Upgrading PC

[Alzuule]

Im looking to maybe upgrade my PC and as i have limited knowledge in regards of computer hardware im looking for some advice on what to get and what to keep.

What i have now:

CPU Intel core i5-3570K CPU 3.40GHz
RAM Corsair Vengeance 2133 MHz 2x4GB
GPU NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660
Motherboard MS-7758

Also got SSD drive for my system files and games.

im looking to be able to play the new watchdogs game smoothly on minimum graphics ( higher graphics is ofc nice but not going to spend money on a better graphics card if its not needed ) and multibox 8+ eve clients on minimum settings ( the more the better )

Any help is appreciated, maybe ill even throw a bunch of geckos at someone as a thanks

[pinotnoir]

If you are going to upgrade anything it would be the graphics card. Otherwise, I see no reason that system won't do what you want.

[Ishar]

Might want some more ram if you intend to run 8 clients. I don't know what the ram usage is in eve. You can just run eve and find out. Multiply by 8 and add a few GB on top as a buffer. that's your sanity minimum. More wouldn't hurt.

Additionally when running high numbers of clients you sometimes run into cpu bottlenecks. Probably your best bet is to find someone running 8 eve's and ask what their specs and recommendations are. You have a quad core, which is good; but no HT which is less good. Having more cores is a good thing when going to high-numbers of clients; though its not that important otherwise.

For any application other than boxing I agree with pinotnoir. The gpu should be your first stop.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk

[Alzuule]

So how important is the GPU for multiboxing eve?
Im definitely upgrading to 16 gb ram, but im not sure wether to upgrade CPU or GPU first. I dont really play any other games then eve, in which im starting to multibox more and more and might be looking to add accounts when i get the isk, so right now im looking to know if i would run into a bottleneck with the CPU or GPU first when upping the amount of accounts run. Also might add that i run the accounts for wormhole pvp and pve, not mining so random freezing and what not due to perfomance issues are not something i want to deal with
At most i would probably be running 10 or 12 accounts.

[Slyminxy]

I'll just hijack this thread for my own ends.

My current gaming rig, that supports up to 8 clients (or did..
..because around 2013/2014 new year line, I started having weird blue screens , right after I updated the GFX drivers.
Going back to previous version didn't provide a solution, so I went to Asus's drivers (the gfx was manufactured by asus) and it doesn't crash anymore for the most part.
RAM sticks are fine, so are the hard drives. There's nothing physically seen on the motherboard or the GFX, tested everything multiple times with multiple tools, together and separate. No errors evident.

One of the most common bluescreens happened after I tried to open a can in space. Or had more than just my own clients in the same fleet.
Each client is run from their own folder on the hard drive.)

Rig:

Q9650 CPU
GA-EP43-DS3L motherboard
8 GB of RAM (4x 2GB) DDR2 1066MHz
Radeon HD 7870 2GB

Hard drives are currently separate 250GB for system, 320GB for Games and 5+ HDD's of 500-1000GB for other stuff.
Running Windows 7 Professional SP1 64bit

So, I was thinking. If I upgrade to anything lower than a 6-core i-7, how much do I actually gain? I'm already running 4 cores. The cache is also 12MB on those Quad cores, so I was thinking first upgrade should be going to an SSD drive for the system and games partitions and maybe going to 4x4GB of ram sticks.

The budget, if I decide for a new machine (CPU, MB, Ram, SSD x2, PSU) is around.. 900€. Any hints?

[Ishar]

So how important is the GPU for multiboxing eve?
Im definitely upgrading to 16 gb ram, but im not sure wether to upgrade CPU or GPU first. I dont really play any other games then eve, in which im starting to multibox more and more and might be looking to add accounts when i get the isk, so right now im looking to know if i would run into a bottleneck with the CPU or GPU first when upping the amount of accounts run. Also might add that i run the accounts for wormhole pvp and pve, not mining so random freezing and what not due to perfomance issues are not something i want to deal with
At most i would probably be running 10 or 12 accounts.

