Virtualization Server planning

[Basshead]

Budget (including currency): $1k-1.5k

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Virtualization software (currently I use Oracle VM VirtualBox, but will want to virtualize a macOS machine)

Other details: I am currently thinking of the following specs:

Mobo: ASUS Prime Z590-a (ASUS Prime Z590-A LGA 1200 (Intel11th/10th Gen) ATX Motherboard 14+2 DrMOS Power Stages,3X M.2, Intel 2.5 Gb LAN, USB 3.2 Front Panel Type-C (pcbuilder.net))

CPU: Intel i7-11700KF

GPU: I want something identical to GTX1080Ti but with newer protocol support like the GTX1660 super. It needs to be able to handle 4 machines worth medium load video and 2 machines worth of light video at one time.

RAM: 4x16GB or 4x8GB

Storage: 2x1TB SSD (ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 1TB 3D NAND PCIe Gen3 NVMe M.2-2280 Internal Solid State Drive (ASX8200PNP-1TT-C) (pcbuilder.net)) RAID 1 + 4x2TB HDD (Seagate BarraCuda 2TB SATA 6Gb/s, 3.5" Internal Hard Drive with 7200 RPM & 256MB Cache (ST2000DMZ08/DM008) (pcbuilder.net)) RAID 5

 

[Bob__]

2 minutes ago, Basshead said:

CPU: Intel i7-11700KF

 

this is an older chip that has much worse performance compared to even a i5-13500

https://technical.city/en/cpu/Core-i5-13500-vs-Core-i7-11700KF

[jaslion]

Why such an old cpu?

[Basshead]

I compared general i7 and i5 of different generations, and i found this one was new enough to be plausible, while not being too unnecessarily expensive and powerful. If there is a better i7 (I find not much reason to go i9 plus it's more expensive) for this build, I'm open to suggestions.

[Zando_]

1 minute ago, Bob__ said:

this is an older chip that has much worse performance compared to even a i5-13500

https://technical.city/en/cpu/Core-i5-13500-vs-Core-i7-11700KF

And horrific power efficiency. @flibberdipper can recount the horrors of 11th gen on that front. Absolutely brutal in anything you want running 24/7. 

8 minutes ago, Basshead said:

I want something identical to GTX1080Ti but with newer protocol support like the GTX1660 super. It needs to be able to handle 4 machines worth medium load video and 2 machines worth of light video at one time.

You need multiple GPUs or else particular quadros/tesla cards and a supported hypervisor to hand off the GPU to VMs. What load are these VMs actually running? You may not need GPU acceleration or may be able to consolidate some tasks to one VM and hand the GPU through to that. Likely need a lot less CPU than you think as well. 

 

[Bob__]

4 minutes ago, Basshead said:

I compared general i7 and i5 of different generations, and i found this one was new enough to be plausible, while not being too unnecessarily expensive and powerful. If there is a better i7 (I find not much reason to go i9 plus it's more expensive) for this build, I'm open to suggestions.

like an i5 13th gen

[Bob__]

or just this https://pcpartpicker.com/list/RzDPRv

[Electronics Wizardy]

15 minutes ago, Basshead said:

GPU: I want something identical to GTX1080Ti but with newer protocol support like the GTX1660 super. It needs to be able to handle 4 machines worth medium load video and 2 machines worth of light video at one time.

RAM: 4x16GB or 4x8GB

So there isn'tgenerally great support for splitting a gpu across guests. What will these guests be doing graphically?

 

 

16 minutes ago, Basshead said:

Other details: I am currently thinking of the following specs:

Mobo: ASUS Prime Z590-a (ASUS Prime Z590-A LGA 1200 (Intel11th/10th Gen) ATX Motherboard 14+2 DrMOS Power Stages,3X M.2, Intel 2.5 Gb LAN, USB 3.2 Front Panel Type-C (pcbuilder.net))

CPU: Intel i7-11700KF

Are you getting these parts? These are old now and buying them for msrp is a bad deal.

 

Id probably go with a 7800/7900/7950 so you don't have to deal with the big little on intels 12 and 13th gen.

