10 box machine setup, first timer help

[heyaz]

So I now have 10 90s and am looking to 10 box on a single machine.

I'm still using my old q6600 from 2008 that I bought to box in BC. Goes without saying it struggles to five box even with all settings on low, and low resolution.

I've already got plenty of monitors (several 27" LEDs). So I need the box.

I'm understanding more and more how CPU bound WoW is, so I'm thinking of putting more money into the CPU than into the GPU, and upgrading the GPU later if need be.

I've read over Tom's hardware and all their machine setups, but none are wow specific or especially not multiboxing specific, they mostly focus on showing you the FPS you get.

I want to go with at least 32GB RAM, and more than enough CPU power. But I don't know how important the RAM speed is; you can go with the fast stuff and be limited to 16GB or the slowest stuff and easily get 64GB on the cheap. Also with the several variations of i5s/i7s, what with ivy and sandy bridge, or go server-grade stuff.

I'm not asking anyone to teach me everything but just point me in the right direction so I don't make costly mistakes (like going for some super video card and a certain generation of CPU that limits me).

Again I want to run all 10 clients on one machine. Just some pointers would be nice, I can figure out the rest I think.

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so tl;dr, want to 10 box on one machine, want to know things like:
1. best CPU setup, which generation of i7, dual CPU even or higher core setups (more than 4), best option
2. RAM setup, how much the speed of the ram matters and whether I'd go 16GB fast ram or 64GB slow ram or somewhere in between
3. GPU ideas, my understanding is one beefy one is better for boxing than 2 in SLI, if I understand things correctly with ISBoxer.
4. Any other ideas

[MiRai]

1. best CPU setup, which generation of i7, dual CPU even or higher core setups (more than 4), best option

The answer to this comes down to how pretty do you want each of your clients to look. The more cores you have available to you the higher you'll be able to turn up the video settings on the slaves; and keep in mind DX11 takes more horsepower than DX9.

A current generation Intel 4-core with hyper-threading should be able to make this happen just fine if you lower your settings on your slaves (I have no hard evidence to back this up), otherwise you're looking at a 3930K.

2. RAM setup, how much the speed of the ram matters and whether I'd go 16GB fast ram or 64GB slow ram or somewhere in between

Old, but still relevant:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4503/s...he-best-ddr3/6

I personally wouldn't spend money on memory over 1866 unless it was cheap and had a CAS of maybe 10 or lower.

The benchmarks in this next article do not pertain to what you want, but the first page of it breaks down MHz, timing, and overall latency when looking at memory:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6372/m...gp-with-gskill

3. GPU ideas, my understanding is one beefy one is better for boxing than 2 in SLI, if I understand things correctly with ISBoxer.

A top-tier single card with a single GPU will always get my vote. AMD currently offers cards with 3GB and nVidia currently offers cards with 4GB. If I really had to make a decision right now as to which manufacturer I'd choose based solely on hardware, I'd probably go with AMD.

While a few others have reported an increase in performance while using SLI (no idea how much), I personally don't see it (at least since I last tested it). I will test it out again in the future, but not anytime soon.

If you want the very most eye candy on your slaves, then you could always buy multiple GPUs and split the load between them; but that opens up a whole other can of worms...

[Ualaa]

I personally went with:

OS: Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit
Case: Antec Eleven Hundred Gamer
PSU: Corsair Modular, 1050 Watts
Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth X79
CPU: i7 3930K, 6 Cores/12 Threads
Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 (Air Cooler); will likely OC CPU to 4.5GHz.
Memory: 32GB, Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz, CL8, Low Profile
Video: eVGA GeForce GTX670 4GB, Superclocked
OS Drive: 2x OCZ Vertex 3, 120GB SSD, striped (in Raid 0).
Storage: 2x Seagate Barracuda 3TB
Optical: Asus 12x BD Writer

I've not actually 10-boxed yet.

The 3930 is the previous generation, but none of the current generation CPUs have more than 4 cores.
My plan is a Core + Logical Core per two game clients, with the first core/logical core for everything else; either that or have 5 Cores/5 Logical Cores, each on everything game related... or all cores/logical cores on everything... will see what is smoothest in mass PvP.
I typically have fifteen Firefox tabs, iTunes playing, and stream my play with XSplit Broadcaster, plus whatever Windows wants to do... while I play... sometimes have a windowed movie going, if I'm farming something or otherwise running repetitive/boring content.
I haven't overclocked the CPU yet, but 4.5GHz is a fairly modest overclock; will try 10-boxing without an OC first, if its smooth enough then I won't need to OC, but an OC (to 4.5GHz each time) on both my i5 2500K and i7 2600K was no issue and a significant boost.

