5-Boxing MoP Upgrade

[david357]

Hi,
Because of the incoming of the new WoW expansion, I'm thinking of upgrading my current hardware, which is built around a i5 750 @2,6ghz and a AMD 5850 1GO. However, i'm wondering if I could keep my graphic card because 5-boxing seems to be rather CPU-limited.
What do you think, can I keep my old graphic card and take profit of a i5-3570k for example ? Thanks !

[david357]

Is the ATI 5850 1GO sufficient to 5-box MoP ? That's finally the only real question ! Thanks.

[JohnGabriel]

I have my extra GTX 465 you can have for free if that is better. I dont know anything about them.

[MiRai]

Is the ATI 5850 1GO sufficient to 5-box MoP ? That's finally the only real question ! Thanks.

If you don't expect to play on high video settings, then yes. What do you consider "playable" FPS?

I have my extra GTX 465 you can have for free if that is better. I dont know anything about them.

They're practically the same card.

[david357]

Thanks for your explanations !

You're right about the 465, it's quite the same as the 5850, it looks like JohnGabriel made the change I'm thinking about : dropping the 2010's card for a new one !

I'm currently able to have 4 chars at 1280x720 LOW @30fps and my main character @60fps and often less in AV, but I think it's also because of my old i5-750 which is going to be changed soon. What do you think about it MiRai ?

I've heard video memory was the most important once the CPU is ok, that's why I was thinking of upgrading to 2go, even if it's for a 560ti which is not a monster, for example...

[jstanthr]

If i'm not mistaken the "2Go" version is a dual gpu card. That may give you some issues doing certain things. I know several people that 5box on the 560ti and have had no probs at all.

[MiRai]

I don't have a definitive answer for whether you'll be able to play at settings that are much higher than what you're currently using or not. If you're content with playing at 1280x720 then I'm sure you can successfully hold out until you can afford a video card upgrade with your new system. You could always just lower your background FPS to like 10 or 15 and free up almost 80 wasted FPS that your slaves don't need which will give your GPU some breathing room for possibly higher settings on your main.

What is 1go and 2go? I'm assuming that I should be reading that as GB for gigabyte. Video memory isn't the most important factor because if your card doesn't have the horsepower to handle filling it up, then your performance is still going to suffer. Here's a GT 640 with 2GB of RAM, but you won't be able to 5-box with it because it doesn't have the horsepower. Memory Bandwidth and Texture Fill Rate are probably the most important specs on a GPU and you'll need to look at reputable hardware sites to see where exactly your current card falls versus a 560 Ti in a benchmark. The 660 Ti also just came out which costs about $60 more than the 560 Ti, has more video RAM, and is just a faster card overall.

[david357]

You're right, I should lower my slave's FPS and see if I can play well on my main, I used to think 30fps for slaves was necessary in order them not to stop following the main char, or lagging at casting spell !

Ok GTX560Ti is not a good example so if a change is actually needed I guess I'll go for a 7850 @2Gb (GO is what's you're used to deal with in France... ) it seems to be a quite fast card. Thanks for introducing Memory Bandwidth and Texture Fill Rate as I didn't used to paying attention to them ! However 660TI might be too expensive for me, ATI is what I'll look for !

I keep on thinking 2Gb will be necessary because of the sorts of benchmarks I've ran on the beta, it looks like MoP's new world is pretty heavy in terms of video memory. Since I'm really interested in playing world PvP with my 5-Box teams, I would be upset to get owned because of crappy FPS !

[beeq]

For 5boxing I use stacked windows with alt+1..5 hotkeys, so the only visible window is the active one.
Using 60/5, so 60fps on active window, 5fps on hidden ones. Ultra settings on main toon, fair settings on others.

I think amount of total memory is more important than having this or that video card, at least on my case.

[david357]

I've been used to having my clones at the bottom of my screen so it'd be difficult to break my habits, but I'm now @5fps on my clones and my system is pretty cooler !

However I still have the same concern, isn't there a higher risk for my clones to have a delay when switching target on my main with a lower fps rate on clones ?

Btw thanks Beeq for the tips you gave me months ago in-game about arcane mages, I've had fun in dungeons by trying to kill the same boss as you did in your videos