Looking for some help on a PC build/botting computer! $800 Budget!

Hi everyone,
My current computer is more than able to run multiple WOW/HB instances (enough for now but i will need stronger hardware in future), but like most of you I am also interested in finding optimal CPU/GPU/memory/disk for running multiple bots (both from $/bot and watts-electricity/bot)
I think there should be list how much resources are needed per one WOW+HB instance
- how much internet bandwidth - most measurements i found put it at 0.05 mbit/WOW and i assume HB does not use much
- how much disk bandwidth (hard to measure since my Windows 7 has whole windows installation and whole WOW installation in memory since i have 32GB of ram so disk is not really working much) but would be nice to know average disk bandwidth used during normal play, and also during those few seconds of loading new area
- how much CPU GFLOPS (on lowest settings for 15Hz and for 30Hz refresh rates) is needed per one HB+WOW instance
- how much GPU GFLOPS (on lowest settings for 15Hz and for 30Hz refresh rates) is needed per one HB+WOW instance, i know that on 60Hz with lowest details and WOW window manually minimized around 80GFLOS (8% of 1TFLOPS GPU) is used, but more measurements from more configurations would be nice
- how much GPU memory is used per one instance (here i am not sure i think it was around 150MB of GPU ram but this does include also windows 3D Ui so has to be repeated with "optimised" windows 7 settings
- how much TOTAL RAM memory is used per one WOW+HB instance for example it might be 600MB for one WOW and HB instance but if you run more than one memory sharing starts to kick in so also needed is
- how much UNSHAREABLE memory is used per one WOW+HB instance as in if you run 10 instances of WOW+HB you will need 200MB for each instance unshareable plus 400MB that all instances share and in total you would use 10*200MB+1*400MB=2400MB=2.4GB
NOTE: VMWARE and other virtualization products have both CPU and GPU overheads so those should be taken in account
NOTE2: VMWARE has memory deduplication option so that multiple virtual machines can share memory if some 4K blocks are same but it starts to use this option only when you have used up all of ram so its hard to test but some tests i read show that for windows 7+office version whatever up to 80% of memory is duplicate so you can use 5 times more virtual machines than memory would normally allow without swapping, we should try to find how much memory is "duplicate" for multiple Windows+WOW+HB instances)

after this we should have data how much CPU GFLOPS is needed, how much RAM, how much GPU GFLOPS and how much GPU RAM (disk and network bandwidth are useful to know but i doubt WOW/HB use much of those)

next part is finding optimal system, off course 8-way (8 CPU) 160 core XEON board with 8 PCIE AMD/NVIDIA cards would be able to run most instances but i do not believe it would be optimal solution, and neither would Atom CPU with some weak integrated graphic
very important number is ratio of GPU power and CPU power needed, since 32GB (max for desktop PCs) should cover at least 64 HB+WOW instances (using memory deduplication) i assume that will not be what is limiting us

i was thinking about 3 PC options
1.) cheapest haswell CPU with 8 threads+ some fast AMD/NVIDIA card (you do mention AMD CPUs but from all charts i see haswell has better price/GFLOPS and uses less electricity (something you should count on when using computer on full load 16 hours/day) i would like if someone could show results that some other CPU is significantly better for runing those WMs, i am willing to change my opinion but for now all numbers i saw point to intel haswell

Core i7 4770 is 8 thread (4 core) 3.9 GHz and price is $292
cheapest motherboard is usually $30 - $50 for each generation but i don't have any numbers for this
RAM is around $40/8GB stick
power usage for CPU is 84W, there is also 45W version but is actually more expensive and abit slower Haswell (microarchitecture) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

correctly sized GPU card (this is where ratio of CPU and GPU speed comes to)
- Radeon HD 7790 has 1GB GPU RAM and 1'800 GFLOPS - price $149
- Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition has 3GB GPU RAM and 4'300 GFLOPS - price $499
- Radeon HD 7990 has 6GB GPU RAM and 8'200 GFLOPS - price $999
someone please add numbers for NVIDIA cards

2.) monster with more than 1 CPU (opteron or xeon) and more than 1 graphic card

3.) Haswell (or AMD) integrated GPU from LAST generation are quite fast slower than Radeon HD 7990 but considering price and power usage it might be more practical to use 2*CPU with integrated GPU than 1*CPU with separate GPU (haswell GPU has 1'000 GFLOPS - 55% of $149 Radeon HD 7790 and there is AMD CPU with also fast GPU builtin also that GPU uses 85 wats and builtin one does not use any additional power

this could be nice project for someone who likes to run benchmarks/play with hardware

