BEST 2013 AMD CHIP+MOBO FOR VM's+LOW POWER

[vmguy]

Hey guys. I'm an experienced pc tech and this is my career but I am lost with getting this done the right way.

I'm on the road ALOT doing various jobs, and travel with my camper. That being said, I'm trying to figure out the BEST 2013 AMD set up custom build or oem, for running Virtual Machines. It might be hosted from VMware server (which is free), or i might use ESXi or Oracle VM server (based on Xen), also free.

My problem is that, to make a long story short, a lot of times wherever I stay I have to plug my camper (30 amp plug) in to a NORMAL outlet (115v and 15-20 amps). So I'm very limited with the kind of power draw I can use if I also want to run my A/C and router and laptop and LCD and cell chargers, and yeah, you get the idea. Also, it does get hot and I'd rather not run my A/c when I'm not home, but of course the VM desktop would have to be running! I've had a previous dell tower amd x2 3800 with 7600 gt card that would not even turn on in my camper....So yeah, you get the idea.

So the best chip+mobo combo for this would probably have to be a 65w chip. Given the situation, I probably cannot run a new fx-81xx chip, right? So the next best thing, maybe a 6 core fx? or 1090? 1055? phenom x2 65w? And any cooling tips are very welcome.

Any ideas guys?

 

[Bobnova]

Why AMD? Intel rules the low power draw / high performance lands. Brutally. With an iron fist.
You might want to do some testing as to how much of what quality power is available. If a x2 3800 / 7600gt won't even POST, you're stuck in SuperLowerPowerMindNumbinglySlow Llano/Atom land.

 

[caddi daddi]

I use a refurbed hp dc770 intel dual core for a low power draw internet server, cheap, low power, cool, quiet, buy them by the dozen from tiger direct or microcenter.

 

[vmguy]

HOW ABOUT MAYBE AN A10?

reason I said AMD is because of the performance and budget. I've been AMD for so many years, but my recent thinkpad x series has been rock-solid in 100 degree heat. I am in the South after all. It wasn't near enough power to even run solaris 11 in a vm, though. That was a 1.6 ghz core 2 duo l7500 35w laptop.

Can I maybe consider an a10 5700k set up?

I like the integrated gpu idea if I can get this all done in a SFF kind of way. But I'm not sure of VM performance and if the gpu can use passthrough to the virtual machine.

 

[Bobnova]

A10-5700k eats the same ~65w the x2 3800s typically eat. You really need to figure out the power issues IMO.

 

[storm-chaser]

Have you thought about a laptop? Minimal power drain...

 

[storm-chaser]

Hey guys. I'm an experienced pc tech and this is my career but I am lost with getting this done the right way.

I'm on the road ALOT doing various jobs, and travel with my camper. That being said, I'm trying to figure out the BEST 2013 AMD set up custom build or oem, for running Virtual Machines. It might be hosted from VMware server (which is free), or i might use ESXi or Oracle VM server (based on Xen), also free.

My problem is that, to make a long story short, a lot of times wherever I stay I have to plug my camper (30 amp plug) in to a NORMAL outlet (115v and 15-20 amps). So I'm very limited with the kind of power draw I can use if I also want to run my A/C and router and laptop and LCD and cell chargers, and yeah, you get the idea. Also, it does get hot and I'd rather not run my A/c when I'm not home, but of course the VM desktop would have to be running! I've had a previous dell tower amd x2 3800 with 7600 gt card that would not even turn on in my camper....So yeah, you get the idea.

So the best chip+mobo combo for this would probably have to be a 65w chip. Given the situation, I probably cannot run a new fx-81xx chip, right? So the next best thing, maybe a 6 core fx? or 1090? 1055? phenom x2 65w? And any cooling tips are very welcome.

Any ideas guys?

This thread reminded me of a time about 5 years ago... it's the night before I'm supposed to hike into the grand canyon, and my digital camera memory is full. We are staying at the campground close to the rim, but it has limited services and no power. I have a desktop in the trunk, since I was moving, and a power inverter, but it was tiny. My idea was to transfer the pics over to the desktop, but gosh it was easier said than done

And as soon as I plugged the monitor in, the computer would just shut down. I'd get it booted up again and start downloading the pictures, and every time the car's fan would kick in as it was idling, the computer would shut down again. So, I resorted to the bare minimum voltage draw: disconnected all the extra fans inside the PC and extra hard drives and peripherals. Use only the mouse, no keyboard. Then I went to the car and disconnected the radiator fan so I'd get all available power to the PC. I know with these cars, especially since I had the lower 182* thermostat, overheating wasn't going to be an issue. I then booted up for the last time and started the transfer, desperate at this point to make it work. And sure enough, about 20 minutes later the copy operation was complete just in time - because a few minutes later it shut down again. So as it would turn out, I did get to take some amazing pictures from that trip. And picked up a much better power inverter a little bit later

 

[Mjolnir]

Asus b75 m board. Paired with an i7 3770s. 65 watt i7 chip lol. About as low power for high performance you'll find.

Or i3 3220T model. 35w tdp. Less powerful. But cheaper and very low power draw.

Just to give some alternate choices...

 

[Woomack]

The only choice in this case is Intel and I would really think about i3 series as they are quite fast, running cool and will probably perform as good as 6 core FX@~3.8-4GHz.
http://ark.intel.com/products/family/65503/3rd-Generation-Intel-Core-i3-Processors/desktop
There are 35W i3 too ... or new Pentium G2000 series which is nearly the same as i3 but without HT and much cheaper.

 

[vmguy]

Figured out power problems, ready to order now...

My master backup drive has thus far been an external seagate 1.5 tb extreme, with not just usb2.0 but eSata and firewire 400.

Something that really surprised the hell out of me is how well firewire handles things with quality cables...upon researching the design, firewire is not bottlenecked by the cpu, transfer bus, or ram. firewire is passed through in a dedicated manner to bypass pretty much any of the rest of the computer. Given the low-level access, that is why MS didnt design a new driver for firewire to firewire tcpip connections ever since 2001....But so far I make sure all my laptops have firewire built in because of that reason. Lightning fast transfer speeds and it doesnt matter what the cpu is doing...

But it just so happens that particular drive pulls 8 amps by itself becuase it keeps ALL ports powered up fully all the time....but this will be mitigated with my new build with a bunch of 2 or 3 tb drives...or given the price these days maybe a few 1 tb 2.5" drives. sorry about the ramble. But the power issues are solved got a special adapter to plug in to TWO 115 outlets instead of 1, thereby giving me pretty much alot more steady stream of power. Powered up my old BEAST gateway server with twin p3's running at 1.4ghz each, and this sucker sounds like a friggin plane taking off with 8 15k hard drives. Powered up fine and tested perfect all day doing stress tests.

So yeah that was long, but power is solved. But I'd still like to keep 65w or 95w if there is that much difference in performance/price. One thing I've thought about is this: with alot more ram and vid card of course

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883155674

would the new 2013 parts really blow this out of the water?

 

[Maethor]

Well depending on what you are using the VM for I might suggest something along the lines of an actual low power system like a A6-A10 or Atom. It really depends on what you are doing with the box and the VM's. For example, most things you would do on a VM, actually do not use much CPU power.

If your running a VM what in the hell do you need a video card for on a VM because a VM wont touch the video card in most cases unless your doing something with CUDA and even then I do not think the free versions support that. I mean you can do 3d acceleration in VM's but honestly its a pain and in general it doesn't work well, and in most cases you should not be using a VM to do much that would need a video card.

Its a huge waste of power to have a high powered video card in a VM box unless your doing something very specialized.

The main thing is knowing what exactly is getting hammered on the VM is most important for what you need to look for. Ideally you do not want to buy something that has twice the CPU/GPU you need, when your bottleneck ends up being the ram or hard drive.