Gulftown or Sandy? :?

[Ichbin]

Here's my situation.

I need a computer that can Virtual Machine at least 5 computers/servers without any major strain on the Physical and Virtual Machines. I'm setting up a virtual business environment for me to go bananas on (Going into IT security and what not, so there will be instances where I'm bombarding this machine). Think of it like a controlled environment.

I also want to play games.

So, with that in mind (Money isn't a huge factor, but obviously if I can save it, I'll save it.) do I get the 990x which is a bajillion dollars, but has 12 total cores (6 physical, 6 virtual) or go Sandybridge, which is ultimately faster, but less cores able to dedicate towards the VMs.

Running the VMs is almost, if not a little bit more of a priority than running games at OMGWTF graphics.

I'm just not sure. I'm leaning towards the 990x, however I really don't want to spend $1k on a processor that will be blown away by ivybridge whenever it decides to come out.

Also take into consideration, that a lot of the stronger motherboards out there are 1366 slot type.

[Fuganater]

Might want to look into dual processor mobo. All the VM ESX servers I've set up have 2 processors. Each server had 12 GB of RAM. I have no idea if there even is a board that is dual i7's. At most you'll be doing 5 VMs with probably 1-2 cores each and 1 GB of RAM each. 2GB RAM max.

No idea if this helps at all.

[Ichbin]

But most dual proc motherboards aren't really fit to handle extreme graphics cards/capabilities.

I still want to play the latest games

I'm looking for a decent comprimise between both worlds.

Right now I've been looking at 990x with 24gb of 1600 ram (As it can only handle 12 in the 2000mhz range, unless I'm mistaken)

Most dualie boards are set up for the XEONS also

[Fuganater]

Then its going to be a tough decision. Back when I was in school (I am a Computer Forensics Major) we would only do 3 servers per workstation. But we had 5 workstations and each server only had 512MB of RAM. Not sure if your using the VMs as dummies, honeypots or as functional servers.

What OS' are you going to be using? All 2003/2008 server? I take it your going to be testing out security procedures and see how long it takes to hack the server. I miss doing that. Metasploit is your friend.

[RogueOpportunist]

Hmmmm... Considering for the price of the 980x alone you could probably build 2 complete systems with the way the prices on the 6 core AMD chips and 2600k's are, I dunno... Ad the cost of motherboard, ram and everything else and you could probably build 3 AMD systems or 2 2600k systems for the price of that single 980x system... I guess it's all relative to the conditions you want to judge it by, myself I'm more partial to having multiple systems when doing multiple tasks, don't get me wrong, each system is still VERY heavily multi-tasked but I've found that when it comes to really heavy multi-tasking having everything run on a single system and having that system crash leaving you with another hour or 2 worth of setup time can be very time consuming and costly.

In terms of performance per watt I'd say the 980x probably leads, in terms of performance per dollar... I have my doubts... One thing to consider is hyperthreading does not make 6 cores into 12, that's marketing BS, a physical core will always be superior to a hyperthreaded core... In terms of performance hyperthread basically just takes any unused processing power and runs another thread in it, if all 6 cores are at full load the hyperthread just starts selling "timeshares" on those 6 cores... You do still end up with a performance increase running 2 threads per core over just running 1 thread per core but that performance increase is nowhere even close to what it would be on 12 physical cores.

I don't use my systems for virtualization much but I do use them for some VERY heavy multi-tasking, heavy enough that I can't even run windowsXP if I wanted to because windowsXP just can't handle the load and I'll tell you from experience, when windows decides to screw the pooch I save myself a lot of headaches by not having everything running on the same system.

Granted, in a *nix based environment "crashing" may not be as big of an issue but still, it happens, if you are trying to test security exploits and DDOS attacks and what not it may be beneficial to have your aggressor and defender virtualized on 2 completely different systems... At least the way I look at things it would, some people just don't like having too many computers around though, myself I have and use 3-6 systems simultaneously at any given point in time.

