virtualizaiton 2 Gamers 1 CPU

[Sparkyyy]

Hi, and thanks for reading. 

I have a question. I wanna build a wall mounted watercooled PC. Me and my girlfriend are gamers, for me, i play New er titles like Battlefield, CoD and so on(maybe RDR2? :/). My Girlfriend plays lots of WoW, Destiny 2. 

 

I should say that i need to get an nvidia card(g-sync) and i have an 4k Ultrawide Screen and my Girlfriend has an 2k (WFHD) Ultrawide screen. 

 

My question is, what CPU should i use to run both system well? I am tending to buy the i9-9900k, but will it fit and will there be a 10th gen desktop soon? How much do i "loose" to virtualization and i also need to split the CPU, how much performance loss will it have(like 2x i7-xxxx).

GPU, i will buy me an RTX 2080TI and the other will be an AMD Card i think, but not high end. 

 

Thanks for your help! :) 

[Jurrunio]

6 minutes ago, Sparkyyy said:

i9-9900k,

not enough cores, get a 12 core like the 3900x or 7920x. Keep in mind that you'll have to split the CPU in half for cores, so with a 9900k you'lll get 4 cores on each side, which is just sad.

[Fasauceome]

Ryzen 9 3900X, splits into 2 Ryzen 5 3600X (more or less) so that's a much better route for the money.

[Sparkyyy]

14 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

not enough cores, get a 12 core like the 3900x or 7920x. Keep in mind that you'll have to split the CPU in half for cores, so with a 9900k you'lll get 4 cores on each side, which is just sad.

 

5 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

Ryzen 9 3900X, splits into 2 Ryzen 5 3600X (more or less) so that's a much better route for the money.

Thanks for your answers. 

I had these in mind, like the New ryzen, but i thougt that you have better virtualization with Intel? 

[Jurrunio]

10 minutes ago, Sparkyyy said:

but i thougt that you have better virtualization with Intel? 

Ryzen did have terrible GPU passthrough support, but it's not the case now. Besides, are you willing to pay Intel for their 12 core?

[Electronics Wizardy]

11 minutes ago, Sparkyyy said:

 

Thanks for your answers. 

I had these in mind, like the New ryzen, but i thougt that you have better virtualization with Intel? 

virtualization works well on both

 

Id just get 2 systems though. Much easier to setup, easier to troubleshoot, and about the same price.

[Bruno_A]

While definitely doable, it's just not as practical as getting two different systems. It is definitely cool that you can have one machine and have two people play games on it, at the same time, however, that's pretty much it, something cool.

[Ibanez343]

The most important thing is to make sure it will actually work before investing a lot of money / time into it.  I only have experience with X370 (AMD) and X58 (Intel) boards so far.  I didn't get GPU passthrough working at all on my X370 board until I found a solution, I had to downgrade my BIOS to an older AGESA version.  Many boards are affected by this, not just older boards like mine.  Even after that I was only able to get 2 x16 ports passed through.  I haven't been able to isolate the other 1x slots and the 3rd x16 slot to their own IOMMU groups.  I've tried a few methods to separate them but no luck so far.  This makes it difficult to have USB hot plug on 2 VM's at the same time.  Right now I have a Nvidia NVS 300 in the top 1x PCIe slot for Unraid, a GPU for my VM in the top 16x slot and a PCIe USB 3 controller in the other 16x slot.  My options basically end there since I am using the onboard USB 3 controller for Unraid (it is at least in it's own IOMMU group).

 

TLDR: The specs aren't as critical as finding the right motherboard / CPU / BIOS combination that will work in your use case.  Maybe find someone online that built a dual gaming setup and mimic it, and maybe even read about their experience / pitfalls encountered

[Nick7]

If you like tinkering with PC's, constantly adjusting something, changing, etc... than go for it.

Otherwise, save yourself a lot of hassle, and simply have two separate systems.

 

PS: I've had GPU passthrough setup before, it works well. But there's always 'something' that's missing.. so constantly fiddling with something.

[Sparkyyy]

13 hours ago, Jurrunio said:

Ryzen did have terrible GPU passthrough support, but it's not the case now. Besides, are you willing to pay Intel for their 12 core?

Thanks for that Info, then i could go with a ryzen build. I would.

13 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

virtualization works well on both

 

Id just get 2 systems though. Much easier to setup, easier to troubleshoot, and about the same price.

Ok, thanks.
Are you sure with about the same price? i need 1 cpu and 1 motherboard less, watercooling staff too.

13 hours ago, bruny06 said:

While definitely doable, it's just not as practical as getting two different systems. It is definitely cool that you can have one machine and have two people play games on it, at the same time, however, that's pretty much it, something cool.

Practical, more or less, its wall mounted and watercooled, so i dont need to mount 2 full pcs, just one. Sure, its cool and one pc looks better than 2.

8 hours ago, Ibanez343 said:

The most important thing is to make sure it will actually work before investing a lot of money / time into it.  I only have experience with X370 (AMD) and X58 (Intel) boards so far.  I didn't get GPU passthrough working at all on my X370 board until I found a solution, I had to downgrade my BIOS to an older AGESA version.  Many boards are affected by this, not just older boards like mine.  Even after that I was only able to get 2 x16 ports passed through.  I haven't been able to isolate the other 1x slots and the 3rd x16 slot to their own IOMMU groups.  I've tried a few methods to separate them but no luck so far.  This makes it difficult to have USB hot plug on 2 VM's at the same time.  Right now I have a Nvidia NVS 300 in the top 1x PCIe slot for Unraid, a GPU for my VM in the top 16x slot and a PCIe USB 3 controller in the other 16x slot.  My options basically end there since I am using the onboard USB 3 controller for Unraid (it is at least in it's own IOMMU group).

