Help with setting up a computer

[Tim Crump]

Hi,

Complete noob checking in. I want to run dual screen monitors side by side to run 6 Virtual Machines off. How possible is this on a budget?

I need to buy everything from scratch.

Looking to spend around £800 on the entire thing if that's possible.

I understand the most important thing for this is a powerful CPU and at least 32gb ram.

Thank you so much if you can reply. No problem if not. Have a great day all.

Tim.

(apologies if posted in wrong place)

 

[TrojanWhore]

before anyone can advise anything, we'll need to know what the VMs are going to be doing as that would very much dictate the CPU performance needed

also, do you have the monitors already?

32GB of even basic DDR4 is going to cost around £300 minimum, around £160-£250 minimum on a 'powerful' CPU (Ryzen 5 1600 or Ryzen 7 1700), at least £80 for a motherboard, £30 for even the most basic graphics card, and you'll still need PSU, case and storage, which you'll need a fair bit of for VMs (to keep all the disk images as well as other space to actually store files, if required).

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I think you'll really struggle for that budget. If you can stand 2nd hand, you may wish to look for a second hand Dell precision or similar, however you still wont get one with 32GB AND a fast modern CPU for that money.

 

[orbitalwalsh]

Going new. might be hard- and then seeing what software your using - seem intel is the easiest to set up

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 7 Eight Core 1700 3.70GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £248.99
• 1 x Gigabyte GA-AB350M-Gaming 3 AMD B350 (Socket AM4) DDR4 Micro ATX Motherboard= £72.95
• 1 x Team Group Night Hawk LED 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C16 3000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Red Light (THRD= £319.99
• 1 x EVGA 450BT 450W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply= £37.99
• 1 x Kolink KLM-001 Micro-ATX Case - Black= £22.99
• 1 x TeamGroup 240GB L5 Lite SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 3D NAND Solid State Drive= £55.99
• 1 x Toshiba 1TB P300 Performance Hard Drive (HDWD110UZSVA)= £39.95
• 1 x KFA2 GeForce GT 1030 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £62.99

Total: £874.14 (includes shipping: £12.30)


as above, 2nd hand-
more details you provide, more can be tailored- have have no idea on your storage needs etc etc so very rough list

also unsure of the heat load that will be placed on ryzen 1700- stock cooler is good, but not sure how it'll handle constant 100% load for log periods possibly ?​

 

[mrbazmondo]

I've been running ESXi 5.5 for a few years as a desktop with dual monitor. 32G, i7-3930K, x79 motherboard. I have an AMD gfx card and USB3 PCIE card in passthrough to a Win10 VM it appears like its just a Win10 machine, except I'm running loads of VMs too. The main thing that make this all usable is installing VMs that matter fully on SSD. Boot time is a pig though - a few minutes before ESXi boots and starts the Win10 VM. Nvidia cards are not supposed to work for passthrough like this - I think they only let the pro stuff passthrough.

 

[orbitalwalsh]

^^^ more info like the above, easier should be to help list

 

[Tim Crump]

Thank you so much for your replies!
@TrojanWhore @orbitalwalsh ill be using 2x Dell Professional P2417H 24-Inch.

What would the difference be between Crucial CT525MX300SSD1 MX300 525 GB 3D NAND SATA 2.5-inch Internal SSD and the SSD you posted? (https://www.overclockers.co.uk/team...gbps-3d-nand-solid-state-drive-hd-004-tg.html). The one i got a mate recommended it to me but it's double the price.

Again whats the difference between your power supply and "super flower green 550w" power supply vs the one you sent me for £38? You appear to have cheaper options but i dunno how it'd affect the speed and performance?

Is there anyway i can upload pictures to this thread because i have a full list of stuff my mates recommended me for what he has and i reckon you lot may haver cheaper alternatives without reducing performance...

 

[orbitalwalsh]

Thank you so much for your replies!
@TrojanWhore @orbitalwalsh ill be using 2x Dell Professional P2417H 24-Inch.

What would the difference be between Crucial CT525MX300SSD1 MX300 525 GB 3D NAND SATA 2.5-inch Internal SSD and the SSD you posted? (https://www.overclockers.co.uk/team...gbps-3d-nand-solid-state-drive-hd-004-tg.html). The one i got a mate recommended it to me but it's double the price.

Again whats the difference between your power supply and "super flower green 550w" power supply vs the one you sent me for £38? You appear to have cheaper options but i dunno how it'd affect the speed and performance?

Is there anyway i can upload pictures to this thread because i have a full list of stuff my mates recommended me for what he has and i reckon you lot may haver cheaper alternatives without reducing performance...

reason for EVGA was budget - and Superflower are the OEM for EVGA. in EVGA higher line they ask Superflower for extra circuit protection and intern offer better warranty - not in the case of this budget one- of course if you got the case, you got better!

