How to build 1 computer for 2 gamers more cheaper??

[Yodi Setiawan]

please let me know how to setting it, how to do it more cheap more possible (sorry if my english is not good)

[manikyath]

the whole "1 system, X number of users" thing is only applicable for the enterprise user, or as a gimmick.

 

under most, if not all scenarios having two discrete systems is cheaper and more practical.

[manikyath]

3 minutes ago, wrathoftheturkey said:

 

funny how we used the exact same word to describe two separate systems

well, in the technology world "discrete" is used for a piece of hardware dedicated to a specific purpose, and having two seperate machines would mean those computers are dedicated to a user, so they would be "discrete" computers.

as opposed to having one machine that splits it's capabilities between the two users.

[manikyath]

2 minutes ago, wrathoftheturkey said:

shut up it's illuminati confirmed 420 BLAZE IT HAHAHA FUQ DA POLICE MLG 360 NOSCOPE

 

On the subject of stale memes, 

 

But wait, I can pivot back to the topic. 

 

Unless you've got enough money (or debt) to put your name on a building on fifth avenue (case in point) you probably shouldn't be trying to cram two PCs worth of silicon into one build

i've actually pitched the idea to a friend of mine in the past.

 

in one of the jobs he did trough the years, he had to set up, guard over, and maintain the computers they use at events for people to play games on etc. and because people are just slightly more intelligent apes, he had taken to putting all the systems in weighted steel boxes to keep people from breaking them, that's probably one of the *few* moments where a system like this would be somewhat sensible since you only need to forklift away one steel bunker instead of 7

[SLAYR]

2 hours ago, Yodi Setiawan said:

please let me know how to setting it, how to do it more cheap more possible (sorry if my english is not good)

How cheap do you want it?

 

What performance are you looking for?

 

For starters you need a cpu, and motherboard with vt-x, and vt-d for Intel, or AMD IOMMU for AMD.

 

Then you need three seperate gpus, a cheap one for the hypervisior (host OS), and the other two for the gaming vms.

As well as preferably a cpu with at least 6cores /12 threads since you would want to set one or two cores aside for the hypervisor, and then five threads for the other two vms.

 

This will all require a large atx case, and higher wattage psu, and you will need at least three drives for maximum performance.

 

Also you are looking at at least 16Gb of ram.

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/FFN8jc

 

Two of these will be cheaper and perform better since you lose performance through virtualization.

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/GhzJtJ

[bobhays]

2 hours ago, wrathoftheturkey said:

Don't, it's cheaper to build two discrete PCs with the same performance.

 

2 hours ago, manikyath said:

the whole "1 system, X number of users" thing is only applicable for the enterprise user, or as a gimmick.

 

under most, if not all scenarios having two discrete systems is cheaper and more practical.

I don't understand what the issue is here. Having 1 PC means you save money on the case and motherboard. Everything else is just 2x (unless you want each one to have an i7).

[manikyath]

Just now, bobhays said:

 

I don't understand what the issue is here. Having 1 PC means you save money on the case and motherboard. Everything else is just 2x (unless you want each one to have an i7).

but diminishing returns hit at the high end so you'll pay more than twice for twice the cpu performance for example, and on top of that you get  bugs, issues, and impracticalities.

 

i've priced this out a while back now, and the absolutely cheapest you can go (talking dodgy PSU style here) with hardware that still has the right capabilities you're still looking at a price premium over two decent systems.

[bobhays]

20 minutes ago, wrathoftheturkey said:

but performance scaling isn't that linear. To get the same performance you'd be spending more than twice as much.

It is linear when they're 2 virtualized machines.

[bobhays]

20 minutes ago, manikyath said:

but diminishing returns hit at the high end so you'll pay more than twice for twice the cpu performance for example, and on top of that you get  bugs, issues, and impracticalities.

 

i've priced this out a while back now, and the absolutely cheapest you can go (talking dodgy PSU style here) with hardware that still has the right capabilities you're still looking at a price premium over two decent systems.

But he never said what performance he's looking for. That's why I said as long as he doesn't want an i7 on each he should be ok.

[bobhays]

2 minutes ago, wrathoftheturkey said:

linear to price is what I meant I guess. You'd have to pay so much more to get exactly 2x the performance

That's what I'm saying the opposite of. Just buy 2 gpus. A cpu that is 2x as fast. For example if you want two computers with i3's, then buy an i7. Get a psu that can support 2 cards (another place where money is saved). For the OS / data get 2x whatever drives you'd  get. When I say 2x I don't mean 2x the performance I literally mean get those items 2 times.

 

The only ones you dont need 2 of are motherboard, psu, and case. The cpu is just 1 cpu but it's basically the 2 put together.

[manikyath]

15 minutes ago, bobhays said:

But he never said what performance he's looking for. That's why I said as long as he doesn't want an i7 on each he should be ok.

but there's a line, once you go below that line the hardware doesnt even support the level of virtualization needed.