 

TLDR: The specs aren't as critical as finding the right motherboard / CPU / BIOS combination that will work in your use case.  Maybe find someone online that built a dual gaming setup and mimic it, and maybe even read about their experience / pitfalls encountered

Thats an realy important info! I wouldnt have looked so far that the mobo could be an such important issue. Thanks!

5 hours ago, Nick7 said:

If you like tinkering with PC's, constantly adjusting something, changing, etc... than go for it.

Otherwise, save yourself a lot of hassle, and simply have two separate systems.

 

PS: I've had GPU passthrough setup before, it works well. But there's always 'something' that's missing.. so constantly fiddling with something.

I must say.. i like this a lot. Why else should i even try to realize it with Unraid. I like the Idea of virtualization and the things around. As long as i dont have to tweak something everyday, that would get realy fast realy annoying.

-------
I also could try to get it work, and if it isnt stable i build 2 pcs.
The only thing is, what CPU is strong enough?

[xl3b4n0nx]

17 hours ago, Sparkyyy said:

Hi, and thanks for reading. 

I have a question. I wanna build a wall mounted watercooled PC. Me and my girlfriend are gamers, for me, i play New er titles like Battlefield, CoD and so on(maybe RDR2? :/). My Girlfriend plays lots of WoW, Destiny 2. 

 

I should say that i need to get an nvidia card(g-sync) and i have an 4k Ultrawide Screen and my Girlfriend has an 2k (WFHD) Ultrawide screen. 

 

My question is, what CPU should i use to run both system well? I am tending to buy the i9-9900k, but will it fit and will there be a 10th gen desktop soon? How much do i "loose" to virtualization and i also need to split the CPU, how much performance loss will it have(like 2x i7-xxxx).

GPU, i will buy me an RTX 2080TI and the other will be an AMD Card i think, but not high end. 

 

Thanks for your help!

I would spring for a 3900X or the newly announced 3950X. Typically you need to allocate atleast one core for the host os. So one of you will lose a core when splitting them. This would give you 6c/5c or 8c/7c on those CPUs respectively.

[Sparkyyy]

1 hour ago, xl3b4n0nx said:

I would spring for a 3900X or the newly announced 3950X. Typically you need to allocate atleast one core for the host os. So one of you will lose a core when splitting them. This would give you 6c/5c or 8c/7c on those CPUs respectively.

I thought that too,the 3950x looks realy good for my plan. 
I think my girlfriend will not need as much cores as i will, so she will get 1c less or so with an RX 5700 / maybe XT. This must be tested. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

6 hours ago, Sparkyyy said:

Ok, thanks.
Are you sure with about the same price? i need 1 cpu and 1 motherboard less, watercooling staff too.

Have you priced it out? Its probably simmilar, but water cooling may make one system cheaper. But its also a lot of work if something goes worng, and setup and be a pain if you haven't worked with hypervisors much before.

17 minutes ago, Sparkyyy said:

I thought that too,the 3950x looks realy good for my plan. 
I think my girlfriend will not need as much cores as i will, so she will get 1c less or so with an RX 5700 / maybe XT. This must be tested. 

One thing to note is vms can share cores, so each vm can use almost all of the cpu if needed. VMS don't reserve cpu power, it can be shared to other processes when they aren't using it.

 

 

[xl3b4n0nx]

1 hour ago, Sparkyyy said:

I thought that too,the 3950x looks realy good for my plan. 
I think my girlfriend will not need as much cores as i will, so she will get 1c less or so with an RX 5700 / maybe XT. This must be tested. 

What OS will you be doing this on? Unraid?

[Sparkyyy]

15 hours ago, xl3b4n0nx said:

What OS will you be doing this on? Unraid?

Yes 

17 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Have you priced it out? Its probably simmilar, but water cooling may make one system cheaper. But its also a lot of work if something goes worng, and setup and be a pain if you haven't worked with hypervisors much before.

One thing to note is vms can share cores, so each vm can use almost all of the cpu if needed. VMS don't reserve cpu power, it can be shared to other processes when they aren't using it.

 

 

You are right, its around 3k. 

but i am working in that field(networking/PC stuff), so i have some sort of knowlage. OK. I thought that the other VM doesnt take more then it "gets". So i could share cores? 

[Electronics Wizardy]

4 hours ago, Sparkyyy said:

Yes 

Id personally go with another linux distro, like ubuntu or fedora, but unraid will work fine.

 

4 hours ago, Sparkyyy said:

but i am working in that field(networking/PC stuff), so i have some sort of knowlage. OK. I thought that the other VM doesnt take more then it "gets". So i could share cores? 

Its very common in vms clusters to over provision the cpu cores something liek 4:1 to 7:1, so there are 4 to 7 virtual cpu cores in vms to every real core on the cost. Normally vms won't need all of the cpu power, and then they can use more if needed. Pinning cpu cores to a specific core on the cost can be faster in come cases aswell, play around with what works best.

 

[Nick7]

On 11/15/2019 at 7:23 PM, Electronics Wizardy said:

One thing to note is vms can share cores, so each vm can use almost all of the cpu if needed. VMS don't reserve cpu power, it can be shared to other processes when they aren't using it.

If one intends to game, and have no micro-stutters, it's HIGHLY advisable to use CPU pinning.

You are generally correct about sharing CPU cores, and using overprovisioning, etc. But not in such case where VM's are used for GPU passthrough and gaming, CPU pinning is basically required.