I don't virtualize much because I don't need to, the systems are all real... I pick and choose my hardware based on specific demands though, I don't need high clocks for gaming FPS, besides my "gaming" desktop the other systems are all set up for low power consumption and even when playing games they barely use any more than 100 watts of power each which might not suit your applications very well but it's still worth considering the viability of multiple systems over a single expensive system.

From what I understand of it all the only real reason to go nuts buying expensive CPU's is in a corporate environment where space and performance per watt translate into tens of thousands of dollars... For personal applications most of the 1k+ CPU's are just a waste of money... If you feel you need the "e-peen" of a 980x go for it, if you actually want to spend your money "wisely" I think there are far better ways to do so personally but that's just my own humble opinion and what do I know.

[dr.walrus]

Seriously, I mean this, why only one computer? Is this because you need a server that can also handle your gaming needs?

[OvRiDe]

I'm with the Walrus on this one. I run multiple VM's on my i7 870 all the time as many as 8 and they seem to run decent. If you dedicate a machine and run VMWares ESXi server (free) it has a dedicated OS streamlined for Virtual machines and doesn't have to support Windows overhead as well. This way you don't need AS beefy of a machine. Save that expense for the gaming box!! errr "console machine"

[diluzio91]

well... you could skip the 990/980X, get an i7 970, and use the extra 500$ for cooling for it...


http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/Pu...umber=16527945

example list, unlock the 6950s to 6970s, and you have one ba mofo gaming rig.

[x88x]

I'm gonna toss another vote in the ring for two systems. Speaking from experience, separating the grunt you need when virtualizing lots of systems onto a separate server is incredibly more convenient. This also removes the problem of trying to shoehorn lots of CPU horsepower into a system that games well. My recommendation would be to take the money you would have spent on a 990X and instead buy a separate system such as the one detailed below, running a hypervisor such as Xen or ESXi.

Like Rogue said, hyperthreading and clock speed don't matter nearly as much with virtualisation. Hyperthreading for the reasons he mentioned, clock speed because unless you're specifically doing something with the VM that benefits from a high clock speed, you're not gonna see a huge difference between even 2Ghz and 3Ghz. The things that matter most with virtualisation, in my experience, are physical cores, CPU cache (whichever is more important for the given CPU architecture), memory, and HDD speed. HDD speed because you have instead of a single OS trying to access system files, you have lots of OSs all trying to access their own system files at the same time, usually all stored on the same drive.

i7-990X (6 cores@3.46Ghz) : $999.99

2x Opteron 6138 (8 cores each @ 2.0Ghz) : $259.99 each : $519.98
Dual Socket-G34 Tyan MBB : $479.99
2x 16GB (4x4GB) G.SKILL Ripjaws X : $189.99 each : $379.98
Cooler Master Pro Gold 800W : $159.99
Total : $1,539.94

..ok, yeah, so that comes out a bit more than $999.99. But, if you notice, the two processors and the MBB do actually come out to $999.97 (weird accident; I didn't plan that..honest) and you would be buying the extra RAM anyways.

I absolutely guarantee you, that system will beat the everliving crap out of a 990X for virtualisation.

On another note, what do you expect each VM to be doing? For context, at my last job I built a dual-Opteron system using two 2378's (4 cores each @ 2.4GHz) and 32GB of DDR2-800. We ran VMWare ESXi on it, and we were able to run between 10 and 30 VMs on it concurrently, depending on what sort of resources each VM needed. From my experience with that, I would say dual 6138's would easily do 15-20 VMs (at the very least) even under heavy power draw per VM.

If you only need 5 VMs, a more sensible approach may be to instead just build a single 6138-based system, a lower-power 1090T/1100T system, or if you must go Intel, grab a 2500 or 2600.

[dr.walrus]

I'd actually suggest 2 rackmounted 1090Ts or 2500Ks, soooo cheap and both easily capable. 8/16gb of ram in each, probably won't cost you much more than $500/ whole machine before you factor in storage.

I reckon anything you do is going to cost about $1000 - $1500, but I simply think the 990x option is just a bit OTT.