Going crazy trying to figure out the right combo...need some help from an experienced group!

[Ch33rios]

So first some background...

I've been running a very basic i3 Ivy Bridge (2 core + 2 HT) consumer grade Xenserver for the past 6 months or so. Its running an Ubuntu Plex server, a Debian Ubiquiti Controller server, and a Debian 'general purpose' download server. I've also got the initial install of a Windows 2012 Essentials server going which I'd like to turn into a DC when I get the time. These are all running 24/7 but dont really seem to tax the existing processor all that much which is great I suppose.

However - I've got some bigger plans that might include the following...

1 x Linux server to run some security analytics tools (e.g. ELK, Splunk w/ Free license, etc)
1 x Ubiquiti NVR server (Linux)
1 x Linux for reverse engineering/research
1 x Windows VDI for reverse engineering efforts/research
1 x Linux server for running proxy service(s) (testing only...wouldn't be up 24/7 necessarily)
1 x Windows VDI for hosting a Steam install and some emulators. I have some Steam Link devices that would be greatly utilized for my wife who loves retro games where I could centrally have the emulators and just stream the play through the network from a VDI instance. This would require a dedicated GPU I assume so IOMMU/PCI Passthrough would be required. This item isn't a deal breaker (in other words if having this raises the price ridiculously then I'll just drop it and rely on a cheap Ras.Pi)

I've got some other needs when doing home testing of OVA's or other virtual images that vendors provide me that I'd also like to leave some space for but those are my ideas right now.

As I write this, it doesn't actually seem like alot but if Im going to go through the process of purchasing new hardware (specifically the CPU/Mobo) then I'd like to do it right and not limit my future options...at least for a few years

My only other 'nice-to-have' would be that the mobo be a mATX or ITX board...this seems to severely limit my options so I guess perhaps I'll concede if there IS no other option. Its just that I bought a nice cube case that fits on my desk for this server a little while ago and it only fits up to mATX.

I've looked at AMD FX's but, while nice and readily available, Im hesitant about AMD for some reason. Yes they are cheaper but does the sacrifice in single core performance hinder my plans at all? I've also looked at the often referenced E5-2670's that are ~$100 on eBay but I dont believe there is a small form factor mobo for those that is available. Looking at other Xeon series chips, I just get a bit lost on how many cores should I need for running those workloads...what about HT...what mobo's are better if I am looking at doing IOMMU...there are a boatload of factors it seems and as a noob I get a bit lost.

So long story short...what do ya'll recommend? Power consumption isn't a HUGE deal but I'd like to still try and be a little economical

 

[CreoleLakerFan]

For mATX or Mini-ITX your options are E3 Xeons, Avoton, or Xeon-D. Of those three, budget-wise the E3 or Avotons are going to be your best bet, but will have RAM limitation of 32/64GB.

What is your budget for the project?

 

[Patrick]

Do you want GPU acceleration on the VDI?

 

[Ch33rios]

For mATX or Mini-ITX your options are E3 Xeons, Avoton, or Xeon-D. Of those three, budget-wise the E3 or Avotons are going to be your best bet, but will have RAM limitation of 32/64GB.

What is your budget for the project?

I'd say around $400-500 is my ceiling for now. However, I can possibly mentally justify more if its the right setup

Do you want GPU acceleration on the VDI?

Yes. If given a decent enough graphics card I could have better potential for actually running other Steam games in there and not just simple emulators that dont require a decent GPU. Heck I could potentially even virtualize my entire dedicated GAMING desktop right (given the right GPU)?

 

[Ch33rios]

Upon further thinking and review, I COULD actually expand my form factor to include standard ATX sized boards....I'd have to shift around some stuff but I could just move my current aging gaming machine to my mATX case and then have a proper tower available for this build.

 

[TLN]

I have board from HP ML310e server and some CPUs, if you're interested.
Got 16 gig memory as well, with rrom for 32G max.

This gives you 4 PCI slots all the virtualization whistles. You can use it with any mATX case.(or ATX obviously).

