How to build / configure a powerful PC with a focus on virtualization?

Question

linux

Target

В конечном счете хочется получить машину на linux (не строго обязательно), которая будет представлять из себя минимальную прослойку между железом и виртуальными машинами. Причем хочется сократить оверхед этой самой прослойки, так чтобы производительность гостевой системы была недалека от хостовой. Одна из гостевых систем планируется быть Windows'ом и использоваться для игр. Для достижения необходимой для этого производительности планируется "пробрасывать" видеокарту в гостевую систему. Когда занимался в последний раз этим, отановился на связке QEMU + KVM + GPU passthrough (потому, что мануалы по этому способу обещали 95% мощности хоста)

Actually questions

которые лежат в двух полоскостях:
Софт:
- какой использовать для этого гипервизор?
- как лучше всего виртуализировать windows на linux хосте?
- как лучше всего виртуализировать linux на linux хосте?
Железо:
В связи с тем, что такие штуки как проброс видеокарты могут требовать специфичного железа, есть мысли обновить свой пк. Проблема в том, что для меня хорошая сборка компа не является задачей с очевидным решением. Ну т.е. базовое представление о компонентах у меня есть, но вот как выбрать между каким нибудь intel core i5 2016 года / i7 подороже / или вообще amd лучше. Как выбирать из всего этого многообразия на рынке и на что смотреть?

Solutions:
I see 2 main ways to achieve my goals:
1) learn the basics of all this myself and try to assemble / configure it all actively using a tambourine. The problem with this approach is that I'm not a specialist either in the selection of components, or in virtualization, or in Linux.
2) Outsource it to professionals. And this is actually the preferred way at the moment. If, I understand everything correctly, there is a whole professional niche of people who are engaged in the configuration of servers / assembling computers, their tuning, virtualization. There are many enthusiasts who do similar things on their own. But I'm not sure how to find them? Perhaps there is some service / company providing such services? So, for example, consultants in an electronics store can help assemble a computer, but I wouldn’t trust them too much - maybe in vain? Maybe it makes sense to go to freelance exchanges? Well, it would be very cool if someone could sort out the price.
Summarizing: I want to get a productive PC that will work well as a host for virtual machines (we are talking mainly about desktop OSes, so it is not planned to keep servers). I would like to understand how to do it most correctly and (where / how expensive) can it be obtained as a service?

Answer 1

Some time ago, I asked a similar question for similar tasks: I wanted separate systems for games, development, and testing. I studied the pros and cons of virtualization and forwarding hardware to a virtual machine and came up with the most optimal option: a powerful workstation with a gaming video card, a host OS - Windows, a set of virtual machines (about 20-30 pieces) in VirtualBox for development and testing, incl. various distributions of Linux, BSD, OSX, different versions of Windows. As an addition, I use a small and simple computer on an atom to run / test on real hardware. Throwing iron into virtual machines is fraught with a number of difficulties and generally does not guarantee the absence of problems with games and other things. Well, i.e. it's easier to play on a host than to solve problems that you create for yourself by trying to play in a virtual machine.
For hardware - choose a top-end processor (if you need OCX, then Intel is better, if it doesn’t matter, then AMD is also possible) from six to eight cores. Memory from 32 gigabytes is enough, for example, for several running virtual machines for heavy development (studio, browser assembly, etc. - where you need 4-8 GB) and a dozen or two for small tasks. For the next few years, 64 GB and a processor with 8-16 cores in general will be enough for such tasks without the need to upgrade every few months. Choose a video card according to the monitor resolution and / or their number: 1080p and 4k - for the first option, 1060 is enough to play, but for 4k it’s better to take something like 1080 / Vega64. A drive - it’s better, of course, to take something like a PCI-E Samsung 950 Pro - Intel’s optan will not soon fall in price and overtake flash, and it’s not a fact at all, that Samsung will not pull up its products by this time (although I strongly doubt that Intel will be too far ahead - after all, technically optan seems to be faster than any flash, but in fact it is only ahead in terms of IOPS and delays). Volume: depends on the number of virtual machines and their type - 0.5-1 TB is enough for most, but you can also take 2 TB. It doesn’t make much sense to put Linux in a dual boot for development - and it’s just inconvenient to reboot every time. And on a powerful machine, you don’t notice the difference in the work of a text editor on a host and in a virtual machine at all. In general, the specific config depends on the budget. depends on the number of virtual machines and their type - 0.5-1 TB is enough for most, but you can also take 2 TB. It doesn’t make much sense to put Linux in a dual boot for development - and it’s just inconvenient to reboot every time. And on a powerful machine, you don’t notice the difference in the work of a text editor on a host and in a virtual machine at all. In general, the specific config depends on the budget. depends on the number of virtual machines and their type - 0.5-1 TB is enough for most, but you can also take 2 TB. It doesn’t make much sense to put Linux in a dual boot for development - and it’s just inconvenient to reboot every time. And on a powerful machine, you don’t notice the difference in the work of a text editor on a host and in a virtual machine at all. In general, the specific config depends on the budget.

Answer 2

One of the guest systems is planned to be Windows and used for games

Wang a lot of cybersex with a computer, hyper, firewood for vidyuhi, virtual windows ... which will most likely end with the epic phrase "I didn’t really want to" - because there are a lot of success stories about forwarding vidyuhi to virtual windows, but repeat I failed them. Maybe because NVidia.
So, if you plan to play - either dual block Windows + linux or Windows as a host and virtualbox as a second-level hyper. Because vidyuhi forwarding may require non-epic knowledge of linux.
UPD:
The option is good if you have knowledge of linux. Moreover, depending on the problem with the VM, knowledge may be required at different levels, and the documentation of any Linux problem, at least a little higher than average in complexity, turns into an exciting quest like:
"... For three days, Nastoich was looking for damage, guided by instructions in German, attached to the generator. It seemed that everything in the generator did not correspond to the scheme, and no measures helped. In the end, Nastoich accidentally found that the instruction refers to a completely different model ... "(C) R. Sheckley "Man Minimum"

Answer 3

Struck by the ignorance of the materiel and the lack of experience of the local advisers. Auto RU. KVM will brilliantly cope with all the tasks set, forwarding entire devices to the guest axis. Without any overhead and difficulties. Checked by dozens of running virtual machines, and not couch arguments.

Answer 4

I consider the idea of ​​"Windows for gaming in a virtual machine" initially unsuccessful. It's unreliable. On the other hand, SSDs are very fast these days. Therefore, I eventually installed Linux for virtual work and all that, and next to Windows purely with games. Reboot for a few seconds, I don’t actually notice it, because. before you go to play, or after you play and switch to movie-news-work - it's useful to go for some tea / to the toilet / just get up from your chair and stretch, and this is all much longer than rebooting the computer.
So my advice is: keep Windows and Linux installed, under Linux already based on the KVM hypervisor of the virtual machine for work (well, or VirtualBox + Vagrant for example, or something else - it depends on the tasks here).

Answer 5

I see that preference is given to Linux options, but still ...
Windows 10 + Hyper-V - not at all satisfied?