Gaming VM (Help building a new Server Heart)


Concelor

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Hey everybody

Pains me to say but I think my second Unraid (1st VM system) is on it's way out so it's time to rebuild

I've learned a lot of lessons the last over my last 7 years using Unraid but starting a build is also so fun/overwhleming/tempting lol

 

End Goal:

1 Gaming class Windows 10 VM bigger the better

The Unraid system for storing videos/files accessed by the VM and OSMC (formally RaspberryPI)

And if possible, not vital a headless Linus for surfing and banking purposes

 

Already Owned Parts:

Power Supply: 850 Watt Platinum Rated EVGA Power Supply

Video Card: GTX 960 4GB 

Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro ATX

 

Drives:

Parity:

  • 4TB WD Green

Arrary:

  • 3TB Hitachi
  • 3TB Hitachi
  • 2TB WD Green
  • 1.5TB WDGreen 
  • 1.5TB WDGreen 
  • 1.5TB WDGreen 

Cache:

  • 250GB Samsung 850 EVO  SSD
  • 250GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD

Unassigned:

  • 1TB WD Green
  • 250GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD
  • 250GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD

 

On to the fun part :)

So really I just need a motherboard, processor, and memory, the heart if you will)

I have a budget of 500-600

A lot of threads I have read recently seem to like the 2011-V3 but that might not be ideal for my end goal

Do the gurus have any good directions to point me in?

 

 

 

 

Edited by Concelor
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How are you serving up the files to your clients - the media files?  How Many streams to TVs at a time?  what are the Plex clients?

 

From reading the forums, I'm seeing that people recommended a PassMark score of 2000 per stream.

 

for secure banking, why not use a Chromebook instead of an Ubuntu vm?  

 

Will the streams all be running while you're gaming?

 

Just a few things that would be helpful answered.

 

 

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Files are just through SMB to the Raspberry Pi, I've honestly never touched Plex, if I'm not at home I don't stream

 

At most there would be one two streams, though if I"m on the VM there be only one, as the the PC and TVs are in different rooms

So to answer your final question, my girlfriend may be watching the TV while I game, but at most one stream would be running while gaming

 

The secure banking is just a secondary thought, right now for the major banking I do I use a live stick, a Chromebook is extra clutter I'm trying to avoid collecting (it's why I'm trying to keep my server/gaming in rig in one unit :D)

 

Over the weekend I was eyeing different components

I was thinking this motherboard (EVGA X99) with a 6850K but that already puts me near budget before I even buy RAM, so my gut says that might be overkill for my end goal

Then again, Microcenter does have combo deals with the 6850 and save a 100 bucks but none of the MBs caught my eye

It's so overwhelming with all the choices, I'm glad there are so many gurus here

 

Edited by Concelor
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Alot of the posts I have read this week, seem to have a common thread put more money into a processor than RAM but like anything on the internet every post you can find about that, you can find one saying the other thing

 

Is a good baseline of RAM around 16GB to start then?

And would a good processor be the i7 family?

Or is it better to have more RAM and stay in the i% realm

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How much memory and what CPU would you need for your gaming if Windows was installed bare metal on the computer?

 

Add 4G memory and realize you'll lose one of the cores (normally 25% if you have a typical 4 core processor), because that one core will be given exclusively to unRaid and any Dockers you are running. unRaid's core will take care of the media streaming. Your CPU would have to support vt-d, which will rule out lower end CPU s.

 

As I understand it, most games are more video card limited than CPU, so whether losing that core is going to affect performance in a meaningful way is dependent on the game. But I expect you'd get the expected "near bare metal" performance from your VM.

 

There are 8 core options which are either a lot more expensive or on aging platforms and require a rack mounted system. Also, as the core count goes up, the single core performance speed goes down. I wouldn't recommend it, but if you are interested, there are several threads on people with these setups. 

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That is an awesome guide line to have!

So most games are 8GB minimum so 16 would be ideal

 

As for CPU each game seems little different and no real commonality as some relay on CPU more than others

But from an Unraid performance/ease perspective is an i5 or i7 the way to go

Some people see the i7 as the best of the best while others see a high end i5 the idle middle ground between cost and performance vs a low end i7 

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Ryzen sounds good but a lot of the threads here, especially the Ryzen one sounds like it's still to new

The i7 builds on there look great too

Considering the hiccups with Ryzen

But a trend I see on here is a lot of people advocate 2011-V3 the builds on that site are 1151

Is there really a huge difference?
It seems to come down to Bus Speed, but for one or two VMs is that a deal breaker?

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2 hours ago, Concelor said:

Ryzen sounds good but a lot of the threads here, especially the Ryzen one sounds like it's still to new

The i7 builds on there look great too

Considering the hiccups with Ryzen

But a trend I see on here is a lot of people advocate 2011-V3 the builds on that site are 1151

Is there really a huge difference?
It seems to come down to Bus Speed, but for one or two VMs is that a deal breaker?

If all you were doing is building a gaming machine I would say 1151.  But given you want a machine that will wear many hats, I would go 2011v3.  Your gaming performance will be 'worse' as not many games will utilise the extra cores and per core speeds will be lower, but for multi-tasking i.e. unraid I'd go for the cores.

Edited by DZMM
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1151 vs a 2011 in terms of virtual vs bare metal makes sense

 

So looking at it

This motherboard (ASRock X99 Extreme4 LGA 2011-v3) @ 159.99

An i7 6800K at 329.99

An 16Gb of RAM (G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series DDR4 3000) @ 143.99

Comes a little over 600 bucks which is fine

 

Would that be a rock solid build?

Suggestions to any of those components would be fine

Though I have decided to stay with a 2011-V3 chipset as DZMM pointed out it'll help a virtual system more than a physical one

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So i pulled the trigger Monday this week and through Fate got a great deal at microcenter for the following

M/B: ASRock - X99 Extreme4/3.1
CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-6850K CPU @ 3.60GHz
Memory: 32 GB (max. installable capacity 512 GB)
EVGA GTX960
 
However no matter what I try I still get 3dmarks in the 2000s
 
What info do I need to gather before I post a question over in the KVM support thread or is there some super simple fix that I forgot
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