Spec check - workstation for virtualisation and professional use

[MalfiRG]

Hello everyone! I would like to seek your advice regarding the component specifications for my upcoming PC build.
Monitor - Not applicable
Use cases:

• Virtualization: I want to utilise virtualization technologies such as Hyper-V, Docker, and Kubernetes.
  • Especially Windows Server virtualization, where I want to create multiple Active Directory Forests for testing purposes.
• Software Development: My PC should be optimized for fast and efficient code compilation, supporting smooth software development processes.
• Music Production: I want to utilise my system for music production, leveraging its capabilities to create and edit music tracks effectively.
• Casual Use: In addition to professional tasks, my PC should serve as a reliable platform for casual use, including web browsing and office-related activities.

Budget - Sky is the limit

I would like to ask if there are any better alternatives for these components and if the overall PC specification is well-balanced. I would greatly appreciate it if you could suggest some non-RGB component alternatives that I can consider.

I am open to suggestions and appreciate your input.

Thank you in advance!

Here is the link for my configuration.

Case

CORSAIR 5000D AIRFLOW TEMPERED GLASS GAMING CASE

Processor (CPU)

Intel® Core™ i9 24-Core Processor i9-13900K (Up to 5.8GHz) 36MB Cache

Motherboard

GIGABYTE Z790 UD (LGA1700, USB 3.2, PCIe 5.0) - ARGB Ready

Memory (RAM)

64GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB DDR5 5200MHz (2 x 32GB)

Graphics Card

INTEGRATED GRAPHICS ACCELERATOR (GPU)

Graphics Card Support Bracket

NONE (BRACKET INCLUDED AS STANDARD ON 4070 Ti AND ABOVE)

1st M.2 SSD Drive

2TB SAMSUNG 990 PRO M.2, PCIe 4.0 NVMe (up to 7450MB/R, 6900MB/W)

Power Supply

CORSAIR 750W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET

Power Cable

1 x 1.5 Metre European Power Cable (Kettle Lead)

Processor Cooling

CORSAIR iCUE H150i ELITE RGB High Performance CPU Cooler

Thermal Paste

ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND

Sound Card

ASUS STRIX Raid DLX 7.1 PCIe sound card

Network Card

ONBOARD LAN PORT

Wireless Network Card

ASUS PCE-AC88 AC3100 2100Mbps/5GHz, 1000Mbps/2.4GHz

USB/Thunderbolt Options

2 PORT (2 x TYPE A) USB 3.1 PCI-E CARD + STANDARD USB PORTS

Operating System

NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED

Windows Recovery Media

NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED

Office Software

FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)

Anti-Virus

NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE

Browser

Microsoft® Edge

Warranty

3 Year Platinum Warranty (3 Year Collect & Return, 3 Year Parts, 3 Year labour)

 

[MalfiRG]

If you could include the configurable url from the bottom of the post to forum page please? Makes it easier for people to just edit rather than building the spec from scratch. Thanks

Thank you for bringing that up. I have included a configurable URL in the main post for easy access.

I would question the use of the 13900k, purely on sheer thermal output....as it will require the fans to run quicker (and a 360mm cooler has 3 smaller fans so they will run quicker than a 240mm with 2 larger fans) and, likely, noisier.

I appreciate your input, and you make a valid point. I understand that the 13900k may seem like overkill, but I plan to use this workstation for the next five years, during which software requirements are expected to increase. Additionally, I don't want to rule out the possibility of using this workstation for neural network and machine learning tasks. That's why I want to ensure it has sufficient computational power and the potential to accommodate two high-grade graphics cards.
In that case, I'm curious to hear your suggestions regarding the CPU cooling unit. What do you recommend? Are liquid cooling solutions generally better than the more "traditional" ones? If so, what specific option would you suggest?

Then again, you said music "production" not "creation"

Technically it will also be music creation. I want to use my PC for guitar recording (amateur level), mixing and mastering.

Do you actually need the sound card? Is there a specific need for it? Onboard audio is just as good these days but I don't know if you need a specific connection etc.

You're correct. However, one of the main advantages of this sound card is its ability to support 600-ohm headphones, which I intend to purchase in the future.

Which band will you be running your Wi-Fi on?

Thanks for making that point! I stick to the 5 GHz frequency because it has less signal interference and works well with my router. So, in that case, I agree that going with the Intel option would be a better choice.

 

[SpyderTracks]

You're correct. However, one of the main advantages of this sound card is its ability to support 600-ohm headphones, which I intend to purchase in the future.

You'd be far better off buying a headphone amp for that, you'd get far far better SQ.

 

[sck451]

As discussed above I'd make a few changes here. The most fundamental is to go away from Intel. They make hot chips. Hot chips mean the cooling works hard. The cooling working hard means you have lots of noise. And that's not ideal for a music production scenario. I'd go with AMD: the 7950X is broadly on a par with the Intel chip in most code compilation scenarios while being very significantly cooler/more efficient.

As @SpyderTracks says, if you want good quality sound, you need an external interface, not a PCIe sound card. I don't know this field well at all, but there are a host of options from £100 to the moon.

