4 VR gamers 1 CPU

[Adorable Cat]

Budget/Location:

US, however much the school board is willing to fund it I guess.

Aim:

Our school/class wants to buy like 8 Oculus quests, and we also want to build a "server" that lets us stream PC VR games to the quests using Virtual Desktop or whatever. It'll be an idea similar to 7 gamers 1 CPU, except each VM will be able to stream VR games to a designated headset (8 headsets -> 8 VMs, each with their own GPUs, 4 CPU cores, and around 16GB of RAM). 

 

I've put together this parts list so far, we'd need 2 of these to be able to stream to 8 headsets at once:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Threadripper 3960X 3.8 GHz 24-Core Processor  ($1399.00 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte TRX40 DESIGNARE XL ATX sTRX4 Motherboard  ($629.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 64 GB (8 x 8 GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  ($274.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Patriot VPN100 256 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($54.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Samsung 860 QVO 2 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($199.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: ASRock Radeon RX 580 8 GB Phantom Gaming X Video Card  ($166.98 @ Newegg) 
Case: Corsair 750D ATX Full Tower Case  ($159.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($179.99 @ B&H) 
Case Fan: Noctua NF-F12 PWM 54.97 CFM 120 mm Fan  ($19.95 @ Amazon) 
Case Fan: Noctua NF-F12 PWM 54.97 CFM 120 mm Fan  ($19.95 @ Amazon) 
Case Fan: Noctua NF-F12 PWM 54.97 CFM 120 mm Fan  ($19.95 @ Amazon) 
Radiator: Alphacool NexXxoS ST30 Full Copper 240mm Radiator  ($55.50 @ ModMyMods) 
Custom: EKWB EK-XRES 140 SPC PWM Classic RGB (Includes Pump)  ($99.99 @ Amazon) 
Custom: Optimal Shop M.2 NGFF SSD to PCI-e Express 4X Converter Adapter Card - Ethereum Mining ETH Miner Cable rig  ($5.99 @ Amazon) 
Custom: Asus Strix 580 8GB ($169.99)
Custom: Sapphire Pulse 580 ($189.99)
Custom: XFX 580 ($159.99)
Custom: ZOTAC GT710 ($42.99)
Custom: USB 3.0 PCIE card ($18.29)
Custom: USB 3.0 PCIE card ($18.29)
Custom: USB 3.0 PCIE card ($18.29)
Custom: USB 3.0 PCIE card ($18.29)
Custom: PCIE 1x - 4x multiplier ($29.95)
Custom: PCIE 1x riser ($21.95)
Custom: EK Velocity CPU Block ($109.99)
Custom: UnRAID basic license ($59.00)
Total: $4144.26
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-01-29 14:21 EST-0500]

 

Any suggestions on this build? also just gonna ping @LinusTech and @GabenJr because you guys have really relevant experience so I could use your input.

 

Edit: a bit more info about the list I forgot to add. The 1x riser cable is so I can plug the 4x multiplier in (I don't think it would fit under a GPU). The 4 rx580s are each for the VMs and will be plugged into the x16 slots. The m.2 to PCIe adapter is for the GT710 (for the host to have display). The 4x PCIe 1x multiplier is for the USB 3 cards, each VM gets one.

[dalekphalm]

Who is going to support this? You? The IT department of the school?

 

Was the requirement to have a single server run anything from the school, or is that something you proposed?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Id really try to get multiple pcs. Much easier to support and setup and about the same cost. Also lots less hassle when setting it up. Like how will you get all those gpus and usb cards to work? The multipler can have isues, and might not split the iommu groups up as needed.

 

Also why unraid,why not other linux distros?

 

 

[Adorable Cat]

27 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Who is going to support this? You? The IT department of the school?

 

Was the requirement to have a single server run anything from the school, or is that something you proposed?

The school'll be supporting it if it happens, the idea wasn't completely mine but one of the people who run the 3D printing/VR/electronics stuff room.

 

18 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Also why unraid,why not other linux distros?

was just the first one that came to mind, and also the X ___s 1 CPU videos usually use it so I figured it'd be easier to apply that to this project

 

  totally open to alternatives though.

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, Adorable Cat said:

The school'll be supporting it if it happens, the idea wasn't completely mine but one of the people who run the 3D printing/VR/electronics stuff room.

I would highly suggest you build individual machines instead of doing "4 in 1" like you've suggested.

 

It won't be as "cool", but it'll be far more serviceable, easier to setup, and far less of a headache.

 

But ultimately it depends on the purpose. Is the purpose to be able to have up to 4 or 8 people play VR at the same time? Or is the purpose strictly about learning to configure a highly unusual and non-standard virtualized environment?

2 minutes ago, Adorable Cat said:

was just the first one that came to mind, and also the X ___s 1 CPU videos usually use it so I figured it'd be easier to apply that to this project

 

  totally open to alternatives though.

There are plenty of other ways to accomplish this - ESXi and Proxmox. There's also stuff like Windows Multipoint Server.

 

None of them, including unRAID, are going to be particularly easy to configure and operate though, compared to separate machines.

 

Bonus points with the separate machines, you can Domain join them all, and manage them via Active Directory - if the school doesn't want them on their existing domain, you could also create a new domain server just for these machines if you wanted (can pretty much run on any PC, even a potato).