[Averon]

Hi all,
I'm thinking about building a computer.
I'd like it to be a high end system capable of running 2 or 3 operating systems at the same time.
What hardware(case, motherboard, hard drives, processor, etc) should I be looking to get?
I think I'd like to run Ubuntu and and Windows XP, but I'm not sure if I want to run XP through Ubuntu or Ubuntu through XP.
Which would give me the best performance?
Also which VM software would be recommended?
I only have experience with virtual box, so I'm not sure how it compares to others.

[IndyGunFreak]

I'm personally not a fan of running Virtual OS's.. I find them all slow.... I'd use whichever one you plan to use the most as the Host OS, and the other as the guest. Load up on RAM, use 64bit versions of the OS's to take advantage of it.

IGF

[3 weelin geezer]

I personally am not a fan of x-box sized cases. Mine is a minitower (tower preferred but they don't seem to make them) that is sideways on the table with an extra exhaust fan on the side(top) to suck the heat from the video card out. How big is your desk?
Go with Vista if you want more than 2 gigs as xp doesn't handle any more. How much crap do you accumulate on your drive? You may not need one of the infinate byte drives. RAM is always good. What kind of applications do you want to run through the processor? Unless you fun something like GTA 4, a modest (cheap) one will do or you end up with a lot of lagg and slow gameplay. Most importantly is the video card IMHO as it seems to be the bottleneck in the system. A GT 8400 won't run this game very fast though it looks cool when you try to change direction real fast. The background blurs a lot and it looks cool. The 9800 GT works perfect but its very hot which made the system lock up until I put the 120 mm. fan in.

At work, we use the core 2 duo but I don't think it is used anywhere near its potential as all we do is handle text applications and the video card is a measly ATI PCI card (very low end).

Why do you need seperate op systems? What does that do? For business?

[jolt8me]

The 64bit version of windows xp supports up to 128gb's of ram.

Originally Posted by 3 weelin geezer

I personally am not a fan of x-box sized cases. Mine is a minitower (tower preferred but they don't seem to make them) that is sideways on the table with an extra exhaust fan on the side(top) to suck the heat from the video card out. How big is your desk?
Go with Vista if you want more than 2 gigs as xp doesn't handle any more. How much crap do you accumulate on your drive? You may not need one of the infinate byte drives. RAM is always good. What kind of applications do you want to run through the processor? Unless you fun something like GTA 4, a modest (cheap) one will do or you end up with a lot of lagg and slow gameplay. Most importantly is the video card IMHO as it seems to be the bottleneck in the system. A GT 8400 won't run this game very fast though it looks cool when you try to change direction real fast. The background blurs a lot and it looks cool. The 9800 GT works perfect but its very hot which made the system lock up until I put the 120 mm. fan in.

At work, we use the core 2 duo but I don't think it is used anywhere near its potential as all we do is handle text applications and the video card is a measly ATI PCI card (very low end).

Why do you need seperate op systems? What does that do? For business?

[HerrGlock]

Originally Posted by IndyGunFreak

I'm personally not a fan of running Virtual OS's.. I find them all slow.... I'd use whichever one you plan to use the most as the Host OS, and the other as the guest. Load up on RAM, use 64bit versions of the OS's to take advantage of it.

IGF

So, you've never dealt with an S390, is what you're saying

[AmriiBacchus]

I'd say ASUS P5Q-PRO Q9550 basic video card say a 9600 8 gigs of ocz fatality ram 1.5 seagate 7200.11 TT pure power PSU 500 watt should be fine and any case should be fine as well as any dvd drive put 64 bit Vista install VMware and run ubuntu allocating 1 gig of ram. that should be more then enough for around 1000 or less

[bill-hhh]

I beleive XP can handle 4gb ( http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...its_windows_xp)

And If you have the room, a server case is the way to go (lots of room and beefier power supply)

[Oribis]

Originally Posted by AmriiBacchus

I'd say ASUS P5Q-PRO Q9550 basic video card say a 9600 8 gigs of ocz fatality ram 1.5 seagate 7200.11 TT pure power PSU 500 watt should be fine and any case should be fine as well as any dvd drive put 64 bit Vista install VMware and run ubuntu allocating 1 gig of ram. that should be more then enough for around 1000 or less

It really depends on how much money you want/have to spend in order to make some solid recommendations. If money is not an object, I would say go with one of the LGA 1366 mobo/processors.

As for the above suggestion, only thing I would disagree with is the TT PSU. I hate Thermaltake power supplies. Much rather choose a Seasonic, pretty much everyone of their power supplies is rated >80% and a few of the nicer ones are modular which is a huge plus.

[AmriiBacchus]

Im just a little bias with the tt from ownership though newegg has a 700w with 4 rails that I might upgrade to.. +1 on the budget give us a dollar amount and we can have your head spining on a bad ass computer

[bamarammin87]

Go with my specs...
Phenom II 940 3.0x4(running at 3.5 )
Biostar TForce ta790gx 128m motherboard
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 750gb HD 32mb cache
G-Skill Pi pc8500 1066 ram 2x2gb
Sapphire Toxic OC'd 4870 1gb video card
Corsair tx650w psu
Thermaltake M9 case
Windows Vista Ultimate 64
Artic Cooling Freezer64 pro cpu cooler
and arriving at the house today, Asus 25.5 1900x1200 lcd monitor
Under 1000 total, that's including the monitor. It helped that I get vista free tho.

[Big Dog Dad]

Take a look at this website. He has a lot of good info and I don't think he has any affiliation with any of his recommendations (strange concept anymore.)

http://www.mysuperpc.com/

-=BDD=-

[DoubleWide]

Budget and what do you want to do on it?

You can drop a bunch on a video card, but if you're not playing games or designing it could be wasted money.

For the most part, you want to usually get the most bang for the buck. You buy the newest thing and it'll be half price inside 6 months. If it's what you want to spend money on go ahead though.

Plus do you want or need 3 or 4 OS's at the same time? For me, I'm almost never doing to useful things on different OS's. I've got a KVM (don't use the v) to hop between 2 computers and two monitors right now. I also know I won't crash one and screw up what the other one is doing.

[betyourlife]

Agreed on the KVM, but I think the idea of using virtual servers is really picking up a lot of speed in the IT world. We are heavily investing in them at work. The Server folks are really pushing them and I can see why.

Learning how to use a virtual server is a good thing to have on ones resume. At our company only one guy knows how...

[Jack_Stroker]

Originally Posted by Averon

Hi all,
I'm thinking about building a computer.
I'd like it to be a high end system capable of running 2 or 3 operating systems at the same time.
What hardware(case, motherboard, hard drives, processor, etc) should I be looking to get?
I think I'd like to run Ubuntu and and Windows XP, but I'm not sure if I want to run XP through Ubuntu or Ubuntu through XP.
Which would give me the best performance?
Also which VM software would be recommended?
I only have experience with virtual box, so I'm not sure how it compares to others.

What do you want to do with the system? What is your budget? Why are you not considering Vista x64 bit for the OS?