Hi all @ Unraid

 

My current workstation consist of the following below, and I got the machine early 2010, so it's about time to upgrade. I haven't been into hardware since the last build, so I'm very rusty on the hardware specs and the needs, so i need some help into choosing components. I want the hardware that is needed to carry out the job, but the wallet do have a limit, let's say about 1000 USD/€. I don't need kabinet, mouse, keyboard, PSU, SSD/HDD

My current system consist of a I7-860 CPU, 12 gig of RAM, HD5850 GFX-card - All of the components was released late 2009

 

I want a system that can support 2 GFX cards where one of them being a high end card like the GTX1080, and the other card will be a used card like the GTX770. My son are only 2 years old, but when I get new hardware, it tend to live for a long time before I exchange it for something better and newer. The server will then act as 2 gamer VMs with GPU+USB passthrough, It will also contain a PLEX docker + other minor stuff. I'm getting older, so will likely not have the time anymore to play any high end games anyway in a handful of years, so this server will live for a loong time

 

I will not OC the CPU

6 SATA ports should be enough, but more would be nice

It would be nice if I could use the CPUs GPU and then a DVI on the motherboard for Unraid

I dont need 10 Gbit onboard ethernet, but 2*1 Gbit would be nice

32 Gig of RAM should be enough for the entire server - but if a board support 64 gig, that would "maybe" come in handy later on?

PCI slot?? I dont know, 2 GFX cards, 1 USB controller so it would be easy to passthru, 1 slot for maybe a RAID controller if 6 SATA would come in short, but I would rather have 10 onboard SATA then.

 

 

I was thinking something like the

Intel I7-7700K CPU, due to it's high clock and single thread performance, 4C/8T?? possible bottleneck?

Z170 chipset motherboard, one of the boards that has maxed out its features.

GTX1080 - it will be added at a later time when the GTX770 can't follow up anymore.

GTX770 - I have this card already, got it used.

 

 

An complete other option would be to go the dual XEON E5-2670 road with a server board. plenty of cores and juice, but low clock. Passmark per tread is like half of the 7700K CPU  Aaand, idle consumption would also be a killer I guess. 99,9 % of the time, I don't need all that oumf it can deliver

 

Anyone have any ideas. Again. I "just" need the hardware that can deliver this setup as mentioned.

Thankyou alot.

Kind regards

 

Kim

One data point on the CPU bottleneck. The E5 you mentioned has about the same perf as my E3-1245v2. http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Xeon-E5-2670-vs-Intel-Xeon-E3-1245-v2

 

We play overwatch on two GTX960's. It took some fiddling for me to get everything dialed in. 99% of the time things are fine, but 1% of the time I get a weird video "freeze" for 10 seconds. (Audio and controls still work.) Then it unfreezes and everything is fine.

The 2670 are on ebay for some allright prices, and if going that route, I would get 2 CPU's and a mobo that would support it, just because to have enough power - but. The single thread performance is rather low, and the power drain will become a people in my part of the world. I pay 31 US cent per KWh of electricity 

 

What kind of proplems did you occour while dialling in on things - are you getting freezing while playing games?

kind regards

Is it possible to get a decent 2 socket ATX motherboard? Last time I looked it was mostly server form factor.

 

I had trouble with crackling audio. I had to fiddle around with dedicating USB controllers and CPU threads to the VMs.

 

I did a little more searching today, and "screen freezes but game continues" yields tons of results. So maybe it's not specific to my setup. I'm trying it without battle.net running in the background. Hopefully that fixes it.

I think sometimes you can find "Workstation" motherboards that are dual socket and have the form factor and other features you might want.