Looking for PC recommendation for work/VMs/gaming

[minamikaze]

Been out of the PC buying game for the longest time (more than a decade?).
Would someone like to help me out with some recommendations? Budget can be pretty high as it's paid for by my company, but I guess maybe around $3K or so, for a start?

Purpose of PC:
- Run a few VMs for my work (can go for 96GB RAM or 128GB RAM, no idea how much RAM costs these days but probably not that expensive?)
- Used for day-to-day work such as browsing websites, answering emails, taking Zoom calls, showing stuff running on the local VMs (work does not involve graphics design at all)
- Play graphically intensive games occasionally, don't need highest settings but should be able to run at 4K resolution. Hopefully easy to upgrade the graphics card in the future if need be
- 2 TB total disk space

Looking for:
- A NUC-type or small form factor PC that is fairly power efficient as the PC will be on 24/7

Am currently on a Hades Canyon NUC which is great, but showing its age a little bit. It can play Diablo IV very comfortably though, at 4K, which is surprising.

Thank you!

 

[NightRaven49]

Purpose of PC:
- Run a few VMs for my work (can go for 96GB RAM or 128GB RAM, no idea how much RAM costs these days but probably not that expensive?)
- Used for day-to-day work such as browsing websites, answering emails, taking Zoom calls, showing stuff running on the local VMs (work does not involve graphics design at all)
- Play graphically intensive games occasionally, don't need highest settings but should be able to run at 4K resolution. Hopefully easy to upgrade the graphics card in the future if need be
- 2 TB total disk space

Looking for:
- A NUC-type or small form factor PC that is fairly power efficient as the PC will be on 24/7

ryzen 9 7900 + asus tuf gaming b650m plus wifi	898	dynacore
2x gskill flare x5 2x 32gb 5600c36 ddr5 (total 128gb)	285 *2 = 570	dynacore
wd black sn850x 2tb	240	dynacore
zotac rtx 4070 twin edge	878	dynacore
nzxt c650 gold	138	bizgram
tecware fusion	79	bizgram/dynacore

total: $2803. the 7900 and 4070 are fairly efficient current gen parts, with the 7900 having one of the higher core counts on the market while the 4070 should be able to comfortably handle 4k gaming. not sure if u need so much ram though, maybe 1 kit of 64gb ram is enough if u dont run that many vms and/or allocate that much ram to each vm. the tecware fusion is not as compact as the nuc, but it is one of the more compact cases (comparable to nr200) without going into overpriced itx territory.

 

[TanKianW]

Been out of the PC buying game for the longest time (more than a decade?).
Would someone like to help me out with some recommendations? Budget can be pretty high as it's paid for by my company, but I guess maybe around $3K or so, for a start?

Purpose of PC:
- Run a few VMs for my work (can go for 96GB RAM or 128GB RAM, no idea how much RAM costs these days but probably not that expensive?)
- Used for day-to-day work such as browsing websites, answering emails, taking Zoom calls, showing stuff running on the local VMs (work does not involve graphics design at all)
- Play graphically intensive games occasionally, don't need highest settings but should be able to run at 4K resolution. Hopefully easy to upgrade the graphics card in the future if need be
- 2 TB total disk space

Looking for:
- A NUC-type or small form factor PC that is fairly power efficient as the PC will be on 24/7

Am currently on a Hades Canyon NUC which is great, but showing its age a little bit. It can play Diablo IV very comfortably though, at 4K, which is surprising.

Thank you!

My recommendations:​

• Get a pc for gaming and daily work, another system for running a hypervisor (VMs) if you need 24/7 uptime​
• For the hypervisor, get as much memory your motherboard support, and your wallet can afford.​
• For the hypervisor, get as many core as you can. Avoid Intel gen with E-cores. Waste of cores which does not support well for hypervisor due to scheduling.​
• Zen 3 works really well as a hypervisor system and still provide support for (real) ECC if your motherboard support. For production and work, I think this is a must​
• Get 2x SSDs for your mirror drive when running on your hypervisor. Preferably a few more (SATA) for backing up the VMs and snapshots​
• If possible, not a must, connect your hypervisor system to a network storage server (over NFS/iSCSI) for running “higher availability” and scheduled back-ups. Preferably over a 10G network which could handle high IOPs.​
• Get a good network switch, preferably a managed one to trunk VLANs into your hypervisor.​
• Last but not least, if this is for work and production. Do consider an enterprise grade firewall.​

 

[Phen8210]

My recommendations:​

• Get a pc for gaming and daily work, another system for running a hypervisor (VMs) if you need 24/7 uptime​
• For the hypervisor, get as much memory your motherboard support, and your wallet can afford.​
• For the hypervisor, get as many core as you can. Avoid Intel gen with E-cores. Waste of cores which does not support well for hypervisor due to scheduling.​
• Zen 3 works really well as a hypervisor system and still provide support for (real) ECC if your motherboard support. For production and work, I think this is a must​
• Get 2x SSDs for your mirror drive when running on your hypervisor. Preferably a few more (SATA) for backing up the VMs and snapshots​
• If possible, not a must, connect your hypervisor system to a network storage server (over NFS/iSCSI) for running “higher availability” and scheduled back-ups. Preferably over a 10G network which could handle high IOPs.​
• Get a good network switch, preferably a managed one to trunk VLANs into your hypervisor.​
• Last but not least, if this is for work and production. Do consider an enterprise grade firewall.​

Surely not for production la, nobody use production system to play game one

TS is probably a developer that needs to simulate the env before throwing to test env and prod

 

[ragnarok95]

Minisforum Neptune - AMD 6900HX + 6600M + 64GB + 1TB Nvme. You can change to 2TB yourself.

