2 gamers 1 CPU, his/hers build

Hi!

So after 5 long years, I have finally succeeded in getting my Fiance into playing World of Warcraft. The issue is... We only have 1 PC at home. So instead of buying a second PC, I'm thinking about trying a "2 gamers 1 CPU" thing, similar to this video:

It's going to cost at least $2,400, but it's still cheaper than having two separate machines. (I'm also selling my old rig for about $750 so that'll help)

The idea is to have 2 Virtual Machines running at all times, and as you can see from the video posted above, with very little compromise to performance. Here's my list of specs from pcpartpicker.com:
http://pcpartpicker.com/list/CfMsm8

I know I could save a few bucks by downgrading to 1060 GPUs but WoW isn't the only games that will be played. (And lets face it, you can run WoW on a potato!)

Anyways, anyone have any thoughts on my build? Anything I should add/change?

 

I never really trusted VM other then testing purpose. For Hardcore you should see if your motherboard is a Dual Processor and get two GPU 1080ti maybe that will make a truly gaming rig that is multitasking and dual purpose since you have two CPU and two GPU that can processes independently. That's my vision of dual computing.

 

I'll be interested in how this works out. While "playable" I haven't had any success with a VM that actually feels snappy and low latency.

What resolution will you be playing on? A 1060 is still killer for 1080p, so are you going above that? Those are all pretty nice parts you have picked out there. The watercooler is the only thing that really isn't great value compared to the best aircoolers, but I don't think I'd change anything else. (Unless maybe the ram, does giving each machine 1 16GB stick impact performance compared to 2 8GB sticks?)

Either way, I wanna see how this turns out, looks pretty awesome!

 

I'll be playing on a 1080p screen, using Nvidia DSR at 1440p.
I could definitely get-by with a 1060, but if I'm getting a whole new rig, I might as well go for a 1070 since my current GPU is a 980Ti. I'm really excited to build this!

 

the build looks good.

u can save another $100+ if u shop around a bit more. u can get 1070's and a PSU for cheaper than those PCpartpicker prices.

example: https://slickdeals.net/f/9213999-ev...-at-jet-com?src=SiteSearchV2_SearchBarV2Algo1

maybe use the money u saved from the GPU's and PSU and get a better AIO CPU cooler.

 

True why downgrade if your used to a 980 Ti. (Plus maybe you can use it in sli when just one of you are using it?)

 

Wow, that is a GREAT deal. Thanks!! I am a little worried though with EVGA's recent overheating issues...

 

well, their customer service is supposed to be "legendary" so i don't think u should have any problems.

plus, their 1070's/1080's from recent build dates are supposed to come with the thermal pads. if not, u can send them back for EVGA to install or request them to send u some of those thermal pads for free.

 

Indeed... All the ones currently being sold should be fixed... Also issue is more with the FTW edition tbh and not really the other ones!

 

You probably haven't used a hypervisor then. VMs can be just as stable as bare metal.

@OP: That looks like a great build, I don't have any suggestions for improvements.

 

World of Warcraft requirements shouldn't be that bad so even the system in the video would be overkill for the likes of World of Warcraft right?

 

Edit: Apparently nvidia geforce cards dont work on esxi...

 

Right, like I said you can basically play WoW on a potato, but we'll be playing other games too. Skyrim, The Witcher 3, and other demanding games.

 

It's important to note that current WoW (7.x) does drop below 60fps when maxed at 1440p on a GTX 1060, it's no longer the lightweight game it used to be. So, if running WoW at the same time as triple A games is intended, then I would suggest something beefier than a 1060 or perhaps even a 1070

 

How would you even use an ESXi guest as the main OS of an ESXi host? As far as I know, when you install ESXi on a computer is http://jacob.ludriks.com/2014/11/27/Lost-Management-Interface-on-an-ESXi-Host/esxi-no-mgmt.png and then you can only see the VMs remotely?

