It's been about 5 years since I decided to quit building systems for people, and subsequently I lost all touch with what's out there. Trying to catch up is honestly a bit overwhelming. I feel kinda bad adding to the fracas on people looking for advice on system builds, but I swear I've been climbing through all the reviews and recommendations and feel as a non-gamber I'm a little left out.
So here's the skinny. I'm not a gamer, I'm a software architect. I'm interested in virtualization so that I can run multiple VMs while testing applications. While I share the need for processing power with the gamers, I prefer storage speed over graphics speed even though I do run multiple monitors.
I've decided to go with the Core i7-3770 based on the reviews I'm seeing. Asus has never let me down in the past, but I'm hearing a lot about ASRock now too. I can go as high as $300 on the mobo, but some of the higher recommended boards seem closer to $200.
eSata would be nice, RAID is a must, wifi & bluetooth are nice but not required.
What are the recommendations?
So here's the skinny. I'm not a gamer, I'm a software architect. I'm interested in virtualization so that I can run multiple VMs while testing applications. While I share the need for processing power with the gamers, I prefer storage speed over graphics speed even though I do run multiple monitors.
I've decided to go with the Core i7-3770 based on the reviews I'm seeing. Asus has never let me down in the past, but I'm hearing a lot about ASRock now too. I can go as high as $300 on the mobo, but some of the higher recommended boards seem closer to $200.
eSata would be nice, RAID is a must, wifi & bluetooth are nice but not required.
What are the recommendations?