VM Server to replace Azure hosted VM's

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I wanted share the specs of my recent purchase.

My goal is for a small machine that could sit on my desk and replace my Azure VM's. It should pay for it's self anywhere from 1-3 years, it's an expensive experiment, and I could have replaced my existing VM's more cheaply - but I wanted some extra capacity in the system.

In Azure I'm running one massive dev server with around 28GB ram one core with four logical processors at 2.1GHz. I run SQL, SharePoint, K2, Visual Studio, Active Directory, and a ton of other server software. I probably should distribute all of this, so I'm thinking about 3-4 VM's by role (AD, SQL, SP + DEV, K2 + DEV), but initially I'll just move my current VM onto this server.

Here's what I've ordered (minus a Raijintek Triton AIO - that was out of stock at ocuk).

Corsair Vengeance Pro Red 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz ....(two sets of 32 ordered)
Quad/Dual Channel Memory Kit (CMY32GX3M4A2400C11R)
Intel Xeon E5-2620v2 2.10GHz 6-Core with Hyperthreading & Turbo (Socket 2011) - Retail
Asus P9X79 WS Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard
Samsung 500GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE500BW)
SuperFlower Leadex Platinum 1000W Fully Modular "80 Plus Platinum" Power Supply - Black
Corsair Carbide Series Air 240 High Airflow PC Case - Black (CC-9011070-WW)
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) (probably got some of this somewhere)
 
I do, but I'll have to see this in person before I'll know what to do.

Either saw off the end of the mobo, or cut a slot in the case. I don't need the expansion slots, so probably the former.
 
Parts arrived today, but as stated by Stulid the board does not fit the case... sort of.

Long story short, I think my best bet is to either, change the case, or change the mobo. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?


I love the case, but I don't really want to change memory, processor and board either.

It would be possible to fit the mobo in this case if I rotated it 90 degrees, but there would be about 1mm between the mobo and the front fans after fitting a rad, plus I'd have to hack the case, and possibly ruin the aesthetic, but this is meant to be a server so I don't really need to look at it, so maybe I should just get something a little bigger.

If I did rotate the mobo the back plate would effectively be on the top of the case. I'd also need to cut out some of the grill on the case top to access these ports and I would need to tap new holes to mount the mobo. As I mentioned before I'm not planning using the expansion slots, so I'm not so worried about these. Rotating is not as mad as it sounds as it wouldn't take much to cut the case as the metal is super thin at the top of the case over the mobo enclosure.

Suggestions welcome.
 
After shopping around and considering my options I finally went for the exact kit recommended by Stulid.

Quite painful getting an RMA number out of Overclockers though, so not really impressed with this element of the service.
 
I really struggled to get the RMA, in the end the of systems did manage to send out a rma in an email, but I had to send quite a few mails, and make dozens of calls before getting someone to help. The returns support team tends to answer calls by putting callers on mute and waiting for them to hang up! That staff needs sacking or training.

I got my new parts and returned the old parts definitely the right move.

However, the system didn't boot and posts code 0f 19. I suspect the memory is only supported on BIOS 1.13 not sure what the board ships with, or how I can flash the BIOS if the board doesn't even boot!

In case anyone is wondering about earlier posts, no hacksaws were taken to any cases or components in this build.
 
I got a reply from EVGA stating that only three i7 CPUs are currently supported. So I'm planning to return my Xeon E5 2620 and re-order the i7- but I've damaged the box, so don't expect I'll get back the full amount. This option seems easier than re-order a Gigabyte micro atx board - which overclockers don't sell.

I can't believe how much of a faf building this machine has become, or that there are motherboards out there that only take three processors.

I should have done more research on the supported processors, but pretty annoyed that this board can even be bought without a processor - as it only takes three it should iho really come bundled with a cpu.
 
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