Spec me a cheap, fast system for VMware

kirkster

kirkster

kirkster

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Been away from machine building for a while....

I need 16 G of memory. 32 would be better but I can live with 16. Fast CPU but does not need to be the fastest. i5 is OK.

Cheapest possible graphics card. It will never be used after VMware installed. Could I use my GT8800 graphics just to get VMware installed maybe?

I already have hard disks.

Needs a case and PSU. Cheapest possible that's reasonable.

Ideally I want the whole lot for £300 tops. Cheaper if poss but prepared to pay £300.

Appreciate advice and guidance please?

Steve
 

kirkster

kirkster

kirkster

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Meant to say it does not have to be Intel and on board graphics would be fine. This machine will never get near a game. So I just need memory and CPU speed as my priorities. I could actually also reuse an existing case and PSU. I do not need any OS/Optical etc.
 

kirkster

kirkster

kirkster

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Joined
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843
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London
Thanks guys for the input. Maybe £300 is being a bit optimistic. I could stretch it to £400 at a push.
I have a case and decent Seasonic PSU already and a shed load of 500G drives. I could create a RAID array if needs be? I don't want to spend money on a RAID controller though, I'd want to do it from the MB if I went that way. I also run ESXi on another machine and performance is OK from just the one disk 7200rpm. This is not running production services.

The machine is to act as a whitebox ESXi 5.1 server for learning various Microsoft server technologies and for running some Cisco Network management applications for learning. Mega performance is not that important though it needs to be usable. I want to spin up some Windows 2008 servers and some Win7 clients. That's why I thought I'd want a lot of memory. You think I am going OTT with 32G?
I was thinking an i5 with VT-d and VT-x and a matching motherboard. Built in graphics is fine, they'll never be used.
I already have an Intel PRO-1000 NIC that is supported on the Vmware HAL so that is sorted too.

Appreciate your input please, it's more CPU/Mem and ram that i want.
Steve
 
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