Unless you're overclocking your Ram, I'd go for 1600MHz.
The 3930 doesn't support faster than 1600 base, but you can overclock; my motherboard supported up to 2133 I believe.
From what I read, 1600 CL8 is very comparable to 1866 CL10; price-wise they were the same... but I don't need to overclock the ram, to get equal performance.
I needed low-profile ram, with a maximum height of 22mm (or maybe it was 28mm), because of my cooler (which is one of the best Air based coolers).

I would recommend DX9 for 10-boxing, just because it will require quite a bit less video ram across 10 clients.
For five clients, you needed 1GB of video ram with DX9 and 1.5 GB of video ram with DX11; a rough guess is double that for 10-boxing.
My GTX670 4GB Superclocked actually ran 3 clients on DX11 and 2 clients on DX9 (I thought everyone was DX9, until I checked), everyone on Ultra settings and that never used more than 65% of the graphics card according to GPU-Z; on lower settings, I'm not using more than 30% of the card for five-boxing... so it should be fine for 10 boxing.
Aside from view distance (of players and objects, which I like to max), I'm personally quite content to play on low-medium settings on the slaves and medium settings on the main; the closer the settings are (between main and slaves) the faster IS Boxer can switch via Do Mapped Keys on a region swap (Window: Current > Do High Settings & Window: All without Current > Do Low Settings).

You don't need an SSD for the Operating System, but it is nice to have.
The gaming folder can go onto a cheaper SSD, and you'll notice a performance gain anytime textures (armor in particular) loads... whether in Org, a BG, or upon zoning or entering the world.

[heyaz]

Sounds great. About how much would all of this run? And you say 1GB ram per character which would put me at 10GB video ram to 10 box? I'd need two 4GB cards at least?

I'm fine with low settings on all slaves, I don't care about shadows or super textures but one thing I do want is view distance. Obviously on my old machine even the main has view distance at like 0, I can't even see where I'm going. I at least want med/high on the main and possibly medium on the slaves. I could care less about ultra anywhere, but I want high FPS even say at the worst place for me now - Docks in IOC where I get <1 fps.

As far as RAM - I'm finding 1600 is Very cheap to where I could get 32GB or even 64GB... 1833 is running a bit more

CPU - nothing more than 4 cores on the latest gen? I'd have to pay a premium for the newest kit anyway. Would rather have 6 or more cores. Any good setups maybe dual 6 core 3930Ks?

EDIT: I just noticed the hex core 3930k is twice the cost of the 4 core but I don't know if multi-cpu motherboards are readily available in the consumer market, if they were I'd put in two 4 cores

[MiRai]

CPU - nothing more than 4 cores on the latest gen? I'd have to pay a premium for the newest kit anyway. Would rather have 6 or more cores. Any good setups maybe dual 6 core 3930Ks?

EDIT: I just noticed the hex core 3930k is twice the cost of the 4 core but I don't know if multi-cpu motherboards are readily available in the consumer market, if they were I'd put in two 4 cores

There is close to zero demand for more than 4 cores in the consumer market, let alone dual-CPU motherboards. If you want that stuff you need to dish out the money for it.

[Ualaa]

Per 5 clients, close to 1GB of video ram with DX9 or close to 1.5GB of video ram with DX11.
So with 10 clients, aim for 2GB minimum, with DX9 or 3GB minimum with DX11.

[heyaz]

Ohhhh... 1.0 - 1.5GB per FIVE. I'm all thinking I need 10-15GB of video ram to make this work.

Thanks guys. I think I have a good idea of what I'll build.
I love RAM. Always have. I may throw in a little extra to try to get up to 64GB with at least 1600, 1833 if I can.

CPU is gonna be a tough decision... wow is so CPU bound, I don't know whether - older hex core, or newer quad core. I looked at some of those crazy xeons - octo/deca cores... nah, not spending $2-$5k on the cpu alone.

case, SSD, main HD, PSU, GPU, no problems there.

Now.. to reduce latency further. I'm always hard wired, I hate WiFi. Only one network device (direct link to the modem itself). I'm not sure how much these flashy NICs help. I'm looking at 40-80ms ping on Chicago servers. I was on New York servers before and had 8-20ms ping, but, those servers suck. I hate lag. I hate follow lag, I hate IWT lag, etc.

[Ishar]

My setup for 10 boxing is:

Case: Corsair 800D [I previously had an Antec 1100]
GPU: MSI Lightning Radeon HDR7970 [In eyefinity 6, mostly cause I had 6 monitors from my hardware boxing days].
CPU: Intel i7 3930k
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 32GB (8 x 4GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
HD: OCZ Agility II 90 GB SSD for Win (7, x64) and WoW only.
PSU: CORSAIR Gold Series AX850 [850 Watt]
MB: ASUS P9X79 LGA 2011 Intel X79
CPU COoler: Corsair H100

Other Thoughts:
My previous 3d card, a Radeon HD 6850 was up to the task but had a few issues.

