ESXi5 and AMD Phenom II 1090T

[tommytraddles]

I want to build a home system to practise ESXi5. I might also use it to run Windows servers as VMs. I want to use  the AMD Phenom II 1090T cpu (or a similar AMD processor) as I want high performance on a budget (I know I7 would be better, and is supported, but that is out of the question for financial reasons). This is not on the HCL, but I have read that people have built servers working fine on this, but that you need to be careful about which motherboard and NICs you use. Could anyone shed any light on what would be a good matching mobo, with decent performance, and not excessively expensive? I do not want or need RAID since this will be a home system. I would love to hear from anyone who has already blazed this trail.

[Dave_Mishchenko]

I would check vm-help.com and ultimatewhitebox.com for ideas.   The whitelist on vm-help. hasn't been updated for ESXi 5 yet, but you'll get an idea for 4.x MBs and also check out the forum for user contributed systems.

Most desktop MBs have a realtek or marvel NIC.   ESXi has limited support for those.   If the NIC is an issue just add an Intel Pro 1000 GT.

[tommytraddles]

Thanks for this. I am aware that most onboard NICs on AMD compatible motherboards don't work, which is why I asked what NIC / mobo people used with this CPU.

I have seen that site too, but as you say there is not much on ESXi5 (or the AMD Phenom II for that matter). It would be good to know a combination of motherboard, CPU, and NIC that works.