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[WoW] New PC New Clients

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beztoken

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Post Fri Jan 11, 2019 8:45 am

[WoW] New PC New Clients

So I currently run a 5 box pretty decently. The only time I ever touch 100% usage on my cores (i5-4690k) is when I am in a load screen or where there's a massive amount of people/animations like during a WoW incursion.

I'd like to get an entirely new PC that I'm capable of running 8-10 clients on alone. I don't want to set a budget, but I will have three tiers of spending for different suggestions. Low-end $1000, mid-tier $2250, high-end $2500 (preferably with capabilities of adding more clients and still run smoothly). Of course I'd have salvageable pieces like my storage drives, GPU (1070ti), my case and PSU, and CPU cooler. I believe this will leave me a lot of space for upgrades in CPU and RAM which are the most important (???) for multiboxing.

Now, I'm not really worried about graphics so I don't use a slot-swap macro (I just run every client on the lowest settings), but perhaps with a new PC I will make use of it seeing as how ground animations are basically invisible.
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bob

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Post Fri Jan 11, 2019 10:12 am

Re: [WoW] New PC New Clients

So, general recommendations rather than a PC build ('ll leave that to you).

  1. 1 actual core per client (yes you can get away with less, which would be in the 8 cores/16 thread range)
  2. 1 to 1.5GB VRAM per client (your 1070 is going to struggle with 8-10 x 8.1 clients, even on low settings).
  3. 2-3GB RAM per client (yep 32GB)
  4. game files on SSD
  5. if your PSU is > 4 years old, get a new one
  6. your CPU cooler may not fit newer sockets
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beztoken

Posts: 14

Joined: Sat Sep 29, 2018 11:39 am

Post Fri Jan 11, 2019 12:10 pm

Re: [WoW] New PC New Clients

This all sounds great, thanks for the help. I'm not sure how WoW and SLI works, but getting another 1070ti is not out of the question so I may get another.

For the CPU I was looking at a Threadripper 1920x, or i7-9700k. The cost is about the same, but Ryzen does provide 4 cores and 24 more threads since only the 9900k provides additional threads per core.

If I were to stick with 8 clients max, which would be better without regards to the whole "Intel vs AMD" BS?
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bob

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Post Fri Jan 11, 2019 1:09 pm

Re: [WoW] New PC New Clients

Intel provides more Intructions Per Clock than AMD.
AMD provides more cores and threads for your dollar.

The IPC is hard to beat, however, it is not everything, especially when multiboxing, and I think the TR is more than capable.
So, I think the deciding factor actually comes down to what else you want to do with your computer. If the answer is bugger all, then yay TR. If you are doing rendering or other things that benefit from single threaded performance, then it leans you Intel's way.

As WoW 8.1 became rather thread hungry, then more cores/threads is good, however to get the best from it, I think would require a custom CPU strategy in ISBoxer. Mainly to ensure you are 1. limiting each game to less threads (like 4), and 2. making sure each game runs on a single CCX (not necessarily the same one, so you can utilise the whole CPU, just more so that it's not going cross CCX). This isn't particularly tricky to do, it just requires a little additional work.


As for SLI. SLI does not double your vram. It gives you more processing power at the cost of only being able to use 1 cards vram (actually both cards vram is used, just that everything loaded into it, has to be loaded into both cards vram, so you only get "half"). i.e. 2x 8GB cards only have 8GB VRAM in SLI. The same as 1x 8GB card. You have more processing power to compute what it needs to compute (essentially each card does half the work minus some overhead). Also SLI in WoW is pretty hit and miss (and in most games in general), so if you were going down the two graphics card route, then you normally split them, and have multiple monitors (one driven by each card), and then run some games on one monitor and some games on another, and don't have them swap over to the other (cross monitor swapping when driven by multiple GPU's can inflict performance penalties).
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MiRai

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Post Fri Jan 11, 2019 1:15 pm

Re: [WoW] New PC New Clients

bob beat me to it, but I already typed this out, so I'm going to post it.
beztoken wrote:This all sounds great, thanks for the help. I'm not sure how WoW and SLI works, but getting another 1070ti is not out of the question so I may get another.

I just did a video on this talking about where SLI falls short, and where it could still be used.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMDLIT4psvg

TL;DW - Normally, it's not worth it, and it won't solve any issues when you're limited by VRAM. That is... unless you're willing to "split the load" across multiple GPUs and displays, but that requires that you don't use SLI and comes with a few other caveats.

beztoken wrote:For the CPU I was looking at a Threadripper 1920x, or i7-9700k. The cost is about the same, but Ryzen does provide 4 cores and 24 more threads since only the 9900k provides additional threads per core.

If I were to stick with 8 clients max, which would be better without regards to the whole "Intel vs AMD" BS?

Personally, I don't know enough about AMD's Threadripper and how it performs while multiboxing, but there were several multiboxers who have tried it out and they seem to have been satisfied. Intel does offer better single-threaded performance, which will benefit WoW, but more cores/threads will also benefit WoW (when multiboxing).

If budget isn't a limiting factor, then it might just come down to whether you want more cores/threads, or higher GHz, but you can't have both unless you pay Intel a lot of money and are willing to tweak your setup beyond stock (as well as probably watercool the CPU).

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