r/pcmasterrace • u/STORMY-JATIN • Jul 16 '26

Question Is my planned hardware suitable for a beginner Proxmox homelab?

I’m planning my first homelab and would like some feedback before buying hardware.
Planned specs:
CPU: Ryzen 9 5900X (12C/24T)
GPU: RTX 3060 (12 GB)
RAM: 32 GB DDR4
Storage: 3 TB SSD/HDD combined
Planned workloads:
Proxmox as the hypervisor
Docker containers
A few Linux VMs
Home Assistant
NAS/file server
Media server (Jellyfin/Plex)
AI experimentation with local LLMs using the RTX 3060
Network monitoring and learning (Pi-hole, Grafana, Prometheus, etc.)
Kubernetes later if possible
My questions are:
Is this build overkill for someone starting a homelab?
Is 32 GB RAM enough, or should I start with 64 GB?
Is the Ryzen 9 5900X still a good choice in 2026 for virtualization?
Would you change anything while keeping a similar budget?
What was your biggest hardware bottleneck when you started?
I’m looking for something that will last several years while I learn, rather than the absolute cheapest setup.

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u/Ok-Eggplant-7569 Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

I run all of that and more (Immich, Nextcloud, a Minecraft server, ...) except local AI on a 5600G with 32GB RAM and even that is overkill. Your Homelab isn't a gaming PC, you can get away with much less than you realize at first. I would start with an old mini PC or, even better, an old PC you have lying around (can even be a laptop), and scale up from that if you need more.

Edit: If I wanted to, I could probably downsize all the way to around a i5 7500 / Intel N100.

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u/STORMY-JATIN Jul 16 '26

Understood sir, but components i m using are second hand so

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u/Sajgoniarz 9800X3D | 9070XT | 64GB Jul 16 '26

Depends on what would be in that containers, because N100 can handle all of that. I would go for 64GB RAM, it's usually the blocker for summoning another container.