 

[minamikaze]

Thanks for the suggestions! Will look more into the Minisforum Neptune, looks like a value for money miniPC.
And yes, the VMs I run are not mission critical, just mostly for testing purposes and for me to access remotely when I'm traveling. So I'm happy to use it for both a hypervisor, gaming PC and home workstation.

 

[TanKianW]

Thanks for the suggestions! Will look more into the Minisforum Neptune, looks like a value for money miniPC.
And yes, the VMs I run are not mission critical, just mostly for testing purposes and for me to access remotely when I'm traveling. So I'm happy to use it for both a hypervisor, gaming PC and home workstation.

If looking for Mini-pcs can also look at offerings from Morefine, Beelink, AceMagician and Asrock. I will get one with >1 network interface.​

 

[jayz89]

 

[minamikaze]

Are Intel NUCs worth it? Or overpriced?

 

[86technie]

Are Intel NUCs worth it? Or overpriced?

Get a proper workstation will be better.
For day to day usage best to be on a another PC.
Since you have a big budget than call either Lenovo/HP/Dell for workstation quotes.

There are SFF workstation if you want a small footprint.
For your day to day PC can just get a SFF desktop.

 

[minamikaze]

Will be going ahead this weekend to purchase it - current budget is at $2500.
Any updated recommendations? I guess a SFF would be better.
Same purpose - VMs/work/gaming, would need 128GB RAM and at least 2TB disk, more CPUs are good for the purpose of VMs (non-mission critical).

 

[philips107]

I am using the predecessor (P510 - looks exactly the same) with a GTX 1070 Ti for gaming

As these workstations use ECC RAM, I believe its not ideal for gaming as its slower than non-ECC RAM.

The nice thing about these workstations are they are designed for easy maintenance.
For example, I replaced a PSU before, and it's just pulling it out and pushing in a replacement. No need to redo any cabling.

The terrible thing about these machines are many parts are propriety (like the PSU), and its not easy to get the parts, and if available, are terribly expensive, unless u get lucky on Carousell.

Used workstations can sometimes be found v cheap on the used market as enterprises upgrade to newer workstations every 3-4 years.

All in all, I think it's better to stick with consumer PCs, as parts are easy to source and have longer term upgrade viability.

 

[minamikaze]

Thanks! Yeah, I'm okay with consumer PCs. Just need something that's powerful, smaller footprint, relatively energy-efficient, decent graphics card for gaming.

 

[minamikaze]

Also, any shops that you'd recommend me to buy it from, if I want to avoid the hassle of assembling?

 

[NightRaven49]

Thanks! Yeah, I'm okay with consumer PCs. Just need something that's powerful, smaller footprint, relatively energy-efficient, decent graphics card for gaming.
Also, any shops that you'd recommend me to buy it from, if I want to avoid the hassle of assembling?

u can build with dynacore directly. u can follow the suggestion i made previously, some parts (esp the cpu + mobo combo) have dropped in price so its quite a bit cheaper now. the only 2 things i would change (that wont affect the experience much) are the nvme to a 980 pro 2tb (cheaper than sn850x) and psu to asus rog strix 750w (dynacore doesnt have the c650), these should total $2665 - u could try bargain with them this price also since u buying full build from them. is the tecware fusion small enough for u?

 

[minamikaze]

u can build with dynacore directly. u can follow the suggestion i made previously, some parts (esp the cpu + mobo combo) have dropped in price so its quite a bit cheaper now. the only 2 things i would change (that wont affect the experience much) are the nvme to a 980 pro 2tb (cheaper than sn850x) and psu to asus rog strix 750w (dynacore doesnt have the c650), these should total $2665 - u could try bargain with them this price also since u buying full build from them. is the tecware fusion small enough for u?

My home is small, so anything smaller would be even better. But if I go smaller, I might have to compromise on the specs ,right?

 

[NightRaven49]

But if I go smaller, I might have to compromise on the specs ,right?

not necessarily, but u will be looking at a higher build price with itx boards, coolers, psus and cases all of which command a premium.

 

[minamikaze]

not necessarily, but u will be looking at a higher build price with itx boards, coolers, psus and cases all of which command a premium.

I see. BTW someone on carousell (also doing custom PCs) just told me that Tecware Fusion is end of production. Is that going to be a problem?
He recommended ASUS AP201 instead.

 

[NightRaven49]

BTW someone on carousell (also doing custom PCs) just told me that Tecware Fusion is end of production. Is that going to be a problem?

as long as u can still find the case available, I don't think it's a problem. worst come to worst, can buy direct from the oem on taobao. the ap201 is somewhat larger and is $20-30 more expensive, so ur call.

 

[minamikaze]

I see. He was just saying that warranty might be an issue, but I think casing generally doesn't spoil... right? Haha. Since i'm not going to open and close it all the time.