This is gonna be fun.
Alright, here's my current gaming rig:
i5 2500k
AsRock z77 Pro 4
12Gb of RAM (pretty sure 8 would be enough for me)
GTX 570
Windows 7
Some HDDs and an SSD
I am trying to come up with a good plan to tackle my current problem: Building an energy-efficient NAS. And by energy-efficient I mean pico PSU and ~10W ( without HDDs I guess :( ) idle. I was going back and forth between ECC and non-ECC hardware for this (to ZFS or not to ZFS). This will be mainly used for storing TV shows, movies and other stuff i download. I don't need 200MB/s, just enough to read, transcode and stream 1080p. During my research on that i found out Haswell idles low enough to meet my requirements, so at one point I thought about replacing my desktop with a non-k Haswell i5 (non-k for VT-d) and having it run ESXi (or Xen?) hosting my NAS and a Windows machine with passed through graphics for gaming. Then i remembered the horrible idle consumption of the 570 and trashed that idea temporarily.
Since Windows started bluescreening on me last sunday (let's assume the hardware is fine and this is just software), I kinda want to build this asap. My plan is as follows atm:
Get a non-k equivalent processor as a replacement for the desktop so I can have a gaming Windows VM (VT-D for PCI passthrough) and Linux for regular usage (browsing porn and stuff) and build a NAS with some hardware, have ESXi (or possibly Xen) run on it providing both a steamOS (that NAS is probably gonna be somewhere close to the TV. In Home Streaming anyone? All reviews I can find are done over shitty WiFi. What about gigabit lan?) and the NAS Linux.
For the NAS hardware, I've been going back and forth with ideas. From cheap H87 boards with Celerons over Pentiums on C226 boards with ECC ram to i5 4420Ss on z87 boards.
Oh yeah, did I mention my budget for the NAS is about 500€ which is about 500$ due to local pricing? Feel free to make it 350 before drives, I have some to use until I can afford a batch of WD Reds (or whatever you recommend).
I still hope someone has an amazon link to a crazy 'shut off your grafics card with a switch' PCIe bridge so i can combine PC and NAS. That would still leave the question of a PSU cabable of handling low loads during idle and the 570 gracefully.
I also checked out the AsRock quadcore Avaton board. Great features, but dat pricetag.
I have a bit of experience with ESXi and some others with a lot of experience with it, so I preferred that. If Xen or other hypervisors have a trick up their sleeves that magically solves one of my many problems, shoot. Let's just assume that licenses (especially MS) are not a problem and do not add any cost for me *cough*.
Hope someone was able to make it through this convoluted mess of information and sillyness.