Long time lurker…first time poster here. Super impressed with the helpful and well informed community here.
My current Proxmox Server:
Supermicro SYS-5028D-TN4T
Mini ITX
Xeon 1541 Broadwell 8C-16T
64G ECC
Radeon 7700
This machine has served me very well for last 5 years. Just used for 5 or 6 VMs and LXC containers. Home server type things.
I would like to retire this system and move to a more modern and robust highly configurable system.
I envision:
Running several Windows VMs with GPUs passed through. One of these I would like to make my daily driver Windows machine.
Quiet operation (within reason).
3, High compatibility with Proxmox such that all MB resources are available to be split out to the guest machines.
Platform that will last 4-5 years.
My first stab at this looks like:
ASUS Pro WRX80E Sage Wifi
TR PRo 3955wx
128G ECC
Lian LI 011 Dynamic XL with ebb bracket
Noctua Air cooling
I will populate with appropriate video cards and NVME as necessary.
I do have 30 years of IT experience but virtualization is strictly a hobby for me. My previous system has always worked just out of the box. This is my first foray into something put together ala carte.
Am I even close to something that works? Cost is a criteria but not near the top of the list.
I hear you on the cost part. Given that I would like to have this as desktop system with as much onboard I/O as possible including 10G networking, would your recommendation change at all?
Your first post mentions virtual machines and gpu passthrough. Will you be installing a hypervisor such as proxmox on the bare metal? Or is this a windows build?
Asrock-rack makes several EPYC but still ATX boards. The ROME8D-2T is everything you mention plus IPMI and other features that make life as a host easier.
There is a fine line between where threadripper ends and EPYC begins. And the only real reason to use threadripper is if you really need the SLIGHT increase in singlethreaded app performance no matter what the cost. Aka a windows only workstation doing some sort of CPU or GPU assisted compute task.
Yes, this will be a Proxmox server. I hope to use it in a hybrid fashion though. I would like to build this system in a desktop case and locate near my desk. I will be using one of the Windows VM’s as my daily driver Windows PC, passing through Thunderbolt to dock on my desk.
I have no particular affinity to Threadripper processors. The ASUS board is just what I saw first. The Asrock-rack and Supermicro look good too for EPYC.
Do you have any thoughts as to which might work best in desktop case? I’m thinking about cooling.
probably the ROME8d-2t is the way to go. remember you will need REGISTERED ECC RAM. this board has Intel X550 10gb nics, has IPMI, dual NVME, and all the PCIE.
this board is ATX, the case and cooling solution you choose based on your CPU and and noise level preferences.
are you asking for a complete build recommendation?