Plus at least 1GB per client you're running.
6GB would work, but most motherboards are either multiples of 2 or of 3 slots.
So I'd go with 8GB or 12GB, to give yourself some extra ram.
Ram is very cheap.

Go with a single video card, not a pair in Crossfire/SLI.
A major consideration is the number of ports on the back of it, determining how many monitors you can use.
Mine (GTX 570) has two DVI ports and an HDMI port, so in theory I could run three monitors but am using two.

Strongly consider an SSD (solid state drive) for your gaming folder.
Doesn't have to be fancy, but its a major improvement in your play.

There are plenty of virtually silent after-market coolers for your system/CPU.
You could even go with a water cooled system, which is less noise.

Browsing the technical forum, would have more insight than I can give you.

[lans83]

I'll add in here my opinion on this, grab an Intel SSD and not an OCZ. I've got an Intel in mine now for over a year and had no problems, even after reformatting my laptop with it in. Many people have had problems with OCZs and some other brands as they do not hold up very well. Since it's the holiday season, you'll do good at grabbing one now since most are on sell, Newegg.com is my main shopping source. Someone posted a link in this forum of a good 120gig for around $120. I paid that for a 60gig a few months after they came out. They won't increase your FPS, but will cut loading times down, especially if you've got alot of addons running, like I do, even for one account vs multiboxing :/

[MiRai]

In general you want 1GB of ram for your Operating System (get a 64-bit version of Window 7).

2GB for x64

Mine (GTX 570) has two DVI ports and an HDMI port, so in theory I could run three monitors but am using two.

When you plug in an HDMI cable you deactivate one of the DVI ports. The only nVidia cards that can run 3 monitors
are dual-GPU cards. (Repeated this from the other thread solely for the purpose that not everyone reads every
thread in this forum and not because I was picking on you. )

I'll add in here my opinion on this, grab an Intel SSD and not an OCZ. I've got an Intel in mine now for over a year and had no problems, even after reformatting my laptop with it in. Many people have had problems with OCZs and some other brands as they do not hold up very well.

The rule of thumb that I currently go by is that if an SSD uses a Marvell controller then, it's probably safe; and if it
uses a SandForce controller, beware. However, OCZ just released a new line of drives that use an Indilinx controller
rather than SandForce and Intel's new 520 SSDs that were rumored to use SandForce might be using something
totally different (Anobit?).

[zer0patches]

The rule of thumb that I currently go by is that if an SSD uses a Marvell controller then, it's probably safe; and if it
uses a SandForce controller, beware. However, OCZ just released a new line of drives that use an Indilinx controller
rather than SandForce and Intel's new 520 SSDs that were rumored to use SandForce might be using something
totally different (Anobit?).

I think sandforce has gotten a bad rap from all the pr and issues with the newest drives based off sandforce. I have been using (RAID0) 4x ocz 80gb vertex 2's (sandforce) for over a year with no problems.

SSD's in general including intel and others have always battled issues with firmware bugs etc. It's not just a sandforce issue. You can avoid a lot of the compatibility issues if you do a little research before hand.

Even though the first gen sandforce drives do not support trim in raid I have yet to see a very noticeable drop in performance athough the numbers below I just benchmarked were slightly lower than a fresh install.

Originally on a fresh install with new drives I was getting writes around 950 MB/S Write and 1325 MB/S Read but honestly I can;t really tell much of a difference. =p

Small file performance for files less than 64k is supposed to be much improved on the newer chipsets but It hasn't really held back the performance that much. From post to desktop was about 14 to 18 seconds in windows 7 x64 on a new install.

I would like to upgrade to 4x vertex 3's at some point. =p

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Originally on a fresh install with new drives I was getting writes around 950 MB/S Write and 1325 MB/S Read but honestly I can;t really tell much of a difference. =p

Good lord. I really need to look into upgrading to newer drives. I've been happy with these but damn...those speeds...



And my single-drive (backup drive) in that same system:


And my normal HDDs in raid0 on the other PC (same exact system, just HDDs different):


Still much better than platter drives but nowhere near yours, especially on write speeds.

[Ualaa]

I've had a Patriot Torq (64gb SSD) for close to two years now, and am very happy with it.
It is my gaming folder, for Warcraft, Starcraft II, Diablo II, and Birth of the Federation.

I went with an OCZ Vertex 3 (almost twice as fast as the Patriot) and it has 120GB of storage.
This is my system drive.

The OCZ went and died completely, about a month after purchase.
I've got an Instant-Product-Replacement plan at my local store, so the drive was replaced within 24 hours and they did the Windows install on the new drive, drivers updated etc.
It would have been free, and just give me a drive if I had preferred.
Anyway, have had the new drive for 3-4 months now, and no issues with it.

Quite a few people have mentioned the Intel drives as being very reliable.

[Xraptorx]

I will try to do 5 installs on parallels and see if my iMac can handle it. Thinking wife would explode if I buy a pc for gaming as she hates gaming. If done on iMac, I can play a bit when she is in bed

[Ualaa]

Not an issue at all.
I'm going with personal experience on hardware, and am certainly not an expert.

In particular, I've found your posts and Sajuuk's informative for hardware .

[sethlan]

From my own experience when boxing 5x toons on i5 2500k, you have to lower the graphics all the way to low if you want everything to run smooth, cpu usage is right on the border, when you enter org, server is pretty heavy where I play. Its ok to stream, but it may spike/lag in some areas (in instances is smooth as butter) if you cut to 4x toons its perfect, I cant believe how much of a different is is from 4 to 5 box. So what I would do Get i7 2600k no matter what, I made huge mistake not going to i7 (I'm going to change my cpu soon) 8gb of ram is minimum, im running at 5gb atm with win7 64bit spikes to 6 when i hit org. So from what i can tell/see : i7 2600k with 12gb would be perfect.