curious_llama7485

Hi team, Had an idea, new around here so decided its time to ask for some help. It’s been 12 years since my last (and first) PC build, and 10 years since I’ve used a desktop PC. From the project below you may detect I am making up for lost time. As a summary of my experience, I would describe myself as a Google hack. I haven’t used Linux before and have only dabbled in VM’s too long ago to be of any present use. A few weeks ago I decided to set up a Plex server/NAS for the home network. This evolved into a move to build a PC. One thing led to another and the project has grown significantly. The intention now to build a PC that would run UNRAID, taking care of the NAS duties, with two VM’s of reasonable capability to either side for what I’d consider light gaming duties (Starwars Battlefront II, rFactor, maybe some AOE II). My current "rig" is a 5 year old Lenovo Y50-70 Touch with an i7-4700HQ and a GTX 860m that I've thrown an SSD in and replaced the touchscreen and faulty hinges with the non-touch equivalents. Any improvement on this would be nice! I realise this may not be the most cost-effective way of doing this. I’m of the mindset to have a go at something massive and learn a lot on the way. I’ve not just watched LTT and decided to throw some money at something shiny. I’m in this game to learn, but by all means, if I can learn it’s a completely terrible idea before spending ~$3k (NZD) on this build… that’s why I’m asking. What I’m after is an experienced eye (or 10) to consider what I’m doing here and cast a pearl or two in my direction. My main concerns are outlined below, but these are just what I’m aware of, I don’t know what I don’t know. 1. Is the block diagram I see in the manual for the motherboard likely to reflect the IOMMU grouping? 2. More important than 1, will the motherboard cut the mustard? Seems to support VT-d, anything else I should be worried about. 3. Kinda crucially, I haven’t seen much on PT for two VM’s simultaneously, is there a reason for this. Bad Idea? 4. From what I can tell having 2x graphics cards sharing the 16 PCIE lanes at x8 each won’t create an appreciable performance bottleneck. Is it an issue that they run through the same switch? My motherboard choice has been dictated on the ability to have 2x x8 channels. 5. How much headache do I save by having two different model graphics cards? How different is different enough? Ie would a Gigabyte 1650 and an EVGA 1650 work? 6. Referring to question 1, with that many USB groups I’m thinking I could get away with sound over USB, possibly using a USB C dock for peripherals on each VM. Any problems with this line of thinking? 7. 2x of the same SSD’s for different VM’s, is this likely to cause issues in the same way as the graphics cards? 8. Am I on the right track with UNRAID? The parts I’m looking at below: Gigabyte Z490 AORUS PRO AX - https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/Z490-AORUS-PRO-AX-rev-1x#kf I9-10900 – 2 cores/4 threads & iGPU for host, 4 cores/8 threads for each VM (agonizing over whether to shell out extra for the 10850K) 2x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1650 OC – For each VM (not set on this, I understand 2 of the same can be a headache, but I like symmetry! Also don’t like headaches, any thoughts?) Kingston A400 120GB – For host 2x Samsung 860 EVO 500GB – For each VM 2x Seagate IronWolf 4TB – For NAS G.SKILL Trident Z Series 32GB RAM (2 x 16GB) DDR4 3200Mhz EVGA 600 BR 600W Phanteks Enthoo Pro There is a fair bit to digest there, so let me know if any/all of it doesn't make sense. Thanks for your time, brace yourself, I’m probably going to be hurting in search of some more help in the near future.