more cores, motherboard !

[oudmaster]

hi all
I want to build a high performance PC, for gaming and at the same time doing massive virtualization with VMware and Microsoft (20+ virtual machines) ,,, etc (for learning purposes).

so I will need a dual socket motherboard because relay on 6 cores will not be good for me.

I heard about EVGA SR-X motherboard, I do not know if it is still not released or discontinued !!

and will new generation of motherboard support this ?

thanks,

 

[rhysiam]

Do you mean you want to game at the same time as you're running 20+ virtual machines? Or you need a single computer that's capable of doing both (but not both at the same time)?

What sort of programs are you going to be running on the virtual machines? In most cases, the issue with VMs is memory and storage performance before you get anywhere near CPU bottlenecks.

 

[oudmaster]

thank you for your reply,
actually I will do one at the a time, means either gaming or virtualization,

{I have cisco and microsoft studies, (Experts told me I just need more CPU and memory bulks), so 12 cores will fit me for long time}.

 

[geok1ng]

hi all
I want to build a high performance PC, for gaming and at the same time doing massive virtualization with VMware and Microsoft (20+ virtual machines) ,,, etc (for learning purposes).

so I will need a dual socket motherboard because relay on 6 cores will not be good for me.

I heard about EVGA SR-X motherboard, I do not know if it is still not released or discontinued !!

and will new generation of motherboard support this ?

thanks,

If you plan on massive virtualization, you are pretty much settled for Xeons. If you wanna game, prefer SKUs with higher clock speeds.

Check this SKUs list. I would consider dual Xeon E7-8857 v2, a native 12-core at a pretty high 3GHz clock or, if gaming is not that much of a priority, the 2.2Ghz, 10 core E9 4830 v2.

If you consider 6k too much for a learning/gaming rig, consider limiting yourself to 16 virtual machines/ threads. Then you can wait for the upcoming Haswell-E Extrem edition desktop CPU, or found some system with the elusive single socket, 8core Xeon E5-1680 v2. This misterious SKU is very likely unlocked like their 6-core brother E5 1660 v2.

there are another combinations of clock and core count that may better suit your budget but i would avoid gaming below 3Ghz core clock, so in the end having a dedicated gaming rig with an unlocked 4670k for USD 240 is wiser.

If you don't mind bad performance/watt, a dual opteron G34 mobo for USD400 can host 2 16 core Opterons. Old Interlagos CPUs like the 6272 can be found below USD400, and in ebay you can found complete blade servers roving the 2k mark. That would be my choice for a " learning rig". 32 cores for USD2000 is insanely cheap, even if real world performance is about that of a 12-core Xeon v2.

 

[rhysiam]

OK, I'm going to bow out at this point and hope someone more knowledgeable comes along. I'm not really familiar with dual socket and server options. If you're going that route I hope you have deep pockets!

I have done a fair bit with virtualization (VMWare Workstation, Virtual Box and ESX), though I've capped out at about 10 VMs on a single host... In my experience the bottleneck has always been memory and storage. Particularly in a test environment where you're often rebooting/installing VMs. In that scenario you're often storage IO bound. Let's say you finish gaming and want to boot up your test environment, you need to start 20 VMs right? Even a Quad Core CPU wouldn't struggle too much with that, it's your storage that's being hammered. My only suggestion would be, if you're throwing money at CPU cores, make sure you go SSD storage to ensure those cores aren't sitting around waiting for your HDDs.

 

[oudmaster]

which LGA 2011 supports dual sockets ??
I have seen in Amazon some motherboards got dual sockets LGA 2011 !!
probably that could be suite for me !! (if they also support Nvidia SLI),