Zovc

It's too bad you don't have an iGPU, it looks like most MOBO's fastest PCIe slot is their first one and it also sounds like that's where you have to put your "throwaway" card. Did you end up getting a second 980ti, or did you get a different second card? Thanks a lot for linking that guide!

Regarding SLI, I've heard it's a headache with passing through (or that it doesn't work well) to VMs. What I meant was, if I got a second 980 like I currently have, I could put both cards in another system later on down the line in SLI. That's not too related to this current project. I didn't mean to imply that I wanted to run SLI with these gaming VMs. I'm interested in passing controllers through for the conveience of it. I also would like to use similar, if not the same, devices on my two gaming VMs and I imagine passing whole controllers would leave me with less guesswork initially and also down the line. I doubt passing through ethernet ports is "necessary" but I am assuming it might be better for random household stuff. For example, if I do Steam in-home streaming from one VM to another computer in the house, I think that might hog a lot of bandwidth that I'd rather have on its own port rather than sharing one with Plex, another gaming computer and whatever else.

Hey community! I'll start things off by admitting that I'm not very savvy with this stuff at all, so this is probably a foolish endeavor. But I'm trying to do my homework and am very interested in making this work! Years ago, something like 08 or 09, I learned about Virtual Machines and thought they were super cool. I didn't have the skillset to play around in Ubuntu, much less a more intimidating version of Linux. Nevertheless I installed Oracle's Virtualbox and tried hacking around with it in Windows. At the time I wanted to get my computer set up to play two instances of Titan Quest at the same time and couldn't wrap my head around why it wouldn't work (not that I ever even came close). Anyways, things have come a long way since then and Linus and others have made virtualized gaming work! Now, I don't have that same girlfriend I wanted to play Titan Quest with anymore, but I do still have the desire to make local PC gaming on one machine work for fun, for when I have friends over, and for a really silly project pertaining to my New Year's Resolution! (I completely acknowledge that I can make this work a lot more easily by just having two gaming computers. I'm interested in the challenge of trying to make this work and the perceived elegance of the end result.) So, I'm wanting to build a virtualized gaming machine. The primary end goal is to have two gaming VMs that are roughly as powerful as my current gaming comptuer or better. Depending on what excess resources I have, I may end up also running other things like a Plex server or NAS, but Objective 1 is the gaming computers. Here are the main hardware questions I have: My current gaming computer has a ZOTAC GeForce GTX 980 AMP! 4GB as its only video card. I game at 1080p and it tends to get the job done. However, a lot of what I've seen online suggests that Nvidia cards DO NOT play well with virtualization. Interestingly enough, Linus uses two Nvidia cards in his 2 gamers 1 computer video and things look really seamless and easy! I haven't found anything saying whether or not my current video card will work with passthrough. If I can, I'd like to use this as one of my video cards in my "server." Can anyone point to a yes or no in that regard? Nowadays, buying a second unit of my ZOTAC GeForce GTX 980 AMP! would be a pretty weak purchase in terms of value. Is the promise of later being able to use SLI worth it? I'm imagining by the time I want to build a new system (after this 'server'), I'd be better off buying new (a) video card(s) one or two (or more) years from now. If I want to spend around $600 or less, what second video card should I look for to ace 1080p in a virtual machine? I want to consistently exceed 60fps in whatever game I throw at the VM! (Sometimes my current 980 dips below 60fps in some games.) From what I've read, ~3-4 cores are generally what gaming computers need these days. I also want to run OBS Studio on one of my VMs so it will need at least a little more muscle. My current processor is a i7-4790K and it seems to have held the test of time well but I'm not sure it can handle this next project. Should I upgrade my CPU? How many cores should I give to my gaming VMs? Will running OBS make me want more cores? For my project, I'll need to use a lot of webcams in conjunction with OBS. At least two but preferably three or more! How much does live capture from a webcam weigh on a CPU/cores? Is this a consideration when choosing CPUs? Also, regarding USB devices... is it easier to use PCI usb controllers to separate devices and inputs? For the sake of consistency, I'd like to use the same kinds of keyboards and mice and webcams and so on but I could use different devices if it is necessary. Can a motherboard's individual onboard USB controllers be passed through? Is it worth giving each of my VMs their own Ethernet port? Can I pass through a motherboard's second port? Can I pass through individual ports on a PCI controller? Of course I want to select a motherboard and CPU that support virtualization/passthrough. I don't really know what I'm shopping for besides that, though. Of course I want the right socket for my CPU, whatever one I go with, and of course I want enough PCIe x16 slots for my video cards (from what I understand, x8 is not a drastic loss of performance if I end up settling for that). I've built a system before, but I don't know what features (besides what specifically I'm looking for) to select or avoid. Are there any motherboard features I want to look for? Do I just select the cheapest one that has all the features I know I want (and has okay reviews)? Is there any reason to opt for a server motherboard/rack mount enclosure? Thanks a lot!