Spec me: A workstation for running Virtual Machines and Portal 2!

i7 970 isn't exactly good value for money. i7-2600K would be better value even if you have less cores to play with. In fact, a hex core Phenom II might actually be a good idea because it's cheap now and you can upgrade to Bulldozer later on (providing you get one the motherboards that have been confirmed to support AM3+ CPUs).
 
I reckon an i5-2500k with an overclock is probably best to begin with. PC Pro this month says it offers the best performance for the money.

EDIT: Yes it won't have Hyperthreading but to be honest in the short-to-medium term I can switch some machines off when not needed. At some point I'll be getting a faster Mac (Final Cut X baby!) anyway so spending too much on a interim PC doesn't make too much sense.
 
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LordSplodge said:
Not sure that going for Socket 1366 is best in the long term... Nice CPU though.
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Until socket 2011 arrives, socket 1366 is still intel top of the 'consumer' range. Have you looked at server boards?

With the 970, you can allocate a full core + HT to each of four or five servers. You also get six DDR3 slots for up to 24Gb ram.

Still maybe a six to eight core sandy is on the horizon.

andy.
 
nkata said:
Until socket 2011 arrives, socket 1366 is still intel top of the 'consumer' range. Have you looked at server boards?
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I have and it goes out of my price range. As I posted above I don't want to go overkill as at some point the machine will be relegated to a gaming machine and workstation duties will be moved to a Mac Pro (along with video editing!)
 
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