What system to run several VMs on a budget?

[Trojan]

I've recently started contracting as a sys admin and whilst I'm fine and happy with Server 2k3 and below, I've not used Server 2k8 whatsoever yet. Given the fact that I'm contracting rather than working a perm job, I would like to address this before I come across 2k8 in a production environment. To this end, I want to build a system that will be used primarily for testing with VMWare virtuals. The inital setup will be an XP host running 3 VMs - a 2k8 DC, a 2k8 member server and a Windows 7 client. What then, realistically, is the minimum system that will happily run this?

I was thinking something along the lines of:

Phenom X3 8450
4gb Corsair Twin2X PC6400
Asus M2N68-AM (utilising the onboard Gfx)
Seagate 500Gb SATA II

I can build the above system locally for the equivilent of around £200. Would this suffice? Or does anyone have any suggestions as to a more suitable and/or better value system?

Thanks

 

[Trojan]

Thanks for the comments guys, so the consensus seems to be that a setup such as I've listed will be fine for running 3 VMs. That's good to know

That sounds quite good, although if your virtualisation software allows you to give each vm it's own core, you might be better off with a quad (one for each VM and the OS).

As far as I'm aware VMWare Workstation doesn't support that function so I'm not too bothered with going quad-core for the sake of it. ESXi may do, but I'm not installing that for just a couple test VMