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Build for VMWare Server

J

JDMs14

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 3, 2006
Messages
130
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc VMWARE
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included? Approx 600-650
3) Where do you live? Canaduh
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific. Listed below
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model. Old budget case with decent cooling and a bottom of the barrel PCI video card
6) Will you be overclocking? no
7) What size monitor do you have or plan to have? N/A
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC? few weeks
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc. RAID would be the only "nice to have" but not a requirement.

Here's what I've got priced out so far:

CPU: E7300 = $150
Mobo: Gigabyte EP43-DS3L = $120
RAM: 8GB Corsair TWINX DDR2 667 = $90
HDD: Seagate 500GB = $80
PSU: Thermaltake PurePower 430W = $50

This will be mostly for VMWare work...running 4-5 VM's at any one time doing different tasks...mostly a development/sandbox build.

I was initially looking at the Q6600 but I don't feel I would be taxing the CPU as much as RAM so I opted for the lower model...please chime in if you feel this is not a good move. Q6600 is about $100 more here.

Any comments would be helpful. Thanks!:)
 
Well, my first inclination is to tell you to get a CPU with Intel's VT (virtualization technology) support, since the primary task of this system is virtual machine serving; However, I'm not sure how much of a performance improvement such a feature will yield.

A Q6600 would be ideal for such a low budget VMware server. The lowest CPU model w/ VT that I could find on Newegg.ca was the E8400, which is only $8.50CAD cheaper than the Q6600. Sure, you could use the E7300 that you previously picked out, but it wouldn't be the best solution, since there's obviously room in your budget.

This would be a much better build, IMO:

$88 - WD Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200RPM SATA300
$50 - Antec earthwatts EA380 380W ATX12V v2.0 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC
$57 - G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2-800 (PC2-6400) Model F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ
$57 - G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2-800 (PC2-6400) Model F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ
$215 - Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core
$107 - Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P43 ATX
============
$575 + tax and shipping

The EA380 is a much better quality PSU, and its 80+ efficient... for the same price! Most modern systems draw from the +12V rail(s), and the EA380W provides more power on that rail than the TR2 from Tt. 380W is more than enough for this system, btw. The WD6400AAKS is considerably faster than the 500GB Seagate. If you want to stick with seagate, look for the 7200.11 cuda models, since they're just as fast as the WD I listed.

Though this board doesn't have the most ideal location for the 24-pin connector, it does have RAID... Then again, you could just get a RAID card later, if and when its needed.
$130 - Asus P5Q SE/R LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX ($15MIR)
 
Agreed, Q6600. If it's $100 more, I'd wait another pay period and then buy. The difference is significant when you're running multiple VMs and one or more is set to use 2 CPUs, or you're running four or more VMs. Three is a negligible difference unless you're loading them all.

I'd also echo the WD6400AAKS, but I would suggest a second one. You should run your VM(s) on other drive(s) or a RAID0/10 volume.
 
Do the specific motherboards need to support VT, or is that something that is part of the chipset or does it just depend on the CPU? I'm planning a machine for much the same reasons as the OP so I was curious. I couldn't find any mentions of VT support on the specs for the boards I've looked at.
 
It's the CPU. You can do a search for processors on newegg with virtualization tech.
 
VT is typically enabled on the mid to high end Core2 chips (E6000 series, E8X00 series, Q6000 series, Q9000 series).
 
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