New Job, Need a Workstation, must support lots of virtuals and Hardware Passthru

Hardware Build a PC
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Greetings, long time viewer, first time poster…

Some background, I’m a developer, have been since I got my first 8088 IBM clone in the 80’s. Recently, I have become more interested in fullstack, devops oriented development processes. So much so that I have begun implementing DevOp processes in our enterprise and started integrating NetOps, SysOps, ServerOps, and Development infrastructure and tooling. In the office I have plenty of resources to learn on, however my curiosity is outgrowing what I have available at work; not to mention I have a distaste for developing personal IP on my employers resources. Thus the need to update my primary workstation at home.

Some basic goals and requirements for this build:

  • Native Linux as primary OS.
  • Support GPU/Hardware passthru to virtuals so I can run a Windows VM that doesn’t really know it’s a VM (I have need to integrate Active Directory and other MS Techs and want to learn more about this specific area).
  • As much RAM as possible (128gb)

I am on a bit of a budget so building the biggest Threadripper beast possible is not really pragmatic. I’m sold on Threadripper though. My thought was choose MB capable of supporting 32core monsters, but start with something smaller and more cost effective until I absolutely must upgrade. Therefore I want to be sure I can support the higher TDP processors.

For the Motherboard, it seems that the MSI MEG is the obvious choice, but I’m wondering if there are other viable options at lower prices points available. The virtualization bit is my primary question currently. I was hoping to play with nested virtualization, or at least learn about this topic, and so would like recommendations for MB based on the ability to passthrough bundles of resources to virtuals (GPU, CPU Cores, PCIE Lanes, etc. etc.) For example, I want my primary OS (Linux) to run KVM virtuals, some of which may actually be other Hypervisors so I can experiment with various Virtualization Platforms (Hyper-V, VMWare, Citrix, etc).

Also, since Ryzen/Zen gen3 seems to be knocking on our door, should I maybe just wait for Computex to see if this gets annouced and may drives gen2 prices down a bit?

PS. I’m at best a casual gamer, Minecraft, Diablo, and recently Far Cry5. Gaming is not a concern for this build, it’s about real world productivity. I need to be able to complete virtual environments (several systems acting in concert with one another). I could also care less about RGB and cool factor, this will be in a windowless silent case.

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I’m considering a build that’s somewhat along the lines of what you have discussed. I’ve been looking at the EPYC processor line because of the increased PCIe lanes and ecc ram. I’m definitely waiting for the release of the zen2, to get either a price break on the outgoing hardware or to get the newer generation if it looks like its worth it. I suspect that the current EPYC chips and compatible motherboards might get pretty cheap after the zen2 line arrives, so it might be worth thinking about if you think that could meet your needs and can wait until then.

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12 cores, $280

16 cores, $500

https://www.microcenter.com/product/483132/ryzen-threadripper-1950x-34-ghz-16-core-tr4-boxed-processor

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Currently if you need 128 GB RAM you are on either AMD or intel HEDT platform.

AMD Threadripper is cheaper and will get you more cores for the money.

If you can slum it with 64 GB max a Ryzen 2700X will probably get you most of what you want today (which is what i have here with an M.2 SSD and a bunch of SATA SSDs in it), and more cores when Ryzen 3000 comes out.

But RAM will be the sticking point. For > 64 GB you need > 4 slots and that’s going to be expensive whether you’re team red or team blue.

Sure threadripper and intel HEDT has more lanes than Ryzen socket AM4, but AM4 has “enough” (just) for what you describe IMHO. It’s certainly a lot cheaper.

But yeah. RAM will be the sticking point for you i suspect (and i dont think you’ll see support for 128 GB on AM4 Ryzen 3000). As above, if you do need that much ram i’d pick up a first gen threadripper on a decent board and as much RAM as you can afford.