Can't decide on Chipset/Mobo/CPU

[ScorpioGeek]

I currently do not have any equipment that uses the following technologies;
USB 3.1
Thunderbolt 

 

With the new system I am building, I would like to Utilize the M.2 /U.2 or PCI3 x4 SSDs as a boot drive. (as that seems to be the logical way to go these days, for the extra read-write speeds).

 

The goal is to build a workstation that will run Multiple VMs, I do some rendering, I also want to play some of the new games that are out there (Haven't been in the gaming scene for a long while) as I only have a laptop with a built in 650M Nvidia GPU and the system gets hot :(. However with this new build I would love to have 2/3-Way SLI

MY Questions are;

1) Should I go Single CPU / Dual CPU route? (If I go Dual CPU, I can always upgrade to 128GB or so ram) I believe that current chipsets only support upto 64on Single CPU

2) if single CPU should I go with Z710 or X99 or any other recommendations? 

Motherboard brand wise, I have always used ASUS and would like to use ASUS for this new build.

I am open to discuss suggestions and recommendations you may have, including those of other brands.

 

Thanks for your help.

[BbsMentos]

I think dual xeon is your best bet for multiple VMs

[SLAYR]

The newer skylake-e 2011-3 chips support 128gb ram per cpu, and a 6850k, or 6900k both have 40 pcie lanes, enough for triple sli, and pcie ssds. With xeons you will lose a bit of gaming performance, and they will be a lot more expensive.

[makobudor]

1 hour ago, BbsMentos said:

I think dual xeon is your best bet for multiple VMs

I'd definitely agree with dual Xeons for rendering however try to go for some with higher clock speeds per core as most games wont exactly utilize all of the many cores, and ofc as SLAYR said make sure to have enough pcie lanes for the SLI.