 

just get amd fx 8350, 16gb (better is 24gb or more if you plan to go 15-30 bots), graphics doesn't matter but get 2 gb vram. cpu is around 180?, ram should be 150-200? and videocard 100-150?. That's less than 500? so far, then you have some money left for mainboard, case and GOOD cooling + pcu. I suggest not starting with 20 or more bots but rather get bigger slowly. So you can start with 8gb and then upgrade when you need more etc. If you start with 20 bots you will also get overwhelmed very soon since you still have to figure out quite a lot.

 

No matter what you do, dont go for Haswell. (If you want to try the no GPU model)

The Richland one has 54% more GPU power for lesser money. (A10-6800k vs 4770k)

If it's money for the buck plus extra GPU I would go for the FX 8350. (But the in the long run it could be cheaper to get an Intel because of the huge increase in power consumption.)

Or If you need raw power, go for the 4770k Intel.

 

Hi Azzieh,
I do believe computer you are suggesting is fast enough for a lot of WOW instances, i am just trying to find out how optimal it is as someone who plans to run 100+ instances in few months myself (not all on one PC)
I am assuming amd fx 8350, 16gb ram is your current PC
could you please provide this info:
- how many WOW instances you run at same time
- what is your MAX FPS? 15? 30? 60?
- what GPU you use (exact model can be seen using GPU-Z Video card GPU Information Utility )
- what amount of RAM you have 16GB or 24GB
- do you use VMWARE or run all WOW instances on single windows instalation
- what amount of RAM is actually used per instance of WOW+HB(+windows if you are using VMWARE)
- how much you have leftover free (RAM used as CACHE is practically free)
- what percentage of GPU RAM and GPU speed you actually use when all those instances run ( GPUZ shows that data also on second tab)
- what is your total CPU used for all those bots are you at 100% CPU use, or is "amd fx 8350" used only 70%, 60%, ..., 10%

also topic like this should be in some form of WIKI or at least on starred thread on forum so that every new "big" booter does not have to investigate optimal setup himself, these forums have HUGE amount of information most of it useful on every topic regarding booting but its hard to find info you need ...

 

very useful info, so in case GPU power is limiting power Richland is better than haswell of integrated CPUs
but we have to find is GPU limiting factor or CPU for WOW (more precisely what is ratio of GPU GFLOPS and CPU GFLOPS used) ,it is not really good idea going for 54% faster GPU if only 10% of your existing GPU is actually used, and if 100% of GPU is used and CPU is standing idle than you need separate GPU card or two, that is why i am interested in detailed utilization numbers for memory/CPU/GPU from people running 10/20/30++ WOW instances (numbers have to be measured separately for people using VMWARE/Hyper-V and people just running multiple WOW processes on same windows

also both $/bot for computer parts and wats/bot are important, electricity can be significant part of investment depending do you run bots 4h/day, 8h/day or 16h/day (in two shifts) so we could say "this is optimal configuration able to run 200 bots costs $2000 and uses 10 wats/bot" and for second "this is optimal configuration able to run only 10 bots costs $200 and uses 15 wats/bot" so person planning hardware purchase can say to himself "ok option B. seems optimal for my needs"

 

I can say that the GPU usage of wow is really really low, it takes maybe 1% of my GPU Power per wow instance. 570GTX

Havn't checked how much GPU ram it needs, but that should be a small amount too.

I think I will check all of it later, like the template you just posted and will report a little bit more.

 

Wow is a CPU intensive game, get a great CPU, and a crappy video card. There you have your botting machine.

 

Thank you for the input so far guys I didn't think this topic would get as much attention as it ended up getting! I am going to be reading through all the replies and I am going to start to put together a build that seems satisfactory. I think I might make a blog thread about my experience so others that are interested in getting into it know how it can be.