You mention the possibility of two graphics cards in the future. I've added lots of power supply capacity to allow for this. My only concern is that this motherboard only has one PCIe x16 slot (the others are physically x16 but electrically x1). I have no idea if this would matter for the tasks you're talking about. (For mining, for example, it makes no difference. For gaming, it's huge.) If it does, you have to go for an Asus board and suffer the slower memory speeds. (It's a long story.)

Case
CORSAIR 5000D AIRFLOW TEMPERED GLASS GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 16 Core CPU (4.5GHz-5.7GHz/80MB CACHE/AM5)
Motherboard
GIGABYTE B650 AORUS ELITE AX: (WIFI 6E, DDR5, USB 3.2) - ARGB Ready! Good wifi included, though see above
Memory (RAM)
64GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB DDR5 6000MHz (2 x 32GB)
Graphics Card
INTEGRATED GRAPHICS ACCELERATOR (GPU)
Graphics Card Support Bracket
NONE (BRACKET INCLUDED AS STANDARD ON 4070 Ti AND ABOVE)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
500GB SEAGATE FIRECUDA 530 GEN 4 PCIe NVMe (up to 7000MB/R, 3000MB/W) Very fast boot drive -- could go to 1TB if you wanted to
1st M.2 SSD Drive
2TB INTEL® 670p M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 3500MB/sR | 2700MB/sW) Fast drive for all your projects
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1200W HX SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® PLATINUM, ULTRA QUIET Super powerful power supply to allow for those future graphics cards
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
Processor Cooling
CORSAIR iCUE H150i ELITE RGB High Performance CPU Cooler Strong cooler, possibly overkill
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
ONBOARD 2.5Gbe LAN PORT
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
Poland/Polska - Polish Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Google Chrome™
Warranty
3 Year Platinum Warranty (3 Year Collect & Return, 3 Year Parts, 3 Year labour)
Delivery
4 - 6 DAY DELIVERY TO POLAND
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Price: 1 930,00 £ including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am5-pc/FHAUf8HZQ2/

 

[SpyderTracks]

Hang on, hang on, hang on... if you're doing music production you absolutely DO NOT want a crummy strix card.

You want a proper audio interface and then a decent headphone amp on top.

There are tonnes out there ranging hugely in price, I'd suggest a USB C one, at least £100 upwards. Just be sure the headphone amp can drive low impedence.

Focusrite Scarlett's are considered great budget options, Apogees are very good.

USB-C Audio Interfaces - Andertons Music Co.

www.andertons.co.uk

For a headphone amp, the Schitt Asgard 3 or Magni are both exceptional, they've got an Asgard 3 on clearance at £300, they've run out of main stocks in the UK, but their EU shop has a Magni on sale at the same price, the Magni is by far the better option, especially at that price

schiit graded stock

Buy your Schiit graded stock from an authorised reseller with warranty.

www.schiit.co.uk

But don't get a crummy game soundcard for audio, it would be a travesty!

 

[MalfiRG]

The most fundamental is to go away from Intel. They make hot chips. Hot chips mean the cooling works hard. The cooling working hard means you have lots of noise. And that's not ideal for a music production scenario. I'd go with AMD: the 7950X is broadly on a par with the Intel chip in most code compilation scenarios while being very significantly cooler/more efficient.

Thank you for your suggestion. I did not take into consideration the AMD CPUs. It might be an interesting choice.

As @SpyderTracks says, if you want good quality sound, you need an external interface, not a PCIe sound card. I don't know this field well at all, but there are a host of options from £100 to the moon.

Thank you for the suggestion! Indeed, when it comes to music recording and production, external interfaces are a superior solution compared to internal gaming sound cards.

You mention the possibility of two graphics cards in the future. I've added lots of power supply capacity to allow for this. My only concern is that this motherboard only has one PCIe x16 slot (the others are physically x16 but electrically x1). I have no idea if this would matter for the tasks you're talking about. (For mining, for example, it makes no difference. For gaming, it's huge.) If it does, you have to go for an Asus board and suffer the slower memory speeds. (It's a long story.)

I have familiarized myself with the concept of PCIe bandwidth, and now I understand your point. I will need to carefully consider whether it would be more beneficial to opt for a single high-performance card to fully utilize the x16 slot instead of going for two weaker cards.

But don't get a crummy game soundcard for audio, it would be a travesty!

Thanks!

 

[RichLan564]

As soon as i read statements like "Especially Windows Server virtualization, where I want to create multiple Active Directory Forests for testing purposes" i would ask are the VM's running concurrently?

If they are and there is more than two running 64GB RAM can disappear pretty quickly depending on what applications you are running on the Host and in the VM

For the price of them i would also want at least another 2TB SSD in there for VM drive pools, i have 7 VM's on my work machine and that's 250GB of hard disk space and they are provisioned to the bare minimum

 

[MalfiRG]

As soon as i read statements like "Especially Windows Server virtualization, where I want to create multiple Active Directory Forests for testing purposes" i would ask are the VM's running concurrently?

If they are and there is more than two running 64GB RAM can disappear pretty quickly depending on what applications you are running on the Host and in the VM

For the price of them i would also want at least another 2TB SSD in there for VM drive pools, i have 7 VM's on my work machine and that's 250GB of hard disk space and they are provisioned to the bare minimum

Thank you for your suggestion! Yes, the VMs will be running simultaneously. Therefore, it would be a good idea to upgrade the amount of RAM to 128GB and add the disk, such as a 2TB SSD drive.