 

[nk215]

When you are building a 24/7, pay close attention to power consumption. My dual x5650 setup uses around $20/month more than my other E3-1270v2 setup with approximately equivalent CPU power.

The E3 setup is also significantly quieter (as in can't even hear the fan from around 3-4 feet away).

Since then, I changed to a dual E5-2670 setup and it uses double the energy of my E3-1270v2 setup (I needed the extra memory) at idle.

If you can fit everything in 32G memory, I can sell you my E3 setup w/32G UDIMM.

For GPU acceleration on VDI (which is my setup). I use Quadro 4000 cards in ESXi pass-through for 2 Win7 VMs (games, heavy Photoshop, video editing) and another Quadro 4000 in sVGA for others VMs.

 

[Sorin Bidian]

What ESXI are you using?

When you are building a 24/7, pay close attention to power consumption. My dual x5650 setup uses around $20/month more than my other E3-1270v2 setup with approximately equivalent CPU power.

The E3 setup is also significantly quieter (as in can't even hear the fan from around 3-4 feet away).

Since then, I changed to a dual E5-2670 setup and it uses double the energy of my E3-1270v2 setup (I needed the extra memory) at idle.

If you can fit everything in 32G memory, I can sell you my E3 setup w/32G UDIMM.

For GPU acceleration on VDI (which is my setup). I use Quadro 4000 cards in ESXi pass-through for 2 Win7 VMs (games, heavy Photoshop, video editing) and another Quadro 4000 in sVGA for others VMs.

 

[nk215]

What ESXI are you using?

I am using ESXi 5.5. The newer 6.0 version no longer supports Quadro 4000 in sVGA.

 

[Ch33rios]

When you are building a 24/7, pay close attention to power consumption. My dual x5650 setup uses around $20/month more than my other E3-1270v2 setup with approximately equivalent CPU power.

The E3 setup is also significantly quieter (as in can't even hear the fan from around 3-4 feet away).

Since then, I changed to a dual E5-2670 setup and it uses double the energy of my E3-1270v2 setup (I needed the extra memory) at idle.

If you can fit everything in 32G memory, I can sell you my E3 setup w/32G UDIMM.

For GPU acceleration on VDI (which is my setup). I use Quadro 4000 cards in ESXi pass-through for 2 Win7 VMs (games, heavy Photoshop, video editing) and another Quadro 4000 in sVGA for others VMs.

I think 32GB is reasonable for my purposes.

Question though: is 4 cores sufficient to run the workloads I sort of highlighted above? MOST of the VM's I'd plan to run wouldn't require alot of processor time so I assume 4 physical cores with the bonus of HT is sufficient for 6-8 VMs? Maybe more? I keep thinking that 4 isn't enough but Im new to this so please correct me

That being said, I might be interested. I'll shoot you a PM.

 

[nk215]

I think 32GB is reasonable for my purposes.

Question though: is 4 cores sufficient to run the workloads I sort of highlighted above? MOST of the VM's I'd plan to run wouldn't require alot of processor time so I assume 4 physical cores with the bonus of HT is sufficient for 6-8 VMs? Maybe more? I keep thinking that 4 isn't enough but Im new to this so please correct me

That being said, I might be interested. I'll shoot you a PM.

The only way to really max out CPU power is video conversion. E3-1270v2 is one of the higher end E3 CPU for socket 1155. The E3 series has low core count to achieve higher core speed (E3-1270v2 is 3.5GHz turbo up tp 3.9GHz @ 70Watts)

With 6-8 VMs, you'll may hit the 32G memory limit. Each Windows VM should get around ~6-8gig. If you use Photoshop with larger files then you'll need alot more. My photoshop VM has 14Gig. Linux is better with memory, my Ubuntu has 6 gig.

My setup has 3 Win7 VMs, a dedup appliance, Ubuntu, UPS appliance, vCenter appliance, Acronis Appliance and a NAS. I ran out of memory way before running out of CPU power.

The 2 most significant draw backs with a E3 setup are 32G limit (the v5 has 64G limit) and ECC-UDIMM (expensive). Advantages are high core speed and low power.