VM Build Questions

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1

Ive been thinking about building a new machine dedicated to VMs and for me learn Cloud stuff and to start building a home lab. I can get by without doing all of this, but whats the fun in that? I’ve been looking at some motherboards and CPUs and wanted to get opinions on my choices and to make sure everything will work together. This is what ive been looking at:

Supermicro Dual Intel Socket LGA2011 Rev 1.20 System Board with I/O Plate

- Form Factor: Enhanced Extended ATX
- Processor Compatibility: Supports E5-2600/ E5-2600 v2 series
- Chipset: Intel C602 chipset
- Expansion Slots: 4 (x16) PCI-E 3.0 slots; 1 (x8) PCI-E 3.0 slot; 1 (x4) PCI-E 3.0 (in x8) slot
- Memory Compatibility: 24x 240-pin DDR3 DIMM slots; 1866/1600/1333/1066/800MHz ECC DDR3 SDRAM 72-bit, 240-pin gold-plated DIMMs; support ECC and non-ECC UDIMMs
- Network Ports: 4x Gigapit Ethernet LAN ports; Intel i350 GbE controller

With these CPUs:
Intel Xeon E5-2670 v3 2.3GHz 30MB 12-Core 120W LGA2011-3 SR1XS

I’m not set with this but I would like something that would have enough power to do VMs in a home environment.

Any opinions on this combo or can you recommend something that would be better? I’d rather spend the money now with something that would suit me for a while, than to find out its under powered and I would have to build something else.

Here’s link to what I was looking at
https://www.ebay.com/itm/X9DRI-LN4F-Supermicro-Rev-1-20-Dual-Intel-Xeon-LGA2011-Server-System-Board/183010985915

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Xeon-E5-2670-v3-2-3GHz-30MB-12-Core-120W-LGA2011-3-SR1XS/233865518576

2

X9 is a good platform for inexpensive VM builds.

Avoid the EE-ATX unless you understand the challenges you will face finding a case for it, or you already have a suitable case.

V3 processors won’t work in X9 boards. Stick with V1 unless you know the board you are getting is a hardware revision that supports V2 and has the proper BIOS version.

3

I’m glad that I asked! I will have to look around to see whats out there, I didnt take into consideration of the size of the board.

Is there a particular board and CPU that you would recommend?

4

That are a lot of options. It comes down to what capabilities you want it to have (# of cores, amount of RAM, PCI expansion, etc.) and how much you are willing to spend for them.

I currently have an Asus B85M-G with a 4th gen i7 and 32GB RAM. Performance is very acceptable, but I’m maxed out with the RAM and processor options.

You don’t necessarily need server hardware, though it is plentiful and cheap.

Start looking at combos in the Anniversary 2.0 “SNAFU” thread.

If the budget is smaller, the NAS Killer 4 builds are still very serviceable.