There is seldom anything that prevents a modern multicore processor from running ESX(i). The motherboard that supports hardware virtualization and supported embedded components like network and disk controllers and you should be good. Check the Hardware Compatibility List for your components. http://vmware.com/go/hcl. Without a supported NIC or disk controller ESXi will not install. Pay particular attention to NICs. If it is something other than Intel or Broadcom check carefully. If you are wanting to test FT or HA you will need multiple ESXi host machines. You can also consider running ESXi as guest virtual machine in VMware workstation. With enough RAM you can run two or three ESXi guest machines with virtual machines running inside those. Downside is you can't run 64bit guests inside a virtualizsed ESXi machine.