New to multiboxing...

I'm new to this, been doing it for less than a month and I have an older video card that I am pretty positive is causing me issues with 3 D3 clients running & as sure as I am that a newer video card will help me I am stuck with PCI Express 2.0 so dropping a hefty amount on a new card isn't ideal till I am able to build a new system (not for another year).

I'll just lay down the basics of what I have and what I am looking to get in terms of my next mid-range video card, mind you I don't want the best of the best as by time I upgrade my system that card will pretty much not be going in my new system (build a new nearly every 5 years) as I will at that time be getting what is top of the line.
Anyhow here are my current specs:
Intel i7 quad core
8GB DDR3-1333
Radeon HD6570
650 Watt Power Supply

What I am considering getting is the EVGA Nvidia GTX 760 4GB GDDR5.
I understand this card is more ideal for PCI Express 3.0 but it is compatible with PCI Express 2.0 & is not too highly priced for what I am needing and that is a temporary solution for a year.

I'd like some feedback from any here that could give some intelligent insight into this, I'm not looking to go over $325 for a card that will be used for gaming for a year and mostly only for Diablo 3 multiboxing.
Right now my current card which I know is old and outdated can only muster up 15 FPS on 3 copies of D3 running (did great on 2 copies though), I'm wanting to run a 4th D3 copy but I know the FPS will drop to an unplayable amount so some feedback on whether my intended purchase is suitable enough or if I should put my eyes on another card within that price range would be highly appreciated.

Thank you all in advance.

[MiRai]

I am pretty positive is causing me issues with 3 D3 clients running & as sure as I am that a newer video card will help me

Rather than guess, you could always monitor your hardware to see what the actual bottleneck is (although you're probably right):

http://isboxer.com/wiki/HOWTO:Tweak_you ... ottlenecks

What I am considering getting is the EVGA Nvidia GTX 760 4GB GDDR5.
I understand this card is more ideal for PCI Express 3.0 but it is compatible with PCI Express 2.0 & is not too highly priced for what I am needing and that is a temporary solution for a year.

Any PCIe 3.0 GPU is backwards compatible with a PCIe 2.0 slot.

I'm wanting to run a 4th D3 copy but I know the FPS will drop to an unplayable amount so some feedback on whether my intended purchase is suitable enough or if I should put my eyes on another card within that price range would be highly appreciated.

If you upgrade your GPU then your quad-core CPU is going to be the next bottleneck (assuming you don't have hyper-threading). You label it as an i7 (which should have hyper-threading), but if you don't have such a CPU, then I imagine you're going to see high CPU usage when using the monitoring tool found in the link above.

I'm playing 4 D3 accounts on two EVGA GTX 760's.

Initially I ran my main on card 1, and the 3 slaves on card 2. I can tell you that i was getting lag with the 3 slaves running at the lowest video settings. It was playable most of the time, and manageable during big fights. Just an FYI, i almost only get lag when playing my 4 crusaders, and during big fights. I haven't noticed it when playing any of my other teams.

Now that I have 4 monitors, I run two clients on each card, and I can run all of them on high video settings (with the exception of the crusader team) and get almost no lag. When playing the crusaders I drop the video settings to medium.

I have since ordered a 3rd GTX 760, so that I can run them all on High.

All that being said, MiRai is correct, getting a new card will probably help. but you may end up with a CPU bottleneck. I just built a new rig, and am running on the i7-4930k.

Anyway, if you want to minimize the expense, and still play 4 clients, I would really recommend going with two cards, and two monitors. I never actually tried running all 4 on a single card, though if you'd like I could test it for you this weekend.

Oh I'm already sure it's the GPU & it does have hyper threading, I just listed the basics out of formality because I am already certain the bottleneck is the GPU.

I know they're all backwards compatible with 2.0 but spending $325 as a max for a 2.0 slot isn't as bad as spending $500 + and not taking full advantage of the card at the time of purchase is kind of my issue and which prevents me from buying say a GTX 680 or 780. I even had to convince myself to go over $300 since I am only using it for about a year if that, I decided $320ish is a nice in-between amount and the card seems to have decent specs and benchmarks for cards in it's price range but all of that means diddly squat when it comes to specific purposes & needs. lol

My main concern is does that card have known issues with either the game or ISBoxer software?
I've been scanning the forums and used search and haven't viewed every thread so I wanted to ask the question about that cards performance from users who may not have posted about it or who may have but I may have missed their post.

Just doing my homework & gathering intel on the card before I pull the trigger on the purchase is essentially all I am doing.

I'm playing 4 D3 accounts on two EVGA GTX 760's.

Initially I ran my main on card 1, and the 3 slaves on card 2. I can tell you that i was getting lag with the 3 slaves running at the lowest video settings. It was playable most of the time, and manageable during big fights. Just an FYI, i almost only get lag when playing my 4 crusaders, and during big fights. I haven't noticed it when playing any of my other teams.