 

intel xeon e3-1230(v2 or not doesnt matter), hd 7770, 32gb ram
can run 30-40 bots
this system needs ~150w while botting (with 30+ accs)

you can also use
e3-1245 with an integrated hd 4000, not graphic card, 16gb ram
can run up to 20 bots, after this theres not enough graphic power for more - too many lags
this system needs ~120w while botting

1. system costs ~600?
2. system costs ~450?
800$ = ~600?

prices differs from day to day, so i cant say the current price.
believe me or not, but i know how to bot more than 50 accs

 

in that case we should still measure GPU usage, because maybe amd fx 8350 and/or haswell have enough GFLOPS (seems they do according some posters including you, but better be sure) in that case we save not only on separate GPU price but also on its power use/noise

 

that would be extremely nice of you, please be detailed, hardware used, software used (like VMWARE/windows 7/XP/8/vista optimizations done in software like disabling windows 7 3D desktop, or putting WOW on 15 FPS, and also what % of your CPU/GPU/RAM is actually used while running how many bots

 

CPU:
Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge 3.5GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I73770K - Newegg.com
OR
Intel Core i7-3770 Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I73770 - Newegg.com (if you're not into overclocking)

Avoid AMD as you might as well just take a shit in your mobo CPU socket and chances are it'll outperform any AMD counterpart in single/multi-threaded.

GPU:
Newegg.com - XFX FX779AZNJ4 Radeon HD 7790 1GB 128-bit DDR5 Video Card
OR
XFX Double D FX-787A-CDBC Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition Black Edition 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card - Newegg.com <===== if you want slightly more graphics horsepower

Price to performance, AMD wins at the end of that generation.

Mobo:
ASUS P8Z77-V LK LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS - Newegg.com

ASUS updates their motherboard BIOS very often and I've never had issues with their products.

Case:
Fractal Design Define XL R2 FD-CA-DEF-XL-R2-BL Black Pearl Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case - Newegg.com

PSU:
CORSAIR Builder Series CX500 500W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Newegg.com

Thrown in a hard drive of your choice and you have a VERY solid build for ~$800.

 

If anyone is interested in brainstorming on this project with me I could use the help! Just PM me I want to make it as solid as possible so when I document the experience I can tell people what worked for me and didn't.

 

very nice info, thanks, can you just tell us
- do you use VMWARE/Hyper-V or run all in same windows
- what is your CPU usage % while running
- what is your memory% usage while running ( counting "cached" memory as free
- what is your GPU% usage while running (you can use tool i linked or anything else)
- also please tell for all these numbers is it with 30 or 40 bots

e3-1245 has HD3000 i believe
e3-1245v2 is HD4000 i believe
it is important which of these 2 you used for 20 bots since HD4000 is 33% faster

also haswell with iris pro 5200 should be 2.5 times faster than HD4000 so if GPU vas reason for running "only" 20 bots haswell CPU (or AMD A10-6800k) might be able to run 50 bots on same hardware without discrete GPU and even use less electricity

that is why your experience/numbers are especially useful

 

If anyone can run 20 bots with a decent framerate on Intel HD 4000, I'll eat my hat.

 

I am interested in brainstorming but it may be better doing it in this thread so its more public/more people can add their opinion/data and or correct any mistakes us two make

 

i guess you first have to define decent, for me decent is 15 FPS (enough for most CC routines) or 30 FPS (needed for some "PVP" very smart CC routines) as in not enough to play but enough for bot to play, also with WOW window minimised to 300*200 or whatever is minimum WOW will let you do

also please specify out of what material is your hat made? cotton? silk? ice-cream? cake? ... makes big difference

 

Ah, I guess I didn't stop to think of what impact windowed 300x200 would have.

PS: I only buy the finest cake hats

http://img2.etsystatic.com/000/0/6206486/il_fullxfull.308965958.jpg

 

off topic, poor dog, i feel so sorry for him
on topic if you run big amount of bots your data about number of bots, hardware specs and hardware usage % would also be more than useful

 

bold = answer

cant give that much detailed answer since the april banwave hit me and im doin a break now and wait to restock my bots
i have both systems but im running system 2 with an extra graphic card - i can just tell you for sure: i was running 55 accs + some lvling orders from others and i had some space for more bots

AMD A10-6800k compared with an 3770k: intel has in some benchmarks nearly 50% more power
e3-1230 has nearly the same power as an 3770k (unclocked)

AMD is behind Intel and also needs more electric-power (watt) for less cpu-power
in german my explanation would be better then in english - sorry

u like your hat with salt'n'pepper?