Quiet Home Lab for virtualization

MKayZ

Honorable
Apr 13, 2013
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10,510
Hey Experts,

I am looking to build a quiet home lab PC, I have nailed some of the parts but need help on others.

The system must support 32GB RAM, be quiet as possible with no water cooling, if the parts are compatible with hacintosh it would be a bonus.

Case: BitFenix Ghost
CPU: i7 3770 (i need vt-d so i cannot get the K series so no overclocking?
RAM: 4x8GB of either G.Skill or Consair, i aint sure which to get here
MB: looking at a GA-H77m-D3SH, since i cannot overclock, but am open to other models, brands etc.
SSD: OCZ Vortex 4 128 or 240
HDD: 1TB WD Red
Heatsink: Noctua NH-D14, or a better alternative, RAM must fit, so no idea how to check that
Case Fans: 2X Noiseblocker BlackSilent Fan XL2 Fan - 120mm, not sure if these are good, or if i should go with 140mm or with or without PVM, not sure what PVM is?
Power: no idea
LAN: Intel Gigabit (only required if the onboard is not intel)
Fan Control: looking at the BitFenix Recon, but open to others

Any suggestions would be must appreciated, especially the details on a motherboard, H77 or Z77? RAM speed, and suitable power.



 
PWM allows for better fan speed control, it is the preferred way of doing it. I would include several other HDD's as each VM will be accessing its own VHDD hosted on the red drive, splitting these or pulling those vhdds off an array would give significantly better perfromance especially as you appear to be planning on running 4+ simultaneously given your ram setup.