Now that I have 4 monitors, I run two clients on each card, and I can run all of them on high video settings (with the exception of the crusader team) and get almost no lag. When playing the crusaders I drop the video settings to medium.

I have since ordered a 3rd GTX 760, so that I can run them all on High.

All that being said, MiRai is correct, getting a new card will probably help. but you may end up with a CPU bottleneck. I just built a new rig, and am running on the i7-4930k.

Anyway, if you want to minimize the expense, and still play 4 clients, I would really recommend going with two cards, and two monitors. I never actually tried running all 4 on a single card, though if you'd like I could test it for you this weekend.

Testing it out would be great, that would answer a lot of questions. I'm not at all worried about the cpu being the bottleneck it seems to be holding up just fine with 3 minus the gpu struggling and even if I have to keep the settings on low which I am doing and am comfortable with it that's fine. I don't really need or want to have my settings maxed, would be nice but far from a necessity for me as I come from the era of very early 8 bit gaming. LOL

I am eventually building a new rig but I just dropped 3 grand on a new Macbook Pro for my audio work related material and no way in hell is the wife going to be cool about me springing 3-4k for parts I plan on for my next gaming rig (I build my rigs once every 5-6 years with all high end parts to last the next 5-6 years) & I plan on going with an Xeon cpu in my next build so keeping costs down is not an option.

Sure thing, I'll try to test it out either Friday evening or Saturday morning, and post back.

Oh, and my first PC game was Zork on a 386. Some days I do miss those text based games...

Sure thing, I'll try to test it out either Friday evening or Saturday morning, and post back.

Oh, and my first PC game was Zork on a 386. Some days I do miss those text based games...

Thanks I do appreciate that, it will be the determining factor on if I buy the card or not.

I will note that when I ran the hardware tests I am aware that a 4th copy will push the limits but theoretically I should be able to run 4 and have better than 15 fps.

My CPU core 1 is at 70% the rest are below 50% whereas my memory which is my only other real concern (not an option to upgrade as it is the fastest it's going to get on the outdated motherboard) is at 68% & as expected the GPU is at 99%.
I'm sure the numbers will rise with a 4th client but I think a newer GPU alleviates not being able to run 4 clients, it's not rocket science for me to know buying a 4th client at this moment is a waste as this card will be chugging out the garbage at about 5 fps. LOL

I'm honestly still on the fence about going SLI in my next system, not for money saving concerns but based on what I have been reading it seems a single card for this is better to go with to see how it performs then make the informed decision to go SLI based off of that so basically I'm going to the 2 step routine on my next rig. I am curious though, what size monitors are you using? I won't lie either 4 monitors sounds enticing! LOL

I'm honestly still on the fence about going SLI in my next system, not for money saving concerns but based on what I have been reading it seems a single card for this is better to go with to see how it performs then make the informed decision to go SLI based off of that so basically I'm going to the 2 step routine on my next rig. I am curious though, what size monitors are you using? I won't lie either 4 monitors sounds enticing! LOL

I highly recommend multiple cards for multiboxing, but no I do not use SLI, at least not always. Each game is different, some will run multiple clients better (albeit just barely) than multiple dedicated cards. Generally I split the clients across cards, with SLI disabled, and this seems to work the best.

[MiRai]

Here's my preferred way to approach multiboxing and GPUs:

• Buy a monstrous single-GPU video card if you want to crank up the settings, or...
  
• If you want higher settings than any current generation GPU can handle, then buy multiple single-GPU video cards and split the load among them, but...
  
• If you are going to be using cross-monitor/GPU Video FX and can't handle the performance hit incurred by that, then SLI the GPUs together and deal with the microstutter.

Obviously, there are outside variables which can easily affect this approach.

Here's my preferred way to approach multiboxing and GPUs:

• Buy a monstrous single-GPU video card if you want to crank up the settings, or...
  
• If you want higher settings than any current generation GPU can handle, then buy multiple single-GPU video cards and split the load among them, but...
  
• If you are going to be using cross-monitor/GPU Video FX and can't handle the performance hit incurred by that, then SLI the GPUs together and deal with the microstutter.

Obviously, there are outside variables which can easily affect this approach.

That's my plan on my next rig build, I am toying with the idea of eventually adding 2 more cards for a total of three GPU's but that wouldn't be right off the bat & would be over time of the system ( a year after initial build) as I will be getting a card in the Nvidia Titan family come March/April of next year & dropping down 3 grand on cards alone right off the bat would infuriate the wife as the Xeon chip I'm going after will surely not sit well with dropping $7 grand on parts (no current parts are being salvaged into the new rig) so I have to spread the money wisely and avoid the wrath of woman. LOL