 

basicly, you're looking at an i5 and a decent quality motherboard, and >8GB ram *at the low end*

 

or... you could pick up some power supply & case combo's, drop in a cheapo mobo, a pentium, slap in a stick of ram, and call it a day.

[manikyath]

19 minutes ago, bobhays said:

It is linear when they're 2 virtualized machines.

it actually isnt, the "bare metal' OS needs resources, and there's a virtualization overhead to deal with as well.

[manikyath]

22 minutes ago, bobhays said:

That's what I'm saying the opposite of. Just buy 2 gpus. A cpu that is 2x as fast. For example if you want two computers with i3's, then buy an i7. Get a psu that can support 2 cards (another place where money is saved). For the OS / data get 2x whatever drives you'd  get. When I say 2x I don't mean 2x the performance I literally mean get those items 2 times.

 

The only ones you dont need 2 of are motherboard, psu, and case. The cpu is just 1 cpu but it's basically the 2 put together.

an i7 is a decent chunk more pricy than two i3's here

 

 

[manikyath]

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/WcZVD8

for a two gamers 'bottom of the barrel' rig.

$800

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/7fsdxY

for a "just one gamer" with comparable performance.

$400

 

difference is the second option is less of a headache to set up, is much more practical, has no virtualization overhead, you dont lose resources to a bare metal OS, and most importantly: you dont need to pay a license key for a virtualization os.

[bobhays]

51 minutes ago, manikyath said:

but there's a line, once you go below that line the hardware doesnt even support the level of virtualization needed.

 

basicly, you're looking at an i5 and a decent quality motherboard, and >8GB ram *at the low end*

 

or... you could pick up some power supply & case combo's, drop in a cheapo mobo, a pentium, slap in a stick of ram, and call it a day.

 

50 minutes ago, manikyath said:

it actually isnt, the "bare metal' OS needs resources, and there's a virtualization overhead to deal with as well.

 

43 minutes ago, manikyath said:

an i7 is a decent chunk more pricy than two i3's here

 

 

The bare metal OS will need resources in both scenarios there is no difference there. That isn't even an argument. The virtualization overhead is nearly non-existent.

 

As for the motherboard if you're going with an AMD GPU it doesn't really matter. If you're going with an NVidia card you might have to get a board that supports SLI. Not because you're going to SLI but the GPU requires x8 PCIe lanes.

 

If you go with AMD then you're saving money on the motherboard too (along with psu and case) that should make up for the i3 vs i7 price difference.

[manikyath]

20 minutes ago, bobhays said:

The bare metal OS will need resources in both scenarios there is no difference there. That isn't even an argument. The virtualization overhead is nearly non-existent.

 

As for the motherboard if you're going with an AMD GPU it doesn't really matter. If you're going with an NVidia card you might have to get a board that supports SLI. Not because you're going to SLI but the GPU requires x8 PCIe lanes.

 

If you go with AMD then you're saving money on the motherboard too (along with psu and case) that should make up for the i3 vs i7 price difference.

- if you get seperate computers, your OS of choice *is* the bare metal OS, there is no xen server, vmware, unraid, or whatever else.

- i'm talking about virtualization features, they're *supposed* to all support VT-d, but nothing's saying that they didnt cut some corners on a cheap board.

- i'm not even gonna touch the comparison of an amd chip VS a modern intel chip. if you wanna compare, at least try to make it a comparison as similar as possible instead of getting the IPC of a potato on one because it's cheaper and it proves your point by being cheaper.

 

i've considered this entire shitshow for my own server, i went ahead and did the brainwork on if it was even practical to do something like this, and by god no it isnt, even if the hardware for both was free i'd choose for seperate boxes just because it's infinitely more practical.

 

if you seriously wanna know how bad of an idea this is, ask linus how overclocking 7 gamers went.

 

EDIT: oh, and i should add, unraid basicly states that it probably works on desktop platforms, but they dont recommend doing it on anything below enthousiast and/or the xeons because they handle the lanes differently making things a WHOLE lot easier.

[bobhays]

19 minutes ago, manikyath said:

- if you get seperate computers, your OS of choice *is* the bare metal OS, there is no xen server, vmware, unraid, or whatever else.

- i'm talking about virtualization features, they're *supposed* to all support VT-d, but nothing's saying that they didnt cut some corners on a cheap board.

- i'm not even gonna touch the comparison of an amd chip VS a modern intel chip. if you wanna compare, at least try to make it a comparison as similar as possible instead of getting the IPC of a potato on one because it's cheaper and it proves your point by being cheaper.

 

i've considered this entire shitshow for my own server, i went ahead and did the brainwork on if it was even practical to do something like this, and by god no it isnt, even if the hardware for both was free i'd choose for seperate boxes just because it's infinitely more practical.

