Best setup for VM server

igxqrrl · May 19, 2018

I'm swapping jobs in a couple weeks. My current job gives me employee pricing on many Intel parts, so I'm looking to buy parts for a new build before I leave. It's been (many) years since I last built a system (Wolfdale timeframe... 2008 maybe?). Back then you just had to worry about how many SATA ports were available!

Interactive use will be casual with some occasional photo editing. I'm not really a gamer (though I might like to try driving sims) nor an overclocker, but I'll run plex on it, connected to my synology NAS and I do plan to load it up with VMs for experimentation (e.g. deploying a slurm grid) and learning (ML). I'll have a couple 4K monitors and am hoping to start with the integrated graphics (see: not a gamer). I like to keep things simple.. No water-cooling, no RAID.

I've got a 480GB 900p AIC and 2x 1TB NVMe drives arriving, but I'm torn about the CPU. I'm inclined to go with the 8700k; the 8700 is only slightly cheaper. The i7-7900x for $500 beckons, but mostly because it's a "good deal"; I'm pretty certain I'm better off with faster core performance. I'll never saturate a 7900.

So a few questions:

* The TDP of the 8700k is 95W vs 65W for the 8700. Under identical usage would the consumption of the 8700k be notably higher?

* Will VMs benefit significantly from the higher base clock?

* Chipset... This is the real question. I'd like gen2 usb 3.1 which means the z370 is. With the 3 drives do I need support for 3 PCIe storage devices? If so that means Z390 or Q370. But Q370 is listed as corporate (I don't need vPRO). The problem is I'm not yet seeing any motherboards with Q370. Is Z370 my only choice for now?

Thanks; sorry if these are naive questions!