Wich Radeon for Dual-(potentially 5)-Boxing?

[vice333]

Hey Guys,

enjoying the forum so far, read everything about dual-boxing composition and really looking forward to classic.

In anticipation I built myself a new PC and haven't decided on GPU yet; so far I'm using the built-in Intel Graphics. I want to dual-box at release and maybe late play a 5 toon team for dungeon-runs. I already tried my team (pally/warri) in BfA with both maxed on two different monitors and really liked the playstyle. So I want to have both toons open at a good/high quality.

My set-up so far:

Mainboard: Asus Strix Rog z390-f
CPU: i7-9700k
RAM: 16 GB DDR4-3000 DIMM CL15 Dual Kit
SSD: m.2 Samsung Evo
(anything else you guys need to know?)


I have to buy a Radeon cause I want to turn my PC into a Hackintosh someday. From a RX 570 8 GB to a RX Vega 56 8 GB it's a wide price range - and I guess also a wide performance range. The last time I bought a GPU was like 10 years ago. So I really have no clue what to buy and what good and what I need for my dual-boxing-team.

Already paid like 1000 Euro for my system so far. Thus it would be nice to save a few bugs and invest them into wow subscriptions or a RAM update if needed.

Thanks a lot for any help
Vice Versa

[MiRai]

If you're only playing at, or near, a resolution like 1920x1080, then any mid-to-top-tier GPU made in the last several years should be more than enough, and if you plan on turning up your settings, then the more VRAM, the better. Also, if you ever plan on dabbling in BFA with more than two accounts, then the current-day graphics require a good bit more juice than what Classic uses, so it might be worth considering a slightly more powerful GPU if the price difference is small and you can make the jump (you will also want 32GB of RAM for comfortably 5-boxing Retail, if it comes to that).

[vice333]

Thanks for the quick response!

If you're only playing at, or near, a resolution like 1920x1080

Yes, that's what I'm planning.

Also, if you ever plan on dabbling in BFA with more than two accounts, then the current-day graphics require a good bit more juice than what Classic uses, so it might be worth considering a slightly more powerful GPU if the price difference is small and you can make the jump

I don't think, I will play BfA, when Classic is released. And the price difference between let's say a Sapphire Radeon RX 570 Pulse 8GB and a Sapphire Radeon RX 590 Pulse 8GB is like 40 Euro and again to a Sapphire Radeon RX Vega 56 Pulse 8GB it's another 70 Euro. So if I understand you correctly, I will be fine with a Radeon RX 570 8GB, right?



Thanks again
Vice

[MiRai]

I don't think, I will play BfA, when Classic is released. And the price difference between let's say a Sapphire Radeon RX 570 Pulse 8GB and a Sapphire Radeon RX 590 Pulse 8GB is like 40 Euro and again to a Sapphire Radeon RX Vega 56 Pulse 8GB it's another 70 Euro. So if I understand you correctly, I will be fine with a Radeon RX 570 8GB, right?

Personally, I don't know much about AMD and how their GPUs perform in WoW, in comparison to nVidia, but according to some benchmarks that I briefly looked at, the Vega 56 is like a 40-70% increase in performance over the RX 570, since the 570 was already a lower-end GPU when it originally launched 2+ years ago.

When I said "mid-to-top-tier GPU from the past several years," I meant more along the lines of mid-tier today, top-tier from years ago, which should be about equal to each other. For example, a top-tier GTX 980 Ti launched over four years ago in June of 2015, which is on par with a mid-tier GTX 1070 from just last generation and is about 20% slower than a current-day RTX 2060. AMD has been behind the curve for awhile when it comes to competing with nVidia, and so the two-year old RX 570, is ~40% slower than the four-year old GTX 980 Ti. Again, I only looked at a few benchmarks, as I'd rather not analyze benchmarks and reviews for the next 2+ hours right now.

At the moment, I have a 1080 Ti, which looks to be more than 2x as good as the RX 570 [looking at Destiny 2 DX11 1080 (145 vs 70) & 2160 (71 vs < 30)].
Standing at the War Masters in SW for the AV beta testing, I'm eating through ~10% of my GPU with a lot of settings turned to their lowest (no AA) @ 1080.
If I increase everything to Ultra (no AA), I eat through ~20% of the GPU.
If I turn the resolution up to 4K, which is 4x the amount of pixels as 1080, then I eat through ~50-60% of the GPU on Ultra, and ~33% at low. Keep in mind that I'm not lowering texture resolution, and I don't have any VRAM numbers because I have a ton of stuff running in the background that eats through VRAM (editing programs, browser tabs, etc.)

I assume, with some rough napkin math, that you could expect 2x as much load being put on a RX 570 in similar situations, since, again, the 1080 Ti has ~2x the performance.

[vice333]

Thanks again, this is helping me a lot.

With your GPU utilization data of the Classic Beta Client, I have a better understanding of how demanding Classic will be. Thanks.

I compared some benchmarks for nVidia and AMD and I think the Vega 56 is the way to go. The 1080 Ti has a better performance of like 25%-30%, but I think, I will be fine with only two toons on 1080p.

Maybe prices will drop after the 7th of July, when AMD will release the new RX 5700 XT, and then I will eventually afford a Radeon VII, which has more or less the same performance as the 1080 Ti, but 16GB Ram.



Cheers
Vice