Custom PC help for gaming and work (vms)

[aythan09]

Im being offered a choice of purchasing from a friend to purchase a compact case, 512gb ssd, 32gb ram, xeon chip and 750gtx video card for $500. Im comparing it to the Alienware Aurora for $999/1299 choice from Dell.

My overall goal is to be a little more social with my remote customers/co-workers and play BF1 with them while getting the purchase approved by my better-half and make it into a work lab using workstation/vms.

My budget can range from $500 to $1200 but Im trying to stay a bit frugal to ease the acceptance for a gaming pc but yet justify it as a work lab. Im more of a mac guy but gaming on macs is exactly that... so its just part of the game.

Im attempting to purchase this by end of the year so I do have time. At this point, I want to play BF1 at HIGH or above settings so I imagine video card and ram are the most important? One note I forgot to put in there... im not including a monitor or OS in the price tag. I can get those separately even though I will be purchasing windows 10 for this device.

Update:
Here is what I am looking at:
1. Power Supply - EVGA SuperNOVA 650 GS, 80+ GOLD 650W, Fully Modular, EVGA ECO Mode
2. SSD - Crucial MX100 2.5" 512GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) CT512MX100SSD1
3. RAM - Ballistix Tactical 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Gaming Memory Model BLT2KIT8G3D1869DT1TX0 (2 sets for 32gb)
4. Case - Thermaltake Core V21 Black Extreme Micro ATX Cube Chassis CA-1D5-00S1WN-00
5. Motherboard - ASUS Micro ATX DDR3 2600 LGA 1150 Motherboards H97M-PLUS
6. CPU - Intel Xeon E3-1230V3 Haswell, 3.3GHz, 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1150, 80W Quad-Core Server Processor BX80646E31230V3
7. GPU - 750 GTX but I was thinking that I will upgrade this to a 1060 with 6gb.

 

[lindsay24]

Which Xeon is this? Their performances range quite a bit in terms of gaming. Assuming it's decent, I'd go with that $500 PC and spend a bit extra to upgrade the graphics card. You could probably still sell the 750ti to offset the cost too.

The Xeon and 32GB of RAM would be fantastic for your VMs. You're only a new GPU away from a decent gaming machine.

 

[aythan09]

I put update on original question.

 

[aythan09]

Which Xeon is this? Their performances range quite a bit in terms of gaming. Assuming it's decent, I'd go with that $500 PC and spend a bit extra to upgrade the graphics card. You could probably still sell the 750ti to offset the cost too.

The Xeon and 32GB of RAM would be fantastic for your VMs. You're only a new GPU away from a decent gaming machine.

Lindsay24 tyvm for the response. Here is what I am looking at:
1. Power Supply - EVGA SuperNOVA 650 GS, 80+ GOLD 650W, Fully Modular, EVGA ECO Mode
2. SSD - Crucial MX100 2.5" 512GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) CT512MX100SSD1
3. RAM - Ballistix Tactical 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Gaming Memory Model BLT2KIT8G3D1869DT1TX0 (2 sets for 32gb)
4. Case - Thermaltake Core V21 Black Extreme Micro ATX Cube Chassis CA-1D5-00S1WN-00
5. Motherboard - ASUS Micro ATX DDR3 2600 LGA 1150 Motherboards H97M-PLUS
6. CPU - Intel Xeon E3-1230V3 Haswell, 3.3GHz, 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1150, 80W Quad-Core Server Processor BX80646E31230V3
7. GPU - 750 GTX but I was thinking that I will upgrade this to a 1060 with 6gb.

Next bonus... Ill probably get a gaming monitor and also upgrade the ram to 64gb if I need more vms. I really only need about 4 or 5 at this point. So, thinking each vm will be 4gb each.

Overall, the goal is to play BF1 but mainly get 4-5 vms out of it for my cert studies. So, what do you think?

 

[lindsay24]

Which Xeon is this? Their performances range quite a bit in terms of gaming. Assuming it's decent, I'd go with that $500 PC and spend a bit extra to upgrade the graphics card. You could probably still sell the 750ti to offset the cost too.

The Xeon and 32GB of RAM would be fantastic for your VMs. You're only a new GPU away from a decent gaming machine.

Lindsay24 tyvm for the response. Here is what I am looking at:
1. Power Supply - EVGA SuperNOVA 650 GS, 80+ GOLD 650W, Fully Modular, EVGA ECO Mode
2. SSD - Crucial MX100 2.5" 512GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) CT512MX100SSD1
3. RAM - Ballistix Tactical 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Gaming Memory Model BLT2KIT8G3D1869DT1TX0 (2 sets for 32gb)
4. Case - Thermaltake Core V21 Black Extreme Micro ATX Cube Chassis CA-1D5-00S1WN-00
5. Motherboard - ASUS Micro ATX DDR3 2600 LGA 1150 Motherboards H97M-PLUS
6. CPU - Intel Xeon E3-1230V3 Haswell, 3.3GHz, 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1150, 80W Quad-Core Server Processor BX80646E31230V3
7. GPU - 750 GTX but I was thinking that I will upgrade this to a 1060 with 6gb.

Next bonus... Ill probably get a gaming monitor and also upgrade the ram to 64gb if I need more vms. I really only need about 4 or 5 at this point. So, thinking each vm will be 4gb each.

Overall, the goal is to play BF1 but mainly get 4-5 vms out of it for my cert studies. So, what do you think?

It looks good to me. The GTX 1060 will definitely give you a fantastic gaming experience, and it looks like you've got RAM figured out. That Xeon is definitely up to spec as well. I'd say go for it.