I think I just wasted $1000 on upgrades (Vista64, 8GB Ram, Dual 9800gtx)

[Nitro]

No, I can't say that I have. I OC'ed it from Day 1. But, for you, it's a pretty easy process. You work it in your bios. Just do it in very small increments. Bump your voltage a teeny bit, and bump your speed a teeny bit, start up, run Prime95 with some sort of program to watch your CPU temp, restart and repeat until satisfied.

I's there a favored guide I could follow?

[Gallo]

www.overclockers.com and tomshardware both have FAQ's about it.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

OC'ing may take some research. For RAM, it's much more difficult because a minor timings difference can result in memory corruption (I just went through this...gah). For CPUs, assuming your mobo is good quality, you can just up the multiplier (yours is probably set to 9x) until you get to 3.0-3.2GHz and call it a day. For RAM, you'll need to adjust your mobo BIOS timings tweaks to match the specs on the RAM. Once you get it all OC'd, you'll definitely want to run Prime95 in 4-core "Torture Test" mode overnight and make sure it doesn't show any errors. Here's some links to the tools you'll need to make sure everything is still kosher:

Core Temp utility -- for watching the temps on all 4 cores. Should run during normal gaming no higher than ~65-70C and no higher than ~80C under torture test.
CPU-Z timings and specs identification utility -- for making sure the RAM, CPU and FSB are running at the correct timings and voltages.
Prime95 for quad-core systems -- Same as basic prime95 but supports dual/triple/quad CPUs. Run this on torture test overnight to validate data integrity at your current settings. This thread has the link to the Windows 64bit version.

Looking at the basic datasheet for your RAM, it looks like the base timings are 5-5-5-18 @ 1.9V. You'll want to run CPU-Z and see what your voltage is ACTUALLY running at versus what you see in the RAM voltage settings, then tweak those to match it. As an example, mine was running at 1.8V by default but the RAM I have requires 2.0V. So I had to bump my "DDR2 Overvoltage" setting to +0.20V. Unfortunately, I don't see any settings for tRC, tRCD or any of the advanced stuff, which may or may not be a problem. Short version is set your mobo to 5-5-5-18 and the tweak to get it to 1.9V actual and then bump the speed/multiplier up a little and see if Prime95 will run successfully overnight. If it does, you're good. If not, back it off and try again. It's not a quick process and, as mentioned above, you'll get more results out of OC'ing your CPU than messing with the RAM.

Good luck!

[Majo]

If it were me, I would have spent $1000 on a 2nd machine to split the loads. With the way wow utilizes the resources of your machine, you would probably see alot more gain with in-city performance by splitting machines rather than upgrading your current one further.

[StormClouds]

This may be silly ... but I run on a MUCH older system then you ... you may want to try using WinEQ2 for your window management .... I run 5 and don't really lag at all.... though i havnt tried the other screen managers, as this one has always worked for me

[Nitro]

If it were me, I would have spent $1000 on a 2nd machine to split the loads. With the way wow utilizes the resources of your machine, you would probably see alot more gain with in-city performance by splitting machines rather than upgrading your current one further.

I already have 12 machines that can run wow very well, but im a fan of a single box setup:

[Korruptor]

Just a warning, using this tool can eat a ton of time getting the tweaks just right but I love it non the less.

http://www.nliteos.com/nlite.html

• Service Pack Integration
• Component Removal
• Unattended Setup
• Driver Integration *
• Hotfixes Integration **
• Tweaks
• Services Configuration
• Patches ***
• Bootable ISO creation

nlite is an OS mod tool. With it you can strip out all the crap in Windows like IE, WIM and anything else you want, the problem is that you *can* strip out too much and mess up your OS install but the tools warns you about what you should and shouldn't remove.

I've had great success using this tool in developing a lean XP SP2 install CD with all the latest nVidia/mobo/raid/ether drivers

When you run the tool you direct it to a CD and it extracts the installation files, then you can apply the latest SP's and hotfixes, all the drivers for your hardware (you can remove pre-existing ones as well), add an unattended installation config, remove/configure services, make registry tweaks, add any of your own apps to the image and then make a bootable CD.

Cheers!

The Windows OS's get progressively fatter with each new version so this app allows you to keep the best aspects and remove the crap that only slows your box down.

[Nitro]

Just a warning, using this tool can eat a ton of time getting the tweaks just right but I love it non the less.

http://www.nliteos.com/nlite.html

• Service Pack Integration
• Component Removal
• Unattended Setup
• Driver Integration *
• Hotfixes Integration **
• Tweaks
• Services Configuration
• Patches ***
• Bootable ISO creation

nlite is an OS mod tool. With it you can strip out all the crap in Windows like IE, WIM and anything else you want, the problem is that you *can* strip out too much and mess up your OS install but the tools warns you about what you should and shouldn't remove.

I've had great success using this tool in developing a lean XP SP2 install CD with all the latest nVidia/mobo/raid/ether drivers

When you run the tool you direct it to a CD and it extracts the installation files, then you can apply the latest SP's and hotfixes, all the drivers for your hardware (you can remove pre-existing ones as well), add an unattended installation config, remove/configure services, make registry tweaks, add any of your own apps to the image and then make a bootable CD.

Cheers!

The Windows OS's get progressively fatter with each new version so this app allows you to keep the best aspects and remove the crap that only slows your box down.

Yea nLites pretty cool, i use to manage alot of mobile devices in the MS labs (laptops, tapletPC, ultramobiles) and it was nice for building reinstallation disks with all the right drivers ready to go.

[Majo]

If it were me, I would have spent $1000 on a 2nd machine to split the loads. With the way wow utilizes the resources of your machine, you would probably see alot more gain with in-city performance by splitting machines rather than upgrading your current one further.

I already have 12 machines that can run wow very well, but im a fan of a single box setup:

/boggle

O_o

I'm moving in, btw.

[BobGnarly]

I wouldn't OC anything, personally. You have plenty of horsepower to run what you're trying to do. Something is obviously not working right. (For reference, I have a core 2 duo + 8800gtx + 30" monitor and run 60fps main screen everywhere but major cities - 5 clients).

Things I would try:

As mentioned, pull one of the cards out of the machine (do this, don't just disable one card or w/e, physically pull it out) and run it all on one video card. Vista is supposed to be better about multicard monitor handling, but I'm always suspicious of this because it's just not a frequently stressed scenario (not many people run multiple video cards, and the vast preponderance of those who do use it for SLI).

Pull 4G of RAM (2 sticks) out. Running 4 sticks of RAM often causes extra wait states or generally poor memory performance. If you want 8G of RAM, I recommend doing it with 2 sticks. At least pull 2 of your sticks out and try it with 4G to see what happens.

Don't run 5 copies of wow in 5 different directories, and especially not on 5 different disks (if that's what you're doing). You are blowing per-disk caching, AND you are wasting a ton of whatever OS disk caching is happening. Assuming 5 instances of wow can't run in system disk cache, which I'm virtually positive it won't, you are thrashing that cache because you are loading off different disks (the OS doesn't know it's the same data). As mentioned, you are WAY better of running it all out of a single wow directory because each time it loads data for one client, it will be cached for the other 4 that are probably going to come in right behind it and want to load the exact same data. You can use links if you want to have different key mappings, etc between the clients. This one change made a HUGE difference in my setup, FWIW.

Those are the things I would start with. Hope it helps.