Long Overdue Upgrade

[feverlax]

Right now I have a desktop with a Phenom II X3 710, 6GB DDR2 and a Radeon 5770 as well as a Dell Poweredge 1950 Gen III server running two Quad-Core Xeons with 12GB of RAM and four 15K 147GB drives. The server is running ESXi with ~10 VMs running on it that I use for school work (studying Information Security/Sys Admin) as well as for fun.

As much as I love my server, it's really freaking loud and it makes my room 3-5 degrees warmer than the rest of our apartment so I am looking to sell off the server and parts of my desktop in order to build a much more powerful desktop that can handle the same workload as my server. I plan on virtualizing ESXi and all my other VMs within VMWare Workstation on the desktop.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Lots of virtual machines (around 10 -- Ubuntu Server, Windows Server 2008 and 2012, Backtrack, Windows 7, Metasploitable, etc), web browsing, office, and occasional gaming (Football Manager 12 primarily, but also games like Deus Ex, Saints Row 3, and Just Cause 2).
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
Would like to keep it under $800 with tax and shipping. I live in NY so tax is 8 percent from Newegg
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
US. Rochester, NY 14623
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
CPU, RAM, Mobo, PSU, SSD to house VMs (for disk IO) -- around 256GB should suffice. Do I need a 3rd party HSF or is stock good enough?
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Case: Cooler Master RC-690 II
DVD drive: I don't remember the model, but it's a solid SATA drive
Boot drive: 128GB Samsung 830 SSD
Storage drive: 1TB Samsung HDD
GPU: Radeon 5770
6) Will you be overclocking?
Not planning on it.
7) 7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
3x20inch 1600x900 Acer LCDs
Note: When I game, I only game on one monitor -- no need for EyeFinity
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Next week or so
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
USB3, UEFI would be nice, Gigabit LAN, support for lots of RAM (at least 32GB)
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Yes. I plan on using Windows 8 Pro 64bit as my primary OS. I have a license through MSDNAA.


This is what I was thinking
Intel i7-3770 (non-K since I don't plan on overclocking). $290 from Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Core-i7-3770-Quad-Core-Processor/dp/B007SZ0EHE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347483668&sr=8-1&keywords=3770
Asus P8Z77-V LK $128 AR from Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Asus-P8Z77-V-LK-Intel-Motherboards/dp/B007RIFKTY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347483843&sr=8-1&keywords=ASUS+P8Z77-V+LK
2xG.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) $86 from Newegg
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314
CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 $89.99 AR from Newegg
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139021

Also, I plan on re-using the 5770 since it meets all of my needs perfectly right now and I don't foresee needing anything stronger than it for awhile. And finally, I am unfortunately not anywhere near a Microcenter : (

 

[Dangman]

Considering that you have NY sales tax, plan on running a ton of VMs, and have access to a Windows Pro key, I recommend going wiht this RAM instead:
http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Venge...qid=1347501579&sr=8-33&keywords=8GB+DDR3+1600

It'll leave you room to upgrade to 32GB of RAM without having to replace any RAM sticks and should be cheaper than the G.Skill set.

PSU wise, you do not need a 750W PSU at all since you're not overclocking or planning on using Crossfire or SLI. As such, you'll be fine with this PSU:
$57 - Antec NEO ECO 520C 520W PSU

 

[gjs278]

try and find a mobo and cpu that supports vt-d too. you may need it if you ever start passing in pci-e devices to your VMs one day.

z77 does not support it from what I can tell. but if you don't ever see a need for vt-d, then I guess you can skip. it's pretty cool feature to have in reserve if you don't plan on overclocking though, since they never give the feature to unlocked processors.