[Bob__]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id probably go with a 7800/7900/7950 so you don't have to deal with the big little on intels 12 and 13th gen.

it fits in the OP's budget

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/GsGpfv

[Basshead]

Based on my research, I would either go with i7-11700KF or i7-12700KF. These are recent, have good number of cores, have good speed, and are reasonably priced.
UserBenchmark: Intel Core i7-11700KF vs i7-12700KF

Intel Core i711700KF Processor 16M Cache up to 5.00 GHz Product Specifications

Intel Core i712700KF Processor 25M Cache up to 5.00 GHz Product Specifications

Intel Core i713700KF Processor 30M Cache up to 5.40 GHz Product Specifications

The i7-13700KF is more power than I think I need and it's so new that it would be really expensive.

 

Based on this which one should I choose? Also, if I'm not on the right track pls let me know.

[Basshead]

23 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

So there isn'tgenerally great support for splitting a gpu across guests. What will these guests be doing graphically?

 

 

Are you getting these parts? These are old now and buying them for msrp is a bad deal.

 

Id probably go with a 7800/7900/7950 so you don't have to deal with the big little on intels 12 and 13th gen.

I really like the ASUS mobo. I don't mind older stuff. Most of my stuff is from 2011-2018.
The Asus mobo is cheap and has features I really like.

[Basshead]

24 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

So there isn'tgenerally great support for splitting a gpu across guests. What will these guests be doing graphically?

 

 

Are you getting these parts? These are old now and buying them for msrp is a bad deal.

 

Id probably go with a 7800/7900/7950 so you don't have to deal with the big little on intels 12 and 13th gen.

I also didn't know that you couldn't combine vpcs' loads to one gpu. So should I just get i7 K processor?
I might game on one vpc but not multiple at one time. I just play racing games usually, like asphalt and Midtown madness from the early 2000s. Should I change to K processor and if i need gpu, which one would be most reasonably financially conservative option?

[Zando_]

1 minute ago, Basshead said:

Also, if I'm not on the right track pls let me know.

You need to tell us what you're actually trying to run, or else we have 0 idea what track you're on. 

 

As @Electronics Wizardy noted, you may want to consider AMD for a VM box as well, unless you have a specific reason for needing Intel. Ryzens are all P cores so no fiddling with P/E core mixes, they usually have a very good ECO mode in BIOS to pull the chip down to really low power draw with little performance loss (none noticeable in the VM stuff I've done). I'm an Intel man myself for my home stuff, at work I run a NAS and VM Box that are both on Ryzens for those reasons. They're simple, cheap, low power draw. You can get a cheap ASRock B450 or B550 board and be good for most purposes, ASRock tends to expose settings like ACS and some other advanced stuff that's really handy for VM shenanigans especially if you mean to do any PCIe passthrough. 

2 minutes ago, Basshead said:

I really like the ASUS mobo. I don't mind older stuff. Most of my stuff is from 2011-2018.
The Asus mobo is cheap and has features I really like.

The issue is just that 11th gen is fucking terrible. Far too much power draw for running a VM box. I use old stuff too, but something like Broadwell which will sip wattage when running 24/7. I doubt there's any features that board has that you can't find the same or better on a current platform. 

[jaslion]

9 minutes ago, Basshead said:

Based on my research, I would either go with i7-11700KF or i7-12700KF. These are recent, have good number of cores, have good speed, and are reasonably priced.
UserBenchmark: Intel Core i7-11700KF vs i7-12700KF

Intel Core i711700KF Processor 16M Cache up to 5.00 GHz Product Specifications

Intel Core i712700KF Processor 25M Cache up to 5.00 GHz Product Specifications

Intel Core i713700KF Processor 30M Cache up to 5.40 GHz Product Specifications

The i7-13700KF is more power than I think I need and it's so new that it would be really expensive.

 

Based on this which one should I choose? Also, if I'm not on the right track pls let me know.

A 13600 is normally cheaper than a 12700 and it's faster.

 

However NONE of these are efficient AT ALL. You'll pay a good bit more for power useage.

 

Amd is also right there ready to go for not a lot.

[flibberdipper]

27 minutes ago, Zando_ said:

And horrific power efficiency. @flibberdipper can recount the horrors of 11th gen on that front. Absolutely brutal in anything you want running 24/7.

Can confirm, my server has a lowly i5 11400 that is neutered as much as reasonably possible (65w PL2, 45w PL1) and the power succ is amusingly bad compared to my moderately overclocked and undervolted 12600KF. Idle the 11400 usually drinks 16-20w, and my 12600KF (which also downclocks as low as 800MHz because I did a boost-table OC and not a straight OC) idles somewhere in the 10-15w range. Sure it's just a few watts idle, but they add up when left on 24/7.

