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EVE guys - it's all (most likely) about CPU

Moderator: MiRai

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Shadowandlight

Posts: 157

Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2013 1:40 am

Post Wed Jul 31, 2013 12:28 pm

EVE guys - it's all (most likely) about CPU

I frequently talk to people about what hardware you need to use to multi-box in EVE online.

I run a few PC's.

Currently I have a 3930k / 3770k / 4770k / AMD fx-8350 all with 32gb of ram and ATI 7850(ish) video cards.

Using lower graphic settings each PC can run 14 + clients smoothly (I judge smooth by being able to run incursions without issues, as having a lot of NPC's on grid seems to tax the CPU quite heavily).

CPU: The 3930k is the fastest (that I have) and can run 16-18 no problem.

Mining? Well you dont need a 6-core intel 3930k for that, I know my older AMD fx-8350 (which is also cheaper by a few hundred) ran 20 miners no problem.

To that point, the 8-core AMD chips are a good bang for your buck in terms of EVE. Yes the intel chips are faster, but if you have $ restrictions, buy the AMD FX-8350.

I've found that asking the CPU to run more then 2 clients per core (the Intel 3930k has 12 virtual cores, 6 logical but that's a different discussion) can run you into performance issues.

RAM: Expect each EVE client to use 1gb of RAM (this is actually around 800mb +) so if your trying to run 20 clients on 16gb of RAM you are not gonna like the results.

Video: Dual video cards would help ONLY if you want to run high graphic settings. Then you could split your clients up among both cards.

SSD's: Frankly I found some good results splitting up my clients among 2 separate SSD drives. Your results may vary, but trying to run your clients from your OS HD (or all clients from 1 HD) will probably hurt performance when warping around. Burst read speed is very important.

Use open hard ware monitor to see how your system is doing resource wise when multi-boxing.
http://openhardwaremonitor.org/

Questions? Find me and a bunch of much smarter people in www.isboxer.com/chat or post here.
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nex

Posts: 12

Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2012 7:09 pm

Post Wed Jul 31, 2013 12:51 pm

Re: EVE guys - it's all (most likely) about CPU

Does anyone know of some application that can monitor memory BANDWIDTH usage (not actual memory usage) during play? I suspect that memory bandwidth might be the bottleneck in my system and I'd like to verify before buying some new expensive memory.
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Shadowandlight

Posts: 157

Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2013 1:40 am

Post Wed Jul 31, 2013 1:23 pm

Re: EVE guys - it's all (most likely) about CPU

nex wrote:Does anyone know of some application that can monitor memory BANDWIDTH usage (not actual memory usage) during play? I suspect that memory bandwidth might be the bottleneck in my system and I'd like to verify before buying some new expensive memory.


i've done a lot of research into multi-threading performance but most seem to agree that memory bandwidth is almost never the bottleneck.

however this might be helpful for you to test out.... let me know how it goes??

http://software.intel.com/en-us/article ... r-monitor/
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nex

Posts: 12

Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2012 7:09 pm

Post Wed Jul 31, 2013 2:59 pm

Re: EVE guys - it's all (most likely) about CPU

In really big fleet fights, I see my reported CPU usage hit up to 90% and memory at 14/16gb or so when I start getting really serious performance hits. I'm going to start overclocking my 3770K to see if I get much benefit, but it's usually not reporting 100% usage anyway.

Since I did not upgrade my memory on my last system upgrade I was kind of suspecting that.

I'll check out that tool. I'll have to wait for the next big brawl to try it though :)
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MiRai

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Vibrant Videographer

Posts: 3010

Joined: Fri Nov 20, 2009 3:30 pm

Post Wed Jul 31, 2013 5:02 pm

Re: EVE guys - it's all (most likely) about CPU

I don't think I've ever heard of anyone ever ask if their memory bandwidth was too low (and it's unlikely that it's your bottleneck). If your memory (system or GPU) fills up then it begins using the page file on the HDD/SSD. When that happens, the time it takes to access that information is light years slower than having the information in RAM.

Another thing to note, is while you only see your CPU hit 90% doesn't necessarily mean that you've got 10% free that isn't being used. When you overload your CPU (or GPU) you'll see low FPS, stuttering, and similar behavior, but your monitoring programs may be reporting lower than a full 100% load. I don't have a reason for why this happens, but I can vouch for this behavior from personal experience.
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nex

Posts: 12

Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2012 7:09 pm

Post Wed Jul 31, 2013 8:48 pm

Re: EVE guys - it's all (most likely) about CPU

MiRai wrote:I don't think I've ever heard of anyone ever ask if their memory bandwidth was too low (and it's unlikely that it's your bottleneck). If your memory (system or GPU) fills up then it begins using the page file on the HDD/SSD. When that happens, the time it takes to access that information is light years slower than having the information in RAM.

Another thing to note, is while you only see your CPU hit 90% doesn't necessarily mean that you've got 10% free that isn't being used. When you overload your CPU (or GPU) you'll see low FPS, stuttering, and similar behavior, but your monitoring programs may be reporting lower than a full 100% load. I don't have a reason for why this happens, but I can vouch for this behavior from personal experience.


Well there's a difference between 'running out' of clock cycles and saturating bus bandwidth to memory.

I'd like to monitor that and see how it's doing.

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