Should I get this i7 build or this Q9550 build need help.

Hi I am looking at two builds. The pc is going to be a machine for hosting virtual pcs on.

The first is a Q9550 machine and the second is a i7 920 machine. Both are spec'd from Scans website.

Which one do you think I should go for? Or what parts do you think I should change?

Thanks

Q9550

PSU : 550w Corsair VX Series PSU, ATX, PS/2, 5 year Warranty £65.03

CPU : Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550, Yorkfield Core, S775, 2.83GHz, 1333MHz, 12MB L2 Cache, 8.5x, 95W, Retail £169.96

COOLER : Akasa AK-965 x3 Copper Heatpipe Cooler Intel Core2Quad/Duo with 92mm side blow fan, Intel push pin £13.79

CASE : Antec Three Hundred Black Midi Tower Case w/o PSU £45.97

RAM : 2 X 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair TwinX DDR2 XMS2, PC2-8500 (1066), 240Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-15, EPP £98.07

GPU : 512MB Gigabyte HD 4350, PCI-E 2.0(x16), 800MHz GDDR2, GPU 650MHz, 80 Cores, D-Sub/ DL DVI-I/ HDMI £33.32

MOTHERBOARD : Biostar TPower I45, iP45, S 775, PCI-E 2.0(x16), DDR2 1066/1200(OC)/667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX £101.76

CD/DVD : LG GH22NS40 22x DVD±R, 16xDVD±DL, DVD+RW x8/-RWx6 ,12xRAM SATA, Black, OEM £16.43

HDD : 1TB Hitachi 0A38016 Deskstar 7K1000.B, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 16MB Cache £57.37

Total £615.34

i7 920 Build
CASE : Silverstone PS-01B-W "Precision" Mid Tower Case Black with Window Side Panel w/o PSU

COOLER : 650W NorthQ Black Magic Flex Compact Modular PSU 80%+ Eff' 135mm Ultra Silent Fan OEM

CPU : Intel Core i7 920, D0 (SLBEJ), S1366 (B), Nehalem, 2.66GHz, 8MB Cache, 20x Multiplier, 130W, Retail

MOTHERBOARD : Asus P6T Deluxe V2, Intel X58, SLi/Xfire, Sok 1366, PCI-E 2.0, DDR3 1066/1333/1600(OC), SATAII, ATX

HDD : 1TB Samsung HD103UJ Spinpoint F1, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.9 ms, NCQ

RAM : 6GB (3x2GB) Corsair XMS3 DDR3, PC3-12800 (1600), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 7-7-7-20 1T

Scan Black Floppy Disk +Int Combo All in 1 Card Reader Fits 3.5" Bay USB2

£662.39

When I set up my Server 2008 w/Hyper-V system (see specs below), I found the biggest limitation setting up virtual systems was the amount of RAM I had available. Running Server 2008 and Three virtual machines (Server2k3 x 2 and XP) pretty much used up all 8GB of RAM I have installed.

It really depends on what operations your virtual machines will be performing, but I'm leaning towards the Q9550 build.

Also, your CoreI7 build is missing a power supply, graphics card, and optical drive which will increase the total cost of the build.

-Wolf sends

What's the purpose of the VMCs? Are you going to be running CPU intensive applications? Are the applications memory hogs? Are they just different testing platforms? What's the purpose?

This goes a long way in determining where you need to spend your money; better CPU or more RAM.

-Wolf sends

I happen to do the same thing and my system runs wmware and multiple machines just fine. even vista and win 7 guests. Either one will work great in your case. Get at least 8 gig so as to leave enough ram for your hosts and guests if you want to use vista on either, 8 gigs made a notable difference in running a guest because it could have 4 gigs for itself and run almost native speed.

That's what I was going for.

At this point, I'd say it doesn't really matter which build you get. Get whichever you have the budget for. My system is a dual-boot setup (Win2k8 / XP-64). The Win2k8 server is running two Win2k3 VMs (SQL and IIS) and an XP client VM. It's running without a hiccup. The processor I'm running is a step or two below the Q9550. 8 Gig of RAM lets me allocate 2GB to each VM (keeping 2GB available for the host), which is more than enough for what I'm doing (small development platform).

-Wolf sends

Thanks Wolf.

I,ll go for the deal thats make the cheapest sense.

I will be running W2K8 and Exchange x64 on the host and VMCs so will need about 8-12gb min.

Thanks