 

if you seriously wanna know how bad of an idea this is, ask linus how overclocking 7 gamers went.

I was talking about AMD vs NVidia not vs Intel... I meant if you go with an AMD GPU you can save money on the motherboard.

 

Also there are some basic requirements they aren't allowed to just cut certain features. The main benefit to doing something like this is allowing the power of 2 computers be distributed among the users when needed. Unfortunately the simple implementation we are talking about here doesn't do that which makes the biggest benefit null. That being said what we're talking about here isn't hard to do but simply not worth the effort I agree. It's also not ridiculous either.

[SLAYR]

1 hour ago, manikyath said:

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/WcZVD8

for a two gamers 'bottom of the barrel' rig.

$800

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/7fsdxY

for a "just one gamer" with comparable performance.

$400

 

difference is the second option is less of a headache to set up, is much more practical, has no virtualization overhead, you dont lose resources to a bare metal OS, and most importantly: you dont need to pay a license key for a virtualization os.

That first system won't even work with the multiple gamer idea, ideally you want a seperate gpu per vm as they cannot be "split" between two vms, and then an extra for the vm integrated will do,and to also have the hypervisor using its own threads as well, basically one of the vms will be worse then an i3 because it will have only three threads. 

 

Also running all three OSes on one drive will be a nightmare if all three OSes try to read/write to it at the same time.

 

If you are using Unraid, or Citrix xenserver you do need a key to use them, there are free options like older versions of xenserver, but are highly non-user friendly.

42 minutes ago, bobhays said:

As for the motherboard if you're going with an AMD GPU it doesn't really matter. If you're going with an NVidia card you might have to get a board that supports SLI. Not because you're going to SLI but the GPU requires x8 PCIe lanes.

 No, not true at all, with virtualization it doesn't care at all. Nvidia GTX gpus have blocks on virtualization though so if you use something like VMWare Exsi you will run into issues with gtx cards. Unraid and xenserver can get around this though.

2 hours ago, bobhays said:

 

I don't understand what the issue is here. Having 1 PC means you save money on the case and motherboard. Everything else is just 2x (unless you want each one to have an i7).

Not true, it is actually cheaper to build two systems, you end up spending a lot more money on boards that support 2-3 pcie slots, and a high thread count cpu, as well as a very high wattage psu, and a larger case.

[bobhays]

1 minute ago, SLAYR said:

That first system won't even work with the multiple gamer idea, ideally you want a seperate gpu per vm as they cannot be "split" between two vms, and then an extra for the vm integrated will do,and to also have the hypervisor using its own threads as well, basically one of the vms will be worse then an i3 because it will have only three threads. 

 

Also running all three OSes on one drive will be a nightmare if all three OSes try to read/write to it at the same time.

 

If you are using Unraid, or Citrix xenserver you do need a key to use them, there are free options like older versions of xenserver, but are highly non-user friendly.

 No, not true at all, with virtualization it doesn't care at all. Nvidia GTX gpus have blocks on virtualization though so if you use something like VMWare Exsi you will run into issues with gtx cards. Unraid and xenserver can get around this though.

Not true, it is actually cheaper to build two systems, you end up spending a lot more money on boards that support 2-3 pcie slots, and a high thread count cpu, as well as a very high wattage psu, and a larger case.

I may have been wrong about cheaper but it's not much more expensive (if any).The case will definitely not cost more since there are plenty of cheap ATX cases. The motherboard will cost more but you have to buy 2 otherwise.

 

The extra cost comes from buying an UnRaid license.

[SLAYR]

5 minutes ago, bobhays said:

 

 

The extra cost comes from buying an UnRaid license.

You don't have to use Unraid at all, there are free alternatives, VMWare Exsi (for non-nvidia gtx gpus), xenserver.org, or use KVM + Linux. https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Multiheaded-NVIDIA-Gaming-using-Ubuntu-14-04-KVM-585/

 

[manikyath]

7 hours ago, SLAYR said:

That first system won't even work with the multiple gamer idea, ideally you want a seperate gpu per vm as they cannot be "split" between two vms, and then an extra for the vm integrated will do,and to also have the hypervisor using its own threads as well, basically one of the vms will be worse then an i3 because it will have only three threads. 

you cant add multiple non-sli/cf GPUs to pcpp, the second GPU is a custom part (at the same price as the 1050)

 

and there's the iGPU for the bare metal OS of choice to grab.

[manikyath]

6 hours ago, SLAYR said:

You don't have to use Unraid at all, there are free alternatives, VMWare Exsi (for non-nvidia gtx gpus), xenserver.org, or use KVM + Linux. https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Multiheaded-NVIDIA-Gaming-using-Ubuntu-14-04-KVM-585/

 

unfortunately the downside of free alternatives is that while stuff is hard with unraid, unraid has paid developers to make your life easy (or at least, less painful) 

 

and while you could save the $60, you'd lose equally in the aspect of practicality.