ESXI 5.1 Compatible Socket 1155 Motherboard

[catsystems]

Hello,

I'm building a new server for ESXI 5.1, have decided upon the Intel Core i7-3770 CPU which is Socket 1155. What I'm now looking for, but struggling to find, is a socket 1155 motherboard which supports ESXI 5.1 and has compatible NIC and Hard Drive Controller onboard. Just to save me money basically. I already have an ESXI 4.1 server on an older Socket 1366 board but I had to buy a Adaptec RAID Card and an Intel Pro Network card just to get everything installed.

I've looked at a few whitebox websites but I cant see anything about a compatibility list for ESXI 5.1 anywhere, apart from Pre-built servers, but I'm definitely going to build my own to keep the costs down.

Thanks for reading hopefully someone can help me out.

Mark

[dkraut]

When you start getting to that level of compatibility, you really need to see if anyone else has it working on one of the the whitebox sites and even then, it's a roll of the dice.  Could you imagine the time and energy vmware would need to devote to test every nuance of hardware out there?  That's why they focus on mainstream server configs.  You can get HP and Dell severs really cheap if you look around and haggle a bit. Check out sites like www.slickdeals.net (Hot Deals Forum is a good place to look) and www.fatwallet.com for Server deals and then make sure they're on the HCL.      

[catsystems]

Thanks for that information. I've gone with a compatible board but also ordered in a seperate NIC and RAID Card. Thanks

[ThybCD]

Hi,

I'm looking for building a Home ESXi 5.1 as well, what hardware did you finally chose and what is your final budget please ?

Thanks

[jmgurley]

GIGABYTE GA-Z68AP-D3 ran esxi 5.1 with an Intel PWLA8391GT Desktop Adapter PRO/1000 GT PCI (30$ newegg)

Specs of the build:  1 Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB, Intel G630 2.7 CPU, 14GB DDR3

(FYI: the onboard Realtek RTL8111E chip is unstable) .