My case is a 'water cooling' case. I only have water cooling on the CPU though. This probably means things run a little unnecessarily hot, but I haven't noticed anything outside tolerances. If you don't want to mess with water, the 1100 is probably a better case; tho its hard to fit the H100 in it. [my motivation for changing away from it]

One thing I've found, is all my beastly builds have stability issues for awhile. And then once stable, if I change things [e.g. upgrade a component], things get unstable again. Go figure. Definitely not a build and forget experience for me, but your mileage might vary. Most of my issues stemmed from either Eyefinity 6 driver issues [getting stuck in non-HW accel mode, or driver BSODs, etc] or my MB [automatically [and poorly] overclocking things with default settings] Eyefinity is getting better with time, though. [and 3x is way less picky, with tons of screen real estate as well]. And the MB issues have gotton better with time [Bios updates and such].

I love the 3930K. Zero regret from getting it.

I don't really have any FPS issues in WOW, not even in docks in IOC. You will probably have to tweak slave video settings a bit though for optimal performance; and be mindful of addons x10.

Edit: Per fancy NIC; I currently use onboard. the fancy NIC [VisionTek Bigfoot Killer 2100] didn't seem to really help, and took system stability to absolute crap. Initially bought because I thought it might offload a little bit of CPU utilization, but with 3930K, my CPU has no issues handling 10 clients.

[Ualaa]

For system Ram, I'd imagine stick with 1GB for the OS plus 1GB per client.
So somewhere around 11GB or more, for Warcraft and not much else.

Depending on the number of channels of your Ram, you'll want to use in multiples of two, three or four.
So likely 12GB/16GB as the minimum.

But Ram is dirt cheap; I went with 32GB, which was 8 sticks of 4 GB each.
The ram has 8-8-8-24 timings, so is considered CAS 8 (CL 8) timings.
Quite a few people with faster ram, overclock it by reducing the frequency but also tightening the timings.
Others overclock by increasing the frequency, which generally loosens the timings.

If you're thinking of a Ram Drive, more Ram is better than less.
Also higher frequency, is likely better for the Ram Drive.
If you'll just be playing the game, especially on an SSD, then choice on your Ram isn't going to be a huge deal.



In the past, I have used a Killer NIC.

The largest benefit seems to be, if you plug an external hard drive into the card.
It will prioritize your gaming bandwidth, over your download of other stuff such as torrents.
You need (or at least for the generation of Killer Card I had) the external drive plugged in through the Killer Card, for this feature.

Ping in game didn't really change any.
Nor did my latency, as reported in warcraft, change all that much.

In my current set up, I've just opted for the fastest internet available in my area.
With Shaw Broadband 250 (15Mbs Upload, 250Mbs Download, 1TB Data Transfer), I can essentially do whatever and not care about the bandwidth.
For example, downloading three torrents each at 1.5 MB/sec and in turn uploading at 1.3 MB/sec (in total, across the three torrents), did not at all reduce the quality of my play or my stream.
I was looking at upgrades over my Broadband 50, mainly to increase the quality of my stream... and Broadband 250 was only $40 more than what I was paying already; the download speed is an added bonus.



I would be very surprised if I needed a PSU as powerful as mine.

When upgrading a system, I generally try to get more than I need.
To kind of future proof the system.

I was looking for the Corsair Modular 1200 Watt, but that wasn't in stock at my local store.
The 1050 (also by Corsair) was (it was the highest rated Watt system, of the Corsair PSUs in stock).
My old 850 Watt PSU would have easily had the juice for the system, but with the new case & PSU that left me with enough components for my old system to run too (which I ended up giving to my mother).



Looking at components, available...
I am tempted to add a more powerful SSD to the system next summer.
Still, $800 (for the 480GB version) is a fair bit; I like that that includes the four year IPR (warranty, with new parts if anything expires/goes... rather than refurbished).

It's not something that is needed, as 2x 120GB SSDs in Raid0 is likely as fast as I'd ever need...

Still, I like that an OCZ RevoDrive x2 supports the TRIM command.
It is essentially, multiple SSDs in RAID format.
But done in such a way that the overall drive is treated as one drive in windows, and support Trim + SCSI Unmap options.
And it is bootable, so I could put my OS on it.

230,000 IOPS, 1500MB/s Read and 1250MB/s Write.
Nothing really compares with this, currently.

[heyaz]

Are any of you able to stream with 10 clients running with these setups... specifically the 3930K w/ 670/680 4GB or equivalent ATI?

Loading up XSplit on my current machine, which runs 5 no problem.. and it's game over. Instant 50% reduction in performance, 75% reduction or more when I start streaming.

I was wondering if similar performance hits happen 10 boxing even with much better hardware.

I've only seen one 10 boxer stream consistently without performance hits but this particular boxer is running server grade components, like 24-32 cpu cores, two 690s, etc.