Virtual Server & General Dev Machine

G

gj73

Member
Hi all - any comments on below:

I'm trying to replace a Win2008 Small Business Server plus my general usage .net dev desktop.
I'm aiming for a 2008 Server HyperV, with VM guests for exchange, SQL server, Webserver, media, plus Windows 7 Ultimate for general use & dev work.

I'm not really into gaming, but would like too. sorry if my gaming questions are amateur!. Only exisiting hardware I'm keeping are two 19inch VGA 1280x1024 monitors.

1. What level of gaming will I get on a virtualized windows 7 setup. Am I wasting my money putting 2 x GEFORCE GTS450 into this?
2. Has anyone managed a setup that does virtualization, and works as a gaming machine?
3. Does PCS sell a dual VGA card that will drive my two monitors. This is why my spec has the two GTS450's - they are the cheapest available in the dropdowns. If these are overkill I've got an old matrox f7197 dual card here. I can use this if gaming isn't possible with any virtualization.

Any comments would be fantastic. Thanks for reading. Spec is below (apologies if its formatted badly..)

Case COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-950 (3.06GHz) 4.8GTs/8MB Cache
Motherboard ASUS® P6T WS PROFESSIONAL: NEW ERA CORE i7 WORKSTATION
Memory (RAM) 12GB SAMSUNG DDR3 TRI-DDR3 1333MHz (3 x 4GB)
Graphics Card 1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTS450 - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - DirectX® 11, 3D Vision Ready
2nd Graphics Card 1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTS450 - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - DirectX® 11, 3D Vision Ready
3rd Graphics Card NONE
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 1.5TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD15EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
2nd Hard Disk NONE
RAID NONE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive NONE
Memory Card Reader INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply CORSAIR 650W TX SERIES (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET PSU (£76)
Processor Cooling INTEL SOCKET LGA1366 STANDARD CPU COOLER
Sound Card ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options 6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Modem NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND
Floppy Disk Drive NONE
Firewire & Video Editing NONE
TV Card NONE
Operating System NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
 
PringlesInside

PringlesInside

Enthusiast
a programmer! :) yep u got alot of RAM there, thats good for what you trying to do! but why game on virtual server?? i dont see point, unless you on high privacy alert etc and for security reasons (l33t hacker or russian spy? :p) Do also note that some games may not even run on virtualization software due to anti-cheats preventing suuch things.. such as any game using ahnlab hackshield
 
G

gj73

Member
this is hopefully going to be my single home PC. I want to virtualize to run exchange / sql server / iis / dev instances. As it's my only Pc, can I also game on it? I'm new to virtualization so maybe Im missing something. I don't PC game currently (have xbox etc) but if I do want to run high gpu intensive games, will I need another machine or can I have a win7 instance running somehow. I've read that a hyperV instance won't support directX. I suppose the same question applies to photo editing?

Therefore, if I can't have a single machine that i can virtualize should I de-scope the new server (currently into either a low end windows 7 gaming/multimedia machine (i.e i5 cpu, 4gb, cheap geforce card). Then build a lower spec virtual box (i5, 8GB, 1 Tb hdd, existing graphics card I have). The two separate machines will cost more than the single higher spec - but that's why I'm try to get it all from one box! Any thoughts? thanks.
 
PCS

PCS

Administrator
Staff member
If you're only running one computer in your house, I'm not sure why you need to setup a server/exchange at all? My best advice here is to order a PC with Windows 7, and the GTS450. (Note also that you can convert DVI ports to VGA through an adapter, so you do not necessarily need to order a graphics card that has two VGA/DVI ports).

For general gaming one GTS450 should be more than enough. If however you want the best performance, and it is within your budget, then two GTS450 will be better than one.
 
G

gj73

Member
thanks for the reply. My motivation is to buy a top end desktop for dev work. Since my spec is better than I probably need I figured I could put Windows Hyper V on there and virtualise my exchange / sql / web servers (which I already have; I'm a developer and host my own websites and prefer exchange).

1. Since I can't get decent graphics via Hyper V, I think I'll save some money and not go for such a great spec. Super Star - can you please confirm I can drive two VGA monitors from a GTS450. One monitor via VGa port the other via DVI and an adapter / both via DVI and adapters? thanks.

2. Whats the difference between an ASUS P6T WS Pro & an ASUS P6X58D? the later is a lot cheaper and has great reviews?

3. Also, will I notice the speed difference between a WD black 6Gbps HDD versus the WD green 3gbps hdd? Its 25 GBP difference.

4. Is overclocking worth the extra 80 GBP for the 1600Mhz memory, better cooling? An equal price alternative is to have a non overclocked setup but with 12gb RAM. Whats better 6GB ram overclocked 3.8Ghz or 12GB ram non-overclocked 3.06GHz?

Thanks for your help. My spec is now at 792gbp

Case COOLERMASTER ELITE 310 BLUE CASE
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-950 (3.06GHz) 4.8GTs/8MB Cache
Motherboard ASUS® P6X58D-E: DDR3, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, 3-Way SLI
Memory (RAM) 6GB SAMSUNG DDR3 TRI-DDR3 1333MHz (3 X 2GB)
Graphics Card 1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTS450 - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - DirectX® 11, 3D Vision Ready
2nd Graphics Card NONE
3rd Graphics Card NONE
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
2nd Hard Disk NONE
RAID NONE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive NONE
Memory Card Reader INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply 600W Quiet 80 PLUS Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£59)
Processor Cooling INTEL SOCKET LGA1366 STANDARD CPU COOLER
Sound Card ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options 6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Modem NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND
Floppy Disk Drive NONE
Firewire & Video Editing NONE
TV Card NONE
Operating System NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
 
PCS

PCS

Administrator
Staff member
1. I can confirm this.

2. The P6X58D is a more mainstream board, and designed for desktop computers, where was the P6T WS PRO is a workstation board designed for use in a workstation/CAD PC.

3. For the primary hard drive, choose a black drive, especially if you're hosting websites on this system.

4. Depending on how CPU intensive the websites are, you need to consider the CPU speed and memory secondly, but again the overall use may play a part here. What you've put together looks good.
 
G

gj73

Member
brilliant. I think I'll go fro overclocked and 12gb RAM.
one last question about cases. how many hdd can this one support: The Coolermaster 690 II Case
thanks
 
PCS

PCS

Administrator
Staff member
Here's a view inside the case:

2_big.jpg

I would say at least 6 hard drives can fit in there. :)
 
G

gj73

Member
Fantastic. thanks for your help. Its a few pound over my grand budget, but I think this will rock for my needs. I assume you sort out the overclocking, even though I install the OS?

Case COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE
Overclocked CPU OverClocked Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-950 (3.06GHz @ max 3.8GHz)
Motherboard ASUS® P6X58D-E: DDR3, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, 3-Way SLI
Memory (RAM) 12GB KINGSTON HYPER-X TRI-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (6 x 2GB KIT)
Graphics Card 1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTS450 - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - DirectX® 11, 3D Vision Ready
2nd Graphics Card NONE
3rd Graphics Card NONE
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
2nd Hard Disk 2TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD20EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
RAID NONE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive NONE
Memory Card Reader INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply CORSAIR 650W TX SERIES (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET PSU (£76)
Processor Cooling TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)
Thermal Paste STANDARD OVERCLOCK THERMAL PASTE
Sound Card ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options 6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Modem NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND
Floppy Disk Drive NONE
Firewire & Video Editing NONE
TV Card NONE
Operating System NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
 
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