 

idk, just heard thats one of the ways of using gpus in VMs.

 

I'll figure it out

 

Good luck, but for gaming, I don't trust using a single machine to manage two sessions. You're better off going with two cheaper machines than a single more powerful one in my opinion.

 

You'd be surprised how good virtualization can be these days especially if you are using a Hypervisor. There is hardly any overhead to be perfectly honest. I would have bought Unraid and ran that on both of my desktops in a heartbeat but their customer support has refused to answer whether I can pass-through disks or create virtual hard disks and control RAID in the guest, or whether it has to be done in the host.

Virtualization really is the future, especially Hypervisors.

 

Just got my mATX X99 EVGA Micro 2 Motherboard last night. Still waiting on my 6800k CPU and 16GB of RAM to get here.

I'm pretty excited, though I was not too thrilled that FedEx left my motherboard on my open porch, and was sitting there for a good 4 hours before I got home. Heh.

 

Depends on the games I guess. Most of the games I play hog 50-80% of my hexacore i7-5820K @ 4GHz CPU performance. I just don't see how running on one machine is that much more cost effective than two even if you downgrade the CPU and GPU a bit for individual machines. You still need two video cards, two copies of Windows, a very powerful CPU, enough RAM for each, enough storage for each, still need your own monitors and keyboard and mouse, and not to mention a beefy power supply and configuration issues. The only thing you save on is the cost of an extra motherboard, CPU, and case.

For $2500 I could spec out two identical machines that would perform just as well if not better than a single pushing two games at once.

 

That is shocking to me, you must play on really high settings or something? I don't have anywhere near that kind of usage in most of my games.

 

That's pretty high resource consumption for gaming! My 4790k barely hits 40% on most games. We will both be playing at 1080p, and the games we play don't typically use a lot of resources. WoW, Skyrim Special Edition, Mark of the Ninja, Minecraft, and a lot of indie games. The only exception would be sometimes I like to play Shadow of Mordor or The Witcher 3. But honestly I don't feel a need to always play at Ultra settings anyways

 

there was a 1080 on sale for BF for around $560. forgot the exact price, but i remember saying "damn" when i saw it.

 

Tbh around 500-600 should be the price for 1080s.. NVIDIA has artificially inflated the prices this time due to no AMD competition... Hope AMD is able to get Vega out of the door soon, that should hopefully nuke 1080 prices and make the 1080ti price more reasonable!

Sent from my LG-H850 using Tapatalk

 

i7-5820K (Hexacore), GTX 980 Ti, 3440x1440, 90FPS G-Sync... Usually Ultra settings. Most games at higher resolutions and FPS require fast and multiple CPU cores. I guess for WoW, Skyrim, Minecraft, etc, it would be fine to drive a couple CPU's. But I just don't like the idea of each GPU to have to wait for the CPU, increasing latency and possible occasional stutter. But just my two cents. I'm very OCD when it comes to PC's. I know they should be able to multitask, but never felt comfortable with them doing multiple high end processes simultaneously.

 

Actually, you'd be surprised at how good virtualization is these days. CPU scheduling inducing latency would NOT be an issue and I wouldn't expect stuttering to be an issue either, but it's possible that there just wouldn't be enough CPU power overall which would just result in lower FPS.

Either way, it's still an interesting project regardless.

 

So a quick update. I received a very unexpected sum of money over the holidays - so I'm forgoing the "2 gamers 1 CPU" idea and just going with two full systems.
The lady is getting my old rig - GTX 980 , Intel i7 4790k @4.0Ghz, 8GB DDR3 RAM @ 1600Mhz.
And I'll be on the new rig - GTX 1080, Intel i7 6800k @ 3.8Ghz OC, 16GB DDR4 RAM @ 2133Mhz

Side note: I have created a monster. My fiance won't stop buying WoW pets and mounts!

 

Ha! Nice "old rig"

I'm still waiting out for GTX 1080 Ti.