Ballpark Hardware for specific scenario

[darkrisen2003]

This might be an odd one for most but I figured this might be the right place to ask. I work from home doing call center style tech support. My machine is really old "2006 Build" and I am spitballing prices etc for around income tax time to build a new machine. The thing that might be hard to ask is I want to build a machine that can both run work and my other stuff at the same time. For work I login to a vpn and then launch a virtual desktop. My plan would be to build a machine that has enough hardware to have a separate virtual desktop to run work from while running everything else from my machine so that I wouldn't have to logout etc all the time and I could keep them separate. I have been looking into it and I believe you can run a VD inside of a VD but im just not sure what the minimum specs would need to be.

My ballpark in my head is to build a 9600k with like 16 gigs of ram and use my existing gtx760 until I can afford to get something better when prices go back down. Is 16 gigs of ram enough? How well would a 6 core run a VD inside of a VD? I am an intel guy so I wouldn't want to do AMD. I do understand there is a ton of hype behind Ryzen etc but I have had bad experiences with AMD in the past. This is just for speculation as I will not have the funds for a few months either way.

Also What are the best VD applications out there for stability and ease of use? Thanks for any input!

 

[mxnerd]

The correct term is VM : Virtual Machine, not VD : Virtual Desktop.

9600K and 16GB absolutely can run VM smoothly, but of course you need to use SSD so disk read/write performance is good.

I prefer VMware Workstation over MS Hyper-V (which require Windows Pro/Enterprise).

 

[whm1974]

Well I with the 9700k instead with 32 gigs of RAM along with a fast SDD.

 

[darkrisen2003]

Are there any free VM programs that are any good?

 

[mxnerd]

Are there any free VM programs that are any good?

Both Hyper-V & VirtualBox are free. But like I said, Hyper-V requires Pro and above version of Windows. VirtualBox does not have such requirement.

As long as you have a fast CPU, fast SSD and enough memory (I also recommend 32GB if you can afford it), using any VM platform is OK.

Try the free one first. If you are not satisfied with Hyper-V or VirtualBox, you can always use VMware later.

Tons of tutorials for the above platforms on youtube.

 

[darkrisen2003]

I appreciate it! I am on a budget but im trying to get semi current hardware so im not so desperately behind like I am now. Currently im still running a core2duo e6600 with 8 gigs of ram "ddr2 I think" and a gtx 760. Needless to say I am getting to the point that I cannot game on very low settings at 1080p anymore and im tired of it lol. My goal will be to be able to work and play at 1080p at at least medium settings on the games I play which are MMO/RPG/Strategy games. I wish prices would go back to the way they used to be because ram and gpus are still crazy high right now compared to a couple years ago.

 

[darkrisen2003]

Something else that just popped in my head I need to look into as well. What is the best budget usb headset that has a good noise canceling microphone? I currently use an older corsair 1500v2 that is known for microphone issues and eventually ill have to replace it. The speakers it has are great but the microphone has volume issues all the time.

Also I was wondering what is the best docsis 3.1 cable modem out there now? I still have an older Motorola SB 6141 that eventually I would like to replace and ive been holding out for docis 3.1 modems to become mainstream but there are only a handful out there and they all have mixed reviews.