I'm not really sure how to answer that; or if it even has an answer. The simple answer is that it's related to how many pixels you are driving firstly, and what you are displaying on them secondly. Or perhaps the other way around; the point being, GPU is king of components for gaming. Boxing slightly less so, but only because we are willing to throttle the FPS in secondary windows and our application is not quite as sensitive to frames per second. It's still king though. So I'd recommend going with the latest and greatest your budget will allow.

TL/DR: GPU isn't any less important for boxing than for other gaming; other components just become more important.

As an aside, if you go Nvidia, you can always add a second card in SLI if your performance falls behind in the future. MiRai has a post over on isboxer that shows SLI does apparently work in windowed mode now; this (I believe) still is not the case for Crossfire. I don't recommend SLI for boxing off hand, though; it is a valid upgrade option down the line.

Re, ram:
I'm running 4x Diablo 3 windows while typing this and using 18 gigs of system ram. This is mostly desktop applications (like Chrome being greedy) and some applications I run in the background. D3 is only accounting for 6 gigs of that. D3 of course isn't Eve. My point is that more than 16 gigs would probably not be a waste, windows et all would find a way to eat it. This doesn't mean you need more than 16 gigs.

[Ishar]

The budget, if I decide for a new machine (CPU, MB, Ram, SSD x2, PSU) is around.. 900€. Any hints?

A hex core i7 is going to eat a large chunk of that budget. A quad-core that supports hyper threading would most likely be a practical improvement in terms of performance for various reasons. I would consider a quad core without HT to a quad core with HT an upgrade.

If you have isboxer, you should be able to virtualize and run them from a single folder. This makes a SSD a solid investment both for windows and for games. I usually move whatever game I'm multiboxing onto my SSD, which is also used for my operating system.

I have a Radeon HD 7970 and it will be my next upgrade (but I'm probably going to jump the fence to Nvidia; probably a 780, maybe multiple 780s.

More ram (at similar speeds) is always better.

I dunno, if it performs adequately to you, SSD would probably make things load faster. Otherwise, I dunno. If you have performance issues. GPU or CPU would be my first stop, which also means Mobo. Unless your ram is filling up, then it.

If you do use a SSD for OS stuff, you can move the temp folders and such to another harddrive, so it hits your SSD less often.

[pinotnoir]

16 Gigs of ram and a new video card is where I would start. I mulitbox 12 in Eve with an i7 3770k 16gig ram and AMD 6970 card. I upgraded my card to the R9 290 and saw a vast improvement. Don't worry about CPU for now. If you find it's your bottleneck later upgrade. But your CPU should be fine. So you add 8 more Gigs of ram for $70 then buy maybe a $300 video card and call it good.

Also, your CPU is unlocked and they can easily be overclocked. If you have a stock cooler you may want to replace it with maybe a Corsair H80i. Then you can really push the limits of overclocking that chip.

[Slyminxy]

A hex core i7 is going to eat a large chunk of that budget. A quad-core that supports hyper threading would most likely be a practical improvement in terms of performance for various reasons. I would consider a quad core without HT to a quad core with HT an upgrade.

So the Q9650 doesn't support HT (HyperThreading), hm.. I thought all Intel CPU's from P4 3.0 did, weird.

[Ishar]

Each architecture is different; it's best to check. Newegg lists it on the stat's page; as does Intel.

It's probably worth comparing more than cores/hyperthreading/clock speed as well; e.g. generational improvements in overall architecture. Though I've never went that far... For myself, I went from Quad-Core (no HT) to a six core (AMD, no HT) to a Six Core (w/ HT); all were clear improvements. Maybe next time I decide to light some cash on fire I will be faced with that decision.

Is hyperthreading an upgrade? Absolutely. will it improve performance in gaming? Usually, yes. Is it necessary to your application? Who knows.

Pinot's advice to the OP was sound. In your case its less clear, but not a bad idea. Though it probably boils down to what you can upgrade without changing mobo. I would pick a hypothetical CPU and Mobo [that is within your near-term budget]; and only upgrade components for my current system that I could transfer to that mobo. If that limits you too severely, it's probably time for a mobo change. If it doesn't; try just adding ram and upgrading your graphics. Depending on how old your mobo is, this might even be a non-issue.