Hi community!
I’m in the process of building a new office PC for:

  • tenths of firefox tabs open some with Microsoft 365 Excel
  • some VMs because I will be installing Debian on the host, but in the office we use some Microsoft software and because, since I install, uninstall, create a lot of mess, I like to be able to go back to old snapshots or format and reinstall Windows without impacting my day to day job.

I’m still undecided about the CPU: AMD 9950x, 9700x or 7950x, but where I’ completely blind is the motherboard. What I would like:

  • more than 2 PCIe slots to:
    • install a PCI USB card to pass the whole controller to a VM
    • install an extra NIC
    • I want to be able to install a graphic card in future if needed
  • more than 4 USB-A ports
  • more than 1 USB-C port
  • a well known and reliable brand

Do you have any suggestion even for an SSD (probably 4TB, in the 2-300€ range, maybe even something more) and RAM (64GB)?

Thanks!

  • peregus@lemmy.worldOP
    1·
    2 months ago

    Well, actually my almost 10 years old i7-6700K struggles.
    The problem is probably that I keep a lot of programs open:

    • Outlook
    • about 100 Firefox tabs (with 10+ addons)
    • 10+ Chrome tabs
    • 5 Edge tabs (with Excel 365)
    • 3 or 4 Excel sheets
    • MS Teams
    • Foxit Reader
    • a coupe of VMs
    • QCAD/Photoshop/Premiere for basic editing (for these software I may need a discrete GPU)
    • darcmage@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      2·
      2 months ago

      https://www.techspot.com/bestof/amd-x670-motherboards

      Hard to go wrong with the Asrock Taichi that Wendell from Level1Techs is also a fan of. Looks like memory will be your limiting factor and with VMs being part of the equation, 128gb seems like a good idea.

      I am curious how well adobe software can use a dgpu in a vm. I understand things have gotten much better for gaming and maybe that’ll translate into other gpu intensive tasks.

      A good source of info: https://forum.level1techs.com

      • peregus@lemmy.worldOP
        1·
        2 months ago

        I’ve had a look at that motherboards and they seems to only have 2 PCIe slots (I’ve checked the X670E and B650) About the GPU for the VMs, it can be passed through directly to them. I haven0t tried it yet, but it seems that a lot of people do so.