I’m very excited to be building a new PC. Here are the specifics on the build that I’m looking at (with all peripherals included). Note that the CPU is a place holder. I plan on getting a Intel’s 13th Gen CPU when those drop in September, given that the benchmarks are good. I expect the 24 cores to be good for virtualization.
Budget: For the computer alone, I’d like to be around $2500 (currently 2685$ without the KVM switch and two monitors). So, I’m slightly over budget. I live is the US. The two monitors and KVM switch will likely roll in down the line, but they are left in the build list for completeness. I will be using my single 1080p Acer monitor in the mean time, and to bring up the VFIO.
I plan on using the rig for gaming and professional development. I’m an embedded developer, so most development is not very demanding. Sometimes, I need to compile big projects, like the Linux Kernel. That’d be the most demanding development task I’d have for the computer, though I don’t do this regularly.
I plan on overclocking (first rig we’re I’ve overclocked) so I can get as much out of the CPU as possible.
I plan to run Fedora on the host with the GeForce RTX 3070. I expect I’ll be running two virtual machines regularly.
- Windows 10/11 with the GeForce RTX 3050 VFIO passthrough. I plan on using LookingGlass when using this VM. I also would like to pass through one of the 1TB M.2 NVMEs, but that is dependent on getting a good groupings of IOMMUs.
- Linux VM (likely Fedora) that I would use for work. If I can passthrough the iGPU, I’ll do so, but otherwise just run without passthrough.
As for gaming I usually only play League of Legends and Starcraft 2. These games are not very demanding, hence why I am passing through the 3050 instead of the 3070 for the Windows machine. I also want to get into Warhammer 3 with my friends, and the 3050 can run that game fine on medium settings at 1440p. In general I love RTSs, but wouldn’t mind playing some FPSs down the line.
I expect to be gaming on Linux where I can. Many of the other games I like to play on Steam have support via Wine (Dark Souls series, Hollow Knight, Civ 5, Stellaris). I am not a graphics whore.
Peripherals were included in the build list, but I expect to be upgrading my set-up to have two 1440p IPS monitors. I would like to abuse the 165Hz refresh rate. The KVM switch is a back-up plan if I determine its not realistic to run two VMs reliably need to use my work computer instead.
Also, I do not care about the pretty lights. The tower will go in the corner and I’ll rarely look at it.
Besides general advice on tweaking my build I have the following questions:
- Is the Gigabyte Z690 UD good for VFIO? If anyone could post their IOMMU groups, I would feel better about purchasing it. I am open to alternatives that are known for having good IOMMU groupings. I plan on making a dedicated post requesting if anyone has the IOMMU groupings for that motherboard.
- Is the quality to price point good? For the work I’ve described, have I hit my mark?
- Can I pass through the M.2 NVME SSD? Or, should I go with a SATA connected SSD to get more reliable SSD passthrough given good groups?
- Are their any other items I should be looking to pass through for good performance? Any words of “I wish I did x when I was building my VFIO system”.
Thank you for your time.