Help me upgrade PC to run virtual machines

[SYNSlyMan]

Hello all

I am currenty studying for MCSE and need to run a few VM's.
In order to run 4-6 virtual machines I was thinking of whacking in a couple of gigs of RAM as my 64 bit Vista really struggles to run more than a couple of Virtual OS's at once.

Mobo won't take more that 4GB RAM.

I don't really have the money to do a complete overhaul of hardware, but can't help but wonder if I might be better off upgrading CPU, Mobo and RAM all at once to get a real performance increase.

Can anyone recommend cheap RAM or basic mobo, RAM, CPU spec to run all this.

Max budget £200 ish for PC
£40 ish for just RAM

I have the following

AMD Opteron 165 Socket 939 1.8GHz Dual Core 2x1MB (running at stock but can run at 2712Mhz oc'd)
2 x 1GB Corsair XMS 3200 CL2
4 x Seagate ST3250823AS 250GB 7200RPM SATA/150 8MB Cache, RAID 5
SATA2 160GB HDD 10000RPM (Cant remember make)
Enermax Liberty 620W Modular ATX2.2 PSU
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe S939 NF4 SLI ATX
Big Typhoon CPU air cooler
1 x CD/RW
1 x DVD/RW

 

[pingwing]

Your going to really have to hit quad core territory there
Thats pretty much as fast as 939 got (sadly as i loved my opty back in the day)

good news (ish) is ddr2 ram is £40 for 4 gig (a good place to start) and the cheapist quad is a phenom for £117.

Proc:http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...uad Core 9150e 1.80GHz (Socket AM2+) - Retail
Ram:http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB)

So yeah an AM2+ board is all you need there (for £70) but im not the best person to ask.... (im on intel now for gaming)

 

[SYNSlyMan]

Thanks for your help