So I am sick of Windows, luckily all that I use it for is gaming so Ive been looking at getting rid of Windows altogether. I have been using Manjaro in a VM to test software installs and on a USB stick to check hardware. So far so good, mouse / keyboard work (mouse with a bit of tweaking). OS drivers for GPU work. So far I could completely abandon Windows sacrificing gaming as the proprietary (fglrx) drivers wont work on kernel 4.x.
So since my PC is getting somewhat dated and somethings do not work I am starting to look at a new build.
I have first been trying to find a good motherboard. ca.pcpartpicker.com motherboard with Xeon support and ECC. (I am currently and may not use ECC memory or Xeon CPU, but I can see a point where I would want to use it) I can find boards with ECC and Xeon support no problem, but I cannot find any information on what boards support VT-d. Since not all my games would run under linux, or well enough under WINE, I need VT-d so I can have a VM for Windows.
I thought my CPU had VT-d support but apparently only has VT-x, searched and found out K-series does not have VT-d. And most Xeons don not either. I would like to have a CPU with more cores (Blender CPU rendering, cycles), preferably overclockable, but I can do without OC CPUs. Is there a series of CPUs with VT-d and overclockable?
Since I have been unable to get drivers for AMD GPUs under kernel 4.x (Radeon HD 7970) what GPU(s) have good kernel 4.x support? I would like to be able to both game and do GPU Rendering (Blender cycles)(VT-d). I would like to eventually get 2 cards to do better rendering, but 1 is plenty for now.
Summary:
CPU: More cores, VT-d. (optional: ECC support, Overclockable (preferable))
Motherboard: Xeon, ECC, >= 32GB RAM, VT-d, 2 PCI 16x.
GPU: Linux kernel 4.x, dual card support, custom water cooler support (be able to replace fan with waterblock later on).
For the time being I do not have a budget, I just want to know what motherboards, CPUs and GPUs that have linux 4.x support, ECC, Xeon and VT-d.