Recommend me an AM3+ motherboard for ESXi

Zaphrod · 12 Nov 2013 at 19:54

Hey all, I want to replace my current ESXi hardware so I can use my current stuff in an HTPC (which is what I originally bought it for).

I am thinking AM3+ with an FX-6300 cpu but I am unsure which motherboard to get as I want to make sure it is ESXi compatible and the whitebox hardware lists I have found are not really up to date. I would like at least 6 Sata ports (I don't need raid but it would be nice) and 2 ethernet ports (though that can be taken care of with lan card if necessary).

The cheaper the better really.

I am also open to any and all advice.

Thanks

Zaphrod · 12 Nov 2013 at 20:25

I am thinking the Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P might do the job, I have found people using the GA-970A-DS3 successfully, I just wonder what the difference is between the GA-970A-DS3 and the GA-970A-DS3P.

Frozennova · 12 Nov 2013 at 22:43

Either the giga board mentioned or the Arock extreme 4 I believe work.

You want a board with IOMMU support.

Shad · 13 Nov 2013 at 07:56

I use the GA-990XA-UD3 in both of my lab hosts here, using FX6300s and 32GB memory in each. Good ESXi support for things like IOMMU but you miss out on things like IPMI, hardware monitoring (fans, temps, etc) and most annoyingly, onboard video (so budget for a Matrox Millennium PCI card or similar). The number of PCIe slots was an important factor in choosing this board as well as it being a known quantity for ESXi. Use the onboard Realtek NIC for management and stick a couple of PCIe x1 Intel NICs in for VM traffic. There's still room for a RAID controller, FC HBA and 10GbE NIC

I have had a couple of crashes over the last year or so, possibly memory related, possibly power management related. That's been my only negative with these boards.

Zaphrod · 13 Nov 2013 at 11:30

I don't really need any of those feature as long as the board is supported in general and doesn't require injecting drivers etc.

As far as graphics cards are concerned, can I not just install a cheap nvidia or AMD card? I don't really need graphics at all except to set it up initially.

nickcardwell · 13 Nov 2013 at 13:32

Can confirm Asrock Socket AM3+ 970 Extreme4 board works ok with ESXI

Have also an IBM SAS controller card with hardware passthru to a VM, it works.

Yes you can use a simple /cheap graphics card to setup initially and thats it!

Shad · 13 Nov 2013 at 17:30

Yeah any basic video card will do. Resaon I suggested the Matrox is because it's PCI, therefore doesn't take up one of the more useful PCIe slots