Goal: Planning/ Building Linux mini-itx/micro-atx with virtualization and ready for gpu.

[Wyvar_T]

Budget (including currency): 550$ )used 300$

Country: Poland

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: For now light gamig (lol, dota2, dead by daylight etc.) + davincii resolve

Other details Have: Ryzen 7 5700g ( i will explain why), PSU: Corsair HX750i

Now the idea.
For now i'm building Just a kinda budget  pc - I don't have enough money for full fledge build, but also i need something to use.

But the goal is actually to build, during next 4 months a small computer that can use 2 OS at the same time at the same time (via gpu passthrough and virtualization) on linux

To be able of doing so, my idea was simple - i need at least 8/16 processor, for virtualization second OS. But there was also a problem: To do so it require additional gpu/apu. And i know - i can just dual boot, but that's not my goal. Why linux of all? Please.. you need to ask? Just love... and i am masochist so also arch xD

 

That's why I bought AMD Ryzen 7 5700g - It allows me to build the idea with only 1 aditional gpu and using before buying one - what is crucial in budget/power build during times, when selling kidney is not enough to get gpu, and we want to talk about 2 of them.. NAAAAH. It also allows me to use mini-itx if i really want something small. Why?

 

During holidays or bigger "events", i want to come back to my family. And that lasts for almost 1-2 weeks if that happens, i am without way of playing/streaming (yes.. you can laugh about it) / and working. So i was thinking about something compact.. Reaally compact.. 

Why not laptop? Price + reparability (oaky there is framework) + f*** connection between the gpu and apu.. DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO FIND A LAPTOP IN A GOOD PRICE, TO USE GPU PASSTROUGH? With dual? 

 

Now i'm lookin' for the remaining 250$  i need 2 things - RAM and Motherboard...(i know i would need another PSU but that later) And the second one is tricky. 
It's still fight between mini-itx and micro-atx, cause backup pci-e port... is a lot... I would love to have micro-atx in smallest possible case, but i know it will be kinda impossible. It's also hard to decide which model should i buy

Soo can you help me? 
I'm looking for good motherboard + good ram, within the ramaining budget of 250$
Also - if you have any other suggestion i would love to hear it, like gpu, cases, small PSU (and skip the laptop part please)

 

EDIT::Fight between 

 

mini-itx base: 

MSI B450I GAMING PLUS MAX WIFI

 

micro-atx base

MSI MAG B550M MORTAR

 

 

[Dr0idGh0sT]

Don't torture yourself and don't use VR, Dual boot it  Get 2 separate drive and install windows on one, Linux on another  It'll be much better.

ITX parts are too expensive, So get Micro ATX, Due to budget constraint.

Asus tuf Asus TUF GAMING B450M-PLUS II will be good option if it's available in your country for around 80 USD equivalent. That will save you enough money to get normal RAM. Get yourself 2x8 GB 3600 CL16 kit. 

[Wyvar_T]

44 minutes ago, Dr0idGh0sT said:

Don't torture yourself and don't use VR, Dual boot it  Get 2 separate drive and install windows on one, Linux on another  It'll be much better.

ITX parts are too expensive, So get Micro ATX, Due to budget constraint.

Asus tuf Asus TUF GAMING B450M-PLUS II will be good option if it's available in your country for around 80 USD equivalent. That will save you enough money to get normal RAM. Get yourself 2x8 GB 3600 CL16 kit. 

Hmm.. true i don't have pcie 4.0 so it worthles. So the only advantage of 550 is eventually Wifi 6... Maybe i will do it with 2 drives but i will decide that later ;-;
Still this motherboard doesn't have wifi  so it's kinda a problem.
but what about this mini-itx ASRock B550M-ITX/ac? 

BTW : To be honest.. I don't know why but love torturing myself ;-; I spend 2 years on arch playing with nvidia drivers. In adition i've got broken motherboard in laptop with 3 melted transistors. Still it works, but.. welp.. And my first self built computer died because the PSU i was using 2 years (old corsair) burn down my mother board + gpu (it was .4 years ago xD).. Soo... Welp.. I think i love torturing myself.

[thewelshbrummie]

Some thoughts:

 

14 hours ago, Dr0idGh0sT said:

Don't torture yourself and don't use VR, Dual boot it  Get 2 separate drive and install windows on one, Linux on another

That's fine but you can only use one OS at a time, you'd need to reboot every time you want to switch.

 

15 hours ago, Wyvar said:

To be able of doing so, my idea was simple - i need at least 8/16 processor, for virtualization second OS. But there was also a problem: To do so it require additional gpu/apu. And i know - i can just dual boot, but that's not my goal. Why linux of all? Please.. you need to ask? Just love... and i am masochist so also arch xD

The advantage of going this route is that you can use both OSes at the same time, one natively, the other in the VM and alt+tab between the VM and apps running natively.

 

--

 

8/16 makes sense as you can split that into 2x 4/8. You'll also need at least 16GB RAM, preferrably 32GB if splitting via a VM.

 

On Intel VT-d allows VMs direct access to PCI-e hardware, so you're right in that you'd need a seperate GPU to get reasonable graphics in the VM. On AMD CPUs you need to enable AMD-Vi. Check as that is usually disabled in the BIOS by default.

 

The problem is you're budget. I don't think that's really enough for going the VM route when you'd need more RAM and a GPU (since 32GB RAM would take most of you're budget, leaving maybe $70 for a motherboard) vs buying a 2nd SSD for the 2nd OS.

 

--

For background, I've gone from 16GB>32GB RAM since I built my new computer in April, and have installed Win 11 in both a VM from Windows 10 and on a 2nd SSD to try it natively. Both options work - performance is certainly better running natively but the flexibility of using an OS as a VM might be worth it.

[Wyvar_T]

4 hours ago, thewelshbrummie said:

On Intel VT-d allows VMs direct access to PCI-e hardware, so you're right in that you'd need a seperate GPU to get reasonable graphics in the VM. On AMD CPUs you need to enable AMD-Vi. Check as that is usually disabled in the BIOS by default.

Noted

 

4 hours ago, thewelshbrummie said:

The problem is you're budget. I don't think that's really enough for going the VM route when you'd need more RAM and a GPU (since 32GB RAM would take most of you're budget, leaving maybe $70 for a motherboard) vs buying a 2nd SSD for the 2nd OS.

I will buy gpu somewhere around January. Normally i would have whole money collected, but due to my laptop literally melting i speed up the process to the extent of this budget.. About RAM.. Hmm True. 8GB per system is not efficient, especially because Ryzen is Memory Bounded (if we are talking about performance + APU + VM). I was planning to buy 16 for now and later sold it to my friend who from time to time is building some pc to sold, and knowing me and my use it shouldn't be that bad.

 

Same goes with PSU: I know that for mini-itx i need sfx, but due to now limited budget, i'm going  to do this in January.. 

And i think i found the motherboard: MSI B450I GAMING PLUS MAX WIFI and MSI MAG B550M MORTAR...This is mini -itx vs macroatx.

thx to that it leaves me with 

But still not sure which one.