Dual desktops, one PC?

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EnderW

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I am planning to consolidate my gaming PC and workstation into one computer. I would like to keep separate monitors and keyboard/mice as I already have 2 sets and like what I have.

The 2 monitors are a few feet apart so this would not be a typical dual display. Plus I am running slightly different OSes. The way I imagine it working is I can reboot and load the gaming SSD/OS and play some games on the gaming monitor, will have the other one set to disabled. And vice versa when I want to do non-gaming activities.

I can't think of any reason this wouldn't work but thought I would run it by you guys before I get any farther along. Attached is a diagram of what I'm planning.

The reason I have different GPUs in the diagram is because there are issues with Geforce drivers and Windows LTSC.
 

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Why not just run the workstation OS in a VM and get rid of the second monitor/mouse/keyboard?
 
what CPU? Going to need a lot of cores for this to be viable. 8+ IMO unless you don't need much for your workstation. Should be fine though.
 
ryan_975 said:
Why not just run the workstation OS in a VM and get rid of the second monitor/mouse/keyboard?
Click to expand...
The main reason is because the workstation monitor is a Dell 34” Ultrawide which doesn’t have gsync or freesync. Also the mouse is a Logitech Master 2S. So those aren’t really the best options for gaming. The keyboards are close enough but I do prefer my gaming keyboard for games.

If I didn’t have those reasons I suppose it could work but there would be a learning curve as I don’t have much experience with VMs and I suspect some of the things I want to setup would be a PITA. I also will treat the gaming install more carefree in regards to jacking around with settings and installing things. If I need to wipe it out and restore from a backup, it would be much less of an issue.

Another thing I should have probably mentioned is I don’t get to spend much time on gaming, maybe just a few hours a month. But I do want a top notch experience when I do.
 
mnewxcv said:
what CPU? Going to need a lot of cores for this to be viable. 8+ IMO unless you don't need much for your workstation. Should be fine though.
Click to expand...
Why would I need a lot of cores? the 2 “systems” won’t be running simultaneously.

Right now I have a placeholder i3-9100F until my preorder for the Xeon E-2288G ships.
 
Planned system specs:

Gigabyte C246-WU4
Xeon E-2288G
2x16GB DDR4 2666MHz ECC
MSI RTX 2080
Corsair AX850
970 EVO Plus
X550-T2

plus a few other SSDs
 
EnderW said:
Why would I need a lot of cores? the 2 “systems” won’t be running simultaneously.

Right now I have a placeholder i3-9100F until my preorder for the Xeon E-2288G ships.
Click to expand...
Why not just dual boot it?
 
EnderW said:
The main reason is because the workstation monitor is a Dell 34” Ultrawide which doesn’t have gsync or freesync. Also the mouse is a Logitech Master 2S. So those aren’t really the best options for gaming. The keyboards are close enough but I do prefer my gaming keyboard for games.
Click to expand...

Got it.

If I didn’t have those reasons I suppose it could work but there would be a learning curve as I don’t have much experience with VMs and I suspect some of the things I want to setup would be a PITA. I also will treat the gaming install more carefree in regards to jacking around with settings and installing things. If I need to wipe it out and restore from a backup, it would be much less of an issue.

Another thing I should have probably mentioned is I don’t get to spend much time on gaming, maybe just a few hours a month. But I do want a top notch experience when I do.
Click to expand...

Setting them up in VMs would let you avoid having to shut one down and reboot into the other. That's a huge benefit when you've got something running on your WS and want to kill some time gaming.

Meeho said:
Why not just dual boot it?
Click to expand...

That's what he's asking about doing.
 
ryan_975 said:
Setting them up in VMs would let you avoid having to shut one down and reboot into the other. That's a huge benefit when you've got something running on your WS and want to kill some time gaming.
Click to expand...

That is a huge benefit and probably the biggest reason I wouldn’t want to dual boot. I’ll still go ahead with the current plan for now and see how it goes.

I actually have another PC, an older Lenovo TS140 hooked up to the “workstation” monitor/keyboard/mouse via the built in Dell KVM on the monitor so I can fall back on that to run workstation tasks while gaming depending on what it is. This is partly the reason for consolidating - I feel 3 PCs is getting borderline ridiculous.

What VM software do you like? I’ve used virtualbox in the past but very little.
 
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