Upgrading hyper-v/esx server hardware, to what?

[VulcaN]

My current mobo is a core 2 quad q9550 with 8GB of ram. I have 4 VM's running now and it runs OK. When I add a 5th it really brings it to its knees. I run a lot of memory intensive servers like exchange.

So basically I want to upgrade to something that will last me a while and let me run 5-8 VM's without a problem.

Right now I'm looking at server grade motherboards from supermicro. I want more than 4 ram slots (ideally 8) and I'm wondering should I be going the route of dual xeon or since this is for personal use will I be able to just run a core i7 system and get away with that?

I can spend the money on two of the ~$300 xeon (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117185) processors if I need to but I dont want to waste money at the same time you know what I mean? Will I lose much stepping down from 12MB to 8MB cache or is there something about xeon processors that makes them faster for server related tasks even with the slower speed / less cache? If im just paying for "reliability" and the processor is actually slower than maybe I will just get an i7 and call it a day since if it goes tits up I couldnt care less!

 

[Dangman]

Will I lose much stepping down from 12MB to 8MB cache or is there something about xeon processors that makes them faster for server related tasks even with the slower speed / less cache? If im just paying for "reliability" and the processor is actually slower than maybe I will just get an i7 and call it a day since if it goes tits up I couldnt care less!

You're just paying for better reliability, the capability to use dual CPUs and a ton of RAM. By itself, a Xeon CPU is not inherently faster than their consumer cousins.