Yet another req for ESXi 5 hardware help

W

wildbill001

Weaksauce
Joined
Jun 2, 2012
Messages
85
Right now I have:
Athlon IIx4 635
Asus M4A785TD-M EVO
16gb Gskil F3-8500CL7Q-16GBRL RAM

Running ESXi 5.0-U1, booting from USB with several 1TB disks. I run about 8VMs (not all at one time) and up until the mobo stopped booting, it was a pretty solid, responsive system.

BUT, I want more power (Think Tim Allen, Tool Time). So I'm looking to build another system in a month or so but need help with decisions. That's where you come in.

I'm thinking AMD FX-8120 for CPU (I've always like AMD, felt I got good bang for the buck) I'm not married to AMD so if a comparable Intel is out there, I'll consider it.
I want 32GB RAM. But I have yet to see 8gb sticks on any mobo mfg's QVL.

My quandry is motherboard. Based on my readings on this forum either of these will do fine:

Asus M5A97 or M5A97 EVO
Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3

BUT what memory will work with those? Neither of these vendors QVL list 8gb sticks. I don't want to ruin anything in the first 5min with incompatible hardware.

What would be your choice? What, if anything, should I watch out for?

Oh, this system will be in my home lab, it will be running a mix of RH, Windows, Solaris, Hyper-V, and ESXi. Again, not all at the same time. Don't care about RAID (at this point anyway). Not really wanting to do any fancy VMware tinkering (although that might be something I want to do later).

TIA,

Bill W
 
I just built an Intel Socket 1155 system with E3-1230 v1 CPU and there are a few things I would have done differently, mostly due to the memory compatibility. Socket 1155 systems require unbuffered, ECC RAM, which is super expensive in the 8 GB DIMM variety right now. If you go 1366 or 2011, you can use registered ECC, which is much cheaper. Although, the motherboard will be more expensive.

There are trade-offs either way, but it depends on what you are looking for. If you don't run all the systems at the same time and don't care about fast I/O, go with the SuperMicro X9SCM-F and Intel e3-1230 v2. Great board and has IPMI and dual-LAN.

Unfortunately, I can't really comment on AMD or desktop boards, but you will get much more reliability and compatibility with server-class systems.
 
for what I'm doing, ECC would be overkill, registered or unregistered. BUT thanks for taking a look. I'll look into that combo and see what my options are with it.

THANKS!

Keep those suggestions rolling in, folks!

Bill W
 
currently run a amd 1045t on a gigabyte 990fxa-ud3

32gb (8gb crucial sport ballistix)

works very well. iommu work, nested vms are running well (actually nested vms inside nested vms actually run well) direct path works ok (haven't tested it in depth).

builts the system for about $420, and just reused an old areca and some old drives.
 
It is looking more and more like the giga 990FXA-UD3 is going to be the board to go with. But, as with most vendors, they don't list any 8gb sticks in their "Qualified Vendor" list. Would it be safe to say most any "known" brands will work?

Bill W
 
I am running an i7-2600 (non K), Intel DQ67SWB3 motherboard and 32GB G.Skill RAM. Works great.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004Q5H1O8/ref=pe_175190_21431760_C1_cs_sce_dp_1

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231558

I paid $275 for the CPU off ebay, $127 for the mobo off Amazon, and $189 for the RAM from Newegg. Already had a PSU, got a Fractal Core 1000 mATX case for $40. $630 all in for a powerful and dead silent vSphere 5 machine, not counting storage which is an NFS share off my Openindiana NAS.
 
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Got a handle on some 8gb sticks for this setup. Just realized I'm going to need some sort of video card for this rig. Cheap as all it would be used for is initial setup and troubleshooting. I have a small monitor that accepts DVI or HDMI. Any suggestions?

Bill W
 
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