WoW: 25 box GPU / CPU Recommendations

[Ualaa]

Just five boxing Warcraft...

Going from an i5-2500K to an i7-2600K, which is essentially the same chip one without and one with the logical cores...
In places like AV or IoC, where it was 25-30 vs 25-30 in the same area...
The i5-2500K was playable, but choppy at times and not exactly fun, especially when streaming.
The i7-2600K was an enjoyable play experience always, with a very slight amount of choppiness when streaming in the mass battles.

Going to the i7-3930K (with six physical and six logical cores), on much higher settings the game was quite smooth everywhere.
The intention was to 10-box, but with the removal of follow in battlegrounds I've quit Warcraft and will be pursuing other games once the boxing itch returns.



I've always (as per Lax's recommendation) partnered a physical core with its own logical core.
IS Boxer refers to your cores as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 etc...
Elsewhere you get 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.
I partner 1/2, 3/4, 5/6, and 7/8.

I personally put 3/4, 5/6, and 7/8 on all games, and left 1/2 unassigned.
With the theory that Windows would use that pairing for the operating system, Xsplit, iTunes, Firefox, etc..., and possibly apply it to Warcraft too.

Thanks Ualaa for the detailed report

I just did a test to push my system to limits. (I have detailed specs in the first post)

Ran a test of 8 clients in the main city of pandaria, 7 on everything to low except view distance and projected textrues, and one client on good, besides shadows on low. DirectX11 on all clients.
foreground set to 60, background to 30.

Video ram usage: ~1500 MB
GPU usage: 45%
RAM usage: 97%
CPU usage: 100% (4 cores at 100%)

Then I reduced the background fps to 10, and the CPU usage dropped A LOT, as well GPU. The GPU sat at 29% and the CPU cores were moving between 40-60%.
I was happily surprised with my system, definatelly with 16GB of Ram and WoW in a SSD drive would have been more enjoyable. But still was totally playable.

That would be a normal use, but of course, I am pretty sure that in a BG with zillions of effects things would not have been so funny for me (/follow nerf aside)

If my old system can work like this, I am wondering if a quite cheap alternative like AMD FX-8350 , with 8 cores and enough RAM, could run a 10-15 Box at decent levels.

[MiRai]

If my old system can work like this, I am wondering if a quite cheap alternative like AMD FX-8350 , with 8 cores and enough RAM, could run a 10-15 Box at decent levels.

Don't buy AMD for World of Warcraft.

http://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/4889 ... post376460

Comparing the 6-core i7-3930K to any 8-core AMD processor at the moment is like comparing a 6 cylinder Toyota Supra pumping out 1,000 horsepower at the rear wheels to a stock 1995 8 cylinder Camaro with 275 horsepower. The Camaro has two extra cylinders, but which car is going to go faster?

Haha that was funny But I see the point, will try to aim to the 3930K, or at very least 3770k

what about AMD graphics department? I was considering either a GTX 680 4GB, or ATi 7970 3GB, the former is like 200$ more.

[Ualaa]

AMD vs Nvidia for graphics, is more a personal choice than one being clearly better than the other.
Intel vs AMD, for the last several generations of CPUs, there's been no comparison with Intel being far superior in performance... irregardless of one's personal preference between the two companies.



Here's a comparison of video cards, courtesy of Tom's Hardware: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gam ... 07-7.html#

A consideration is that dual cards, like a 690, is generally actually a pair of 680s that are slightly underclocked and in permanent on-board SLI configuration.
If you're playing a game in full screen mode, that is a performance gain.
If you're boxing a game, in almost every case a single 680 is going to blow away a single 690.
SLI/Crossfire doesn't perform well, when you use windowed mode or full screen-windowed modes... which we use to box.



If you're on a budget, but still want a top end card, I'd look at a 670 over a 680.
It isn't that far of a step back, in terms of power.
But the drop in price is fairly drastic.

It is one of the better bangs for your buck.

You are right, according these tests: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gef ... 00-15.html

where they compare 670, 680 and 7970, seems that the clear winner is a 670.

the 680 is roughly a 5% increase in full HD vs the 670, and the 7970 imo falls apart of the 670 even, especially on World of Warcraft (cataclysm version tests) where it gets smashed. Now maybe with the improvements in pandaria regarding on DX11, the difference should be alike, but still that's an indicator.

I will aim for a 670 with 470 with 4Gb