I’m in the process of making a PC (server?) to host some gaming VM’s for LAN parties, but I’ve been thrashing trying to figure out exactly what I need vs want.
Requirements:
Run 4 Windows Guests
Streaming to local devices using sunshine/moonlight combo
1080p 60FPS
Games like Civ 5, TF2, CS:Source, Gmod, etc.
Either 10Gb on board, or a third PCI-E slot to run a 10gb nic.
My concern is what platform do I commit to? I’ve been looking at the following CPU’s:
Threadripper 2950x
Ryzen 9 5950x
Threadripper 3960x
Some cheap (relatively, lol) Epyc setup.
I’m worried about going with a CPU that can’t keep up, but I also want to avoid obliterating my bank account. I’d like to go with the 5950x, but I’m concerned about PCI-E lanes to support 2 GPUs and a 10Gb nic. That lead me to look at the 2950x vs 3960x. If anyone has a recommendation on which way to go/look, please let me know.
This will be very dependent on the games you’re looking to run. I know LTT recently explored doing this again and ran into a lot of issues due to SLI/NVLINK no longer being supported and lot games now using kernel level anti-cheat.
I’d honestly consider doing a price comparison of building some budget gaming PC’s with used parts or even surplus enterprise desktops.
But if you do decide to continue, I’d definitely consider threadripper. It’ll be difficult to find a x470/x570 board that will have the PCIe you are looking for as most, if not all, that I’m aware of will only have two x16 slots and most will cut to x8 when you plug another gpu into them.
At the moment, we are looking to play mostly co-op games like Borderlands 2/3, a few different source games, Civ 5, Minecraft, etc.
I’ve come to the same general conclusion that Threadripper is my best option for price and PCI-E lanes. Doubly so if I want to expand to more clients in the future. Now it’s a game of tempering my ambitions whilst looking at the budget.
Seeing as I’m still in the planning stage, I won’t have any updates on this in the immediate future. When I do, I’ll be sure to come back and share my results.
Windows hyper-v let you share one gpu to multiple VMs. If you can make it work like that, no need to go with threadripper. However, it is tricky to get display output out of that. You may be stuck with streaming with steam.
PS: Avoid RDNA3 GPUs. They have reset bugs. You may use RDNA2 or nvidia . Some RDNA2 cards come with usb-c display output. You can connect usb key board and mouse for vm.
Spec out a 4k build at 120 hz and you’re there (accounting for overhead)
For lowest latency: dedicated GPU per user
For the games you are listing:
16 full cores (e cores don’t count for shit here)
32 GB RAM MINIMUM (64 preferred as 8x4 + hypervisor)
pair of m.2 drives for vm’s (no redundancy here)
sata ssd for hypervisor boot
4x entry level GPU’s for 1080p60 gaming
setup proxmox, server datacenter, or debian with qemu, and send it
I’ve been looking into a build for similar purposes. Check out Jeff’s YouTube channel Craft Computing and watch his gaming virtualization playlist.
A build with dual Xeon E5 v3s, like the E5-2667 v3 would give 80 CPU lanes and 6/7 threads per VM, leaving some CPU for the hypervisor. E5-2660 v3s would give more threads but at a slightly slower spead. At least one dual-socket board (Z10PE-D8 WS) can be used for turbo unlock with UEFI modding, I THINK. I also think you might need a multi-drive NVME-to-PCIE-slot adapter to stripe the non-redundant game libraries across the drives, as multiple gaming VMs wreck I/O or read/write even on NVME.
I don’t know if an “affordable” Xeon board with all the right stuff exists: enough x16 PCIE slots (for two mid-grade cards, NIC, & NVME card) with known PCIE bifurcation or shared UEFI mod for bifurcation. That Z10PE-D8 board might be the capable of all that. (I also recently saw an ebay vendor recently drop that board’s price from over $600 to below $500 [two 2667 v3s would be like $50].)
If the right mobo exists, 1st & 2nd gen Threadripper might be the “best” option to balance ease & price, leaving the Xeon build as the more complex but cheaper build. I’ve heard that the 2950X wasn’t a big improvement over the 1950X, so the price difference at the moment might not be worth it.
On my tighter budget I am building a 16 core/32 thread server/gaming-VM host with a Xeon E5-2697A v4 (v3 would be better for turbo unlocking) and Radeon 6700XT on an ASUS X99 WS/IPMI board. I think that board’s UEFI file could be modded for bifurcation, but the board doesn’t natively support that. (I’ll get to the Gaming VM’s once I get services nailed down. . .) I haven’t yet accomplished my build, so take my input with some grains of salt.