Boxing with 5 machines too noisy - New CPU FTW

[bishbash]

I currently box upto 12 chars using 5 machines, as they're all pretty poor, and very noisy, so thought I would try to cut down on some noise and power.

I've gone for an AMD A8-3850, 16gb Corsair DDR3 1333, and an ASUS F1A75-V Pro motherboard. Total Cost was ÂŁ265.

The biggest thing for me is to cut down the noise & Power useage from 5 pcs to a more repectable 2 or 3. I guess its time to say goodbye to my old Single Core P4's, and dual-core celerons and move with the times.

Anyone got any experience of using an A8-3850 with everquest? The integrated GPU looks more powerful than the 7600gt/6800GTX so i'm hoping it will be ok, as I plan on using it with 2 monitors to run 8 toons.

[Netharius]

Think the combination you chose shouldn't have any issues running 8 accounts. I run 5 on 2 monitors with an Intel Q6600 core 2 Quad, 8GB of DDR3 RAM and two monitors.

If you're going to run 8 accounts, you might think about getting a videocard like this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129173

It supports 3 monitors simultaneously, which would be really nice for boxing . Does the integrated videocard support 2 displays?

[Deadspirit]

I actually spent a few hours building a machine on newegg yesterday - was thinking of going with an Intel i-5... any reason why you chose an AMD processor over Intel?

I was thinking of dropping some money on a SSD as well, like $180 usd for 120 gigs... or same price for 2 slower base 40gigs with a raid0 array. Anyone like the SSDs? Ever try them in an array?

The word on the streets is that EQ doesnt really require an intense graphics processor so upgrading the old one wouldnt have any benefit. What do you think about it?

[Grey]

I got the biggest bang for my buck by going for max ram. Enough ram to host a respectable server.

[bishbash]

I am a big intel sandybridge fan, but costing was important. I wanted it cheap as it isnt my main machine. Its purely to replace 2 old p4 lumbering beasts and a dual core celeron. And power and noise from the extra gpu was a factor.

Its comparrison is an i3 2100 which is only dual with ht but scores slightly better in most benchmarks, but 4 physical cores is better for boxing than 2 cores witb 2 ht cores. Sandybridge platfotm is so strong it blows apart most amd, but the chip was more expensive, and I would have had to put in a gpu, as the i3 gpu sucks. Even the hd3000 in an i3 2105 is sucky gpu. This would have pushed the price up to more than I was willing to pay.

I allmost went for the new g850 1155 cpu, but after a week of checking costs, power, noise I opted for amd. If I wanted to future proof myself, I coukd have gone fir a phenom x4 on a am3+ board, and looked to upgrade to bulldozer amd cpu later in the year if they turned out to be i7 killers.

I even went fir cheaper 1333 ram so I could save ÂŁ25.

Sorry for typos. Sucks typing on a dell streak. And I look stupid using it as a phone.

[Tyler]

but after a week of checking costs, power, noise I opted for amd.

For me that equation doesn't add up. Cost - i can understand. But Power, Noise, performance ? Intel is just so much better in all departments. The only reason to buy AMD is price imho.

[bishbash]

Costs - Obviously AMD is cheaper, but less performance. For multiboxing 4x physical cores better than 2 x physical cores with 2 x ht cores (Based on i3 - closest cost).

Power - Intel i3 2100 + Similar spec discrete GPU = more watts than A8-3850. UK electricy prices just gone up another 18% !!!!

Noise - CPU fan is about the same noise, hopefully put in Corsair H60 to make it quiet. I am assuming an entry level equal to 3850 GPU card would have silent cooler, but that would be throwing more heat into the case, so would need to ensure better case cooling.

If this was my 'only' machine, I would have saved up and gone for i7-2600k. That thing is just evil and can overclock to some crazy speeds . Even the Phenom X6 sucks comapred to an i7, but I wanted a '2nd' machine purely to box EQ with, with the thought of turning it into a powerful XBMC at a later date.

Also if I had gone for an i7, I wouldnt have been able to donate for a few months, and I'm feeling like I need a donor paladin in my boxing setup

The i3-2100 is actually faster in most benchmarks, but the chip costs more. And I would have needed a discrete GPU. If I was sane, I would have gone intel. But I box 12+ chars so what does that say about my sanity?


50% of the time, i'm right all the time.

[Tyler]

I just bought a core i7 2600 with 8gig ram. That's my upgrade from my DualCore 2 with 2 Gig ram. Blu-Ray encoding nows take about 3h, about 15-20h before. So i may be a bit biased

Btw, loading times from EQ are fun with that box (2x 1tb Samsung 7200rpm in Raid0)- although i don't use it for gaming

[Deadspirit]

What is the bottleneck with its loading? I couldnt imagine its connecting to the server... i'm figuring its processing and HDD until your ram loads up.

[Tyler]

What bottleneck?