Main difference is cost! again, went for budget ! specially with RAM pricing rising and rising and rising - loyalty and best tech goes out the window for building on a budget haha


My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x TeamGroup 240GB L5 Lite SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 3D NAND Solid State Drive= £55.99
• 1 x Crucial MX300 275GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 3D Nand 7mm Solid State Drive (CT275MX300SSD1)= £79.99
• 1 x TeamGroup 480GB L5 Lite SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 3D NAND Solid State Drive= £104.99
• 1 x Crucial MX300 525GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 3D Nand 7mm Solid State Drive (CT525MX300SSD1)= £128.99

Total: £379.86 (includes shipping: £9.90)
​

though you do get less space

use imgur - and don't include competitors names

 

[mrbazmondo]

Trust me - you want the bigger SSD.

 

[Tim Crump]

@orbitalwalsh you're a legend mate for the help. So the power supply wouldnt affect speed or performance?

 

[orbitalwalsh]

@orbitalwalsh you're a legend mate for the help. So the power supply wouldnt affect speed or performance?

No, but as always with foundations , the better the unit/ the maker the stronger the base you have

 

[Tim Crump]

Yeah, i've just added everything up and its
gna be at least 1.5k. Can't really find any cheaper options for anything aswell...
This is how the beast is looking..

AMD Ryzen 7 1700 3.4 ghz 8-core - £235
Asus - PRIME B350-PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard - £79
NightHawk 32GB DDR4 - 3000 memory - £300
Samsung - PM961 128gb M.2-2270 SSD - £68
Crucial - MX300 325gb 2.5" SSD - £113
Zotac-GeForce GTX 1060 3GB mini - £240
Corsair-Corbide 400C ATX Mid tower case - £69 (ayy )
SeaSonic - FOCUS plus gold 550W - £70
Dell - P2417 24" x2 - £330 for both

Not gonna bother with a cooler for the time-being.

How is this looking for a self-built system, good or may run slow n shabby? - Have I missed anything? - Anything you believe that can be changed for cheaper and wont affect longevity or performance?
@orbitalwalsh @mrbazmondo @TrojanWhore

Thank you for the replies

 

[orbitalwalsh]

Personally a fan of Gigabyte boards for UK RMA and rep support but can't argue with quality of Asus as well . Heads up though, Asus doesn't deal with warranty directly so make sure you get it from a good source, like wise with everything else

Not sure if you need such a ££ and middle tier GPU unless you'll be gaming ???

Storage space looks a little light ?

 

[Tim Crump]

@orbitalwalsh I've heard 8-core is necessary for 6+ VMs, is this correct? - Probably will game on it too tbh, be rude not to with the cost haha!

 

[orbitalwalsh]

In theory, the more VRM and the better quality the better the power load is distributed across and deals with heat. Ryzen doesn't suffer what happened to Intel .

(Z370 has a rush job VRM count were underestimated from all vendors and the z370 isn't actually a full coffeelake chipset , z390 is. You'll see leaked H370 boards from Gigabyte and ASRock with higher VRM counts then z370 boards )

I can't remember if the Gaming 3 is 4+3 or 6+2 VRM design

*** 4+3 , 4 mosfets for the CPU have heatsink, the 3 phase for the ram doesn't .

If you know that the CPU will be under constant 100% load for long periods of time, specially without good air flow in a case, then could be worth upgrade in board. Specially if your running AVX2 instructions ?

If you intend to overclock as well can have an effect etc etc

 

[Tim Crump]

@orbitalwalsh I wont be overclocking no, i wont be putting it through too much strenuous activity. Half of that was in another language for me bro haha! So this system im plannig on getting. Is that everything? Im not missing anything?

 

[orbitalwalsh]

Check Asus support for VM programs some talk a little more work then others
But looks good, if gaming is light ... But you want them to look nice at 1080p setting then 1050ti will save some cash for SSD etc

 

[mrbazmondo]

@orbitalwalsh I've heard 8-core is necessary for 6+ VMs, is this correct? - Probably will game on it too tbh, be rude not to with the cost haha!

Not that I've seen - which hypervisor was that with?

 

[Tim Crump]

@mrbazmondo What's a hypervisor? And that was just my mate telling me who has the exact same specs and uses the computer for what I'll be using it for buddy

 

[mrbazmondo]

For comparison, my i7-3930 has 6 cores - 12 logical processors. I can easily run 40+ VMs.
It just depends if they're all busy at the same time. Depends what you're doing with them. If they are then there will be more contention for the CPU the more VMs you have.

 

[Tim Crump]

@mrbazmondo wow thats triple the price... LOL