Specs on a Single PC that can 10 Box

[Choguun]

Hello All,

I have been coming to these forums for awhile and let me start off by saying thanks for all the info. Its a great time passer while i am stuck at work.

Now on to the question. I have some money laying around Between 2-3K and i i want to build a single PC that can run 10 WoW clients. now i know that decent PCs can run 10 Clients but i have some speific requirements. I dont care if my 9 slave accounts are running at a pre set max frame rate say 15 , but i want my full screen main to be on ultra settings and running that magical 60 FPS. Now as far as Screen Rez goes it really depends on what can and cant work for the price. I would love to have a 30inch monitor that is at a crazy resoultion but i am just as fine with a 24inch at say 1980 X 1080. Of note the Monitor is not in the initial 2-3K buying. So are there any folks out there that 10 box with a single PC and play thier main on ultra settings? I tired to add as much info as possible, so please let me know if i forgot anything. Thanks ahead of time.

[Tim]

This should do it:

I7 2600K
12G of RAM
4x SSD in RAID10
2x GPU (Unsure which ones, but Nvidia ones you will want). Do not SLI them, split them on monitors, and put 1x Main awesome GFX WoW on 1 monitor, and the other WoWs on another.

Go for some big monitors that can do 1920x1080, but you could go bigger resolutions. Just make sure it supports 1920x1080.

EDIT: If you can get more than 12G I would do it, but I believe all the mobos with 2x2GB will max at 12G.

[Tim]

Also to note, my PC can run 10x WoWs really smoothly, and I have an 980X CPU. The new i7 2600k is almost as fast as the 980x but it is about 700 cheaper.

[Choguun]

Thank you for the quick repley. I tried to look up that i7 CPU on Newegg but they no longer sell them. I guess it has something to do with all the sandy bridges failing? I have always been a AMD Fan boy, but after doing some shopping i am going to have to go the Intell route. Mainly bc all the MOBOs that i have seen for AMD only have 4 RAM slots which would limit me to 16gb. But the Intell counterparts have 6 Slots which would lead me to 24GB. And 24 Gbs of RAM only costs about 300 so i think i am going to go that route. The question i have now is do i go Quad or 6 core? There is a price difference of a few hundred dollars between the two. I had read somewhere that you ideally want 1 core and 1-2 gb Ram per clinet. But unless i get a Mac Pro or a server box i dont see that happening core wise. So the question is " would the performance difference be enough or noticable to warrent the 200+ dollars?"
I looked up your CPU and noticed it was a 6 core so i thought i would ask.

I never thought about running 2 GPUs in non SLI. I have always just used a singel GPU in my set ups. Is it as easy as not using the bridge to connect the cards?

[Ualaa]

Definitely go Intel, they blow AMD away as far as Warcraft is concerned.
World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm--Tom's Performance Guide : Welcome To The World...Of Warcraft: Cataclysm
More cores will be better than fewer cores, once you have enough threads going to utilize all your cores.

If you run games in windowed mode, which you would use for boxing, you basically get no gains from SLI/Crossfire. Extra video cards is more Vram and extra plugs for more monitors.

I personally wouldn't go with multiple SSD's in Raid. Raid is faster than not using Raid, but you cannot use TRIM in Raid. Personally, go with something like an OCZ Vertex II, get one that is large enough for what you want. You'll be running warcraft from a single install, and most of the software options can adjust video settings on the fly... so no real gain from multiple SSD's.

[Tim]

SLI is like this....

1x Video card = 100% power
2x Video cards in SLI = 130%ish extra power
2x Video cards in non-SLI = 100% + 100% power


So for multiboxing, using multiple monitors, your best bet is to not use SLI.

Ualaa does have a good point about TRIM, however, I would go the RAID route for SSDs because your SSDs will be a slowpoint when running 10x WoWs. If you have SSDs you can test yourself by looking at disk que lengths and retrieval times. I've done a lot of testing and SSDs can still be a bottleneck, especially when doing 10x of a game. If you run 10x WoWs off 1 SSD and then decide to 10x rain of fire on yourself, prepare to crawl!

Only use your SSDs for gaming, not for anything else, get a fat 2TB for $90 for that.

So for best performance, you'd either want:

2x SSD non-raid and 1x WoW install on 1, and 1x WoW install on the second.

Or 2-4 SSD in raid, purely for WoW / gaming. TRIM will never matter since the drives have almost no wear since they are just for gaming. If you wanted to TRIM say, every 6 months, just copy your data off, break up the RAID, TRIM, then rebuild RAID. Also, windows 7 software raid is extremely fast, faster than nearly all on-board raid controllers, making the whole raid/unraid a simple process.

It looks like Newegg doesn't have their new 2600Ks yet in stock, I would wait for that, probably will be a week.

[Ualaa]

Two systems that will each five-box, will cost a lot less than one system that will ten-box. Or for an equal investment, the two machines will far outperform the one machine.

I would likely go with the one mega-powerful system myself. Aside from boxing games, I wouldn't have a use for the second system so much, but might run single player games on the single system and more power there is always nice. Or you might want to stream or video capture and make movies.

[Tim]

Actually with the new 2600K processors, I think building 1 system that can 10box might even be on par pricewise with 2x 5 box systems. Plus the environmental and power savings imo would make it worth it.

I think (not sure) that you could potentially run 10x on 1 GPU? I'm saying this because I can run 5x WoWs on a single Nvidia 480 and only be 40%.

[Choguun]

Well to keep my options open, lets say i wanted to go the 2 box route, how hard is it to sync up 10 man group? I heard about a program called synergy but have no XP with it. Ideally i want to use 1 keyboard and mouse with 3 monitors. Left monitor is 9 slaves, middle is main , right is web and music etc. I have about 1 month left before i get back from my trip and can drop money on a system, so i guess it is a good thing to get all this figured out while i have the time.

So with the SSD items. how many WoW clients can i have on one decent SSD? like should i get 3-4 30gb SSD for the game? Say 3 SSD, 5 clients on 1 , 4 on another and my main on 1
I have plently of HD's laying around so the one for the OS isnt a concern.

[Choguun]

So i have another question as far as Processors go. Turns out Newegg does in fact have the 2600K, however...

Newegg.com - Intel Core i7-2600 Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I72600

The above 2600 is 30 dollars cheaper and the only difference than the

Newegg.com - Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I72600K

is a better on board GPU. But if i am going to use 2 didcated GPUs then that doesnt really matter.

now the 6 core -

Newegg.com - Intel Core i7-970 Gulftown 3.2GHz 6 x 256KB L2 Cache 12MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Six-Core Desktop Processor BX80613I7970

is better than either , however i will get more overall cores if i go with 2 systems. So the question is do you guys thing that i should get 2 of the Intel Core i7-2600 Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz CPUs and run two systems or get the Hex-core? i am leaning towards the dual system setup personally but maybe there is something i am not taking into consideration. Oncea gain thanks for any input.