 

Where 11th gen REALLY falls apart is under any amount of load. Before I reined it in so hard, I had allowed it to suck down 95w for PL1, which was good for 4GHZ and got it an R15 score of 1436. My 12600KF usually draws around 150-155w in R15, and it was able to pull a score of 2866 at something like 4.9GHz all-core. So for literally twice the performance the 12600KF would draw 81% of the power, relatively speaking.

 

Granted, the draw of the CPU is nothing in the grand scheme of things, seeing as my entire server idles around 90-100 watts thanks to the 9 hard drives it has, however wherever you can save power in these dumb things is good.

[Basshead]

Yeah I normally use intel for all my cpus for the stability and, i mean, there's a reason intel is so prevelant in businesses. I mean if AMD is the better option, then i'm ears, but i am curious why intel i7-11700KF would have power draw issues. Also, I notice that i7-11700 is only p cores, so yeah.

 

Also, would i7-12700KF be good for my other build:

that since it isn't a server may benefit from the e cores?

[Basshead]

The virtual PCs will be like 4 windows 7 or 10 ones with 4-8GB ram, and a linux machine, and a macOS machine primarily. I may experiment with more too though. And probably an old windows machine like xp or smth.

 

Edited May 9, 2023 by Basshead
More detail

[jaslion]

21 minutes ago, Basshead said:

why intel i7-11700KF would have power draw issues

Because it's using a very outdated cpu node (14nm), pushes itself to the limit and scales badly with lowered clock speed.

 

I think amd 5000 is over double performance per watt.

 

Legit a 5800 is 250 something right now, is faster and A LOT more power efficient ESPECIALLY when you put it in eco mode. Then it goes to 3x+ performance per watt compared to a eco moded 11700k

[Basshead]

okay, so what's the best amd cpu for this build? I want like 8 cores and a lot of threads. (if this is not optimal for virtualization pls let me know. I think that each VPC can utilize cores of main cpu or smth like that? (not super knowledgeable here))

And what mobo would be better option as some said the asus I listed is old and stuff.

[flibberdipper]

52 minutes ago, Basshead said:

but i am curious why intel i7-11700KF would have power draw issues. Also, I notice that i7-11700 is only p cores, so yeah.

11th gen was a 10nm design that got backported to 14nm, which trashed efficiency pretty hard. If they would've just done 14nm++++++ and saved 10nm proper for 12th gen it likely would have been a healthy amount more power efficient and honestly I don't doubt that it would have been faster. My laptop has an 8750H with a 54w power limit and it's something like 10-15% faster at that power target compared to my 11400.

 

Also it's all "P-Core" because there was no BIG.little architecture yet, we didn't get that until 12th gen.

[Basshead]

Yes 11gen seems to be terrible.

So what would be good amd processors for this build and why?

[Electronics Wizardy]

11 minutes ago, Basshead said:

Yes 11gen seems to be terrible.

So what would be good amd processors for this build and why?

ryzen 7800/7900/7950 depending on how much you want to spend.

 

1 hour ago, Basshead said:

I also didn't know that you couldn't combine vpcs' loads to one gpu. So should I just get i7 K processor?
I might game on one vpc but not multiple at one time. I just play racing games usually, like asphalt and Midtown madness from the early 2000s. Should I change to K processor and if i need gpu, which one would be most reasonably financially conservative option?

I'd stick with the igpu for now. You can probably play those older games(and there are some projects for emulating systems to play games. But most of this virtualization stuff isn't made for gamging.

[Basshead]

How about one of these:
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Specs | TechPowerUp GPU Database

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Specs | TechPowerUp GPU Database

 

[Basshead]

At this point I dont even know what to pick. LOL!
I want plenty RAM, nactua coolers, cheap but really good ram (I dont care about rgb anywhere), and the storage config i originally mentioned.

Please help with cpu and gpu... and mobo since y'all think it's too old...

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 hours ago, Basshead said:

How about one of these:
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Specs | TechPowerUp GPU Database

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Specs | TechPowerUp GPU Database

 

What software are you using? I'd use the iGPU for now as emulating gpu power is pretty bad normally. Don't expect good performacne in a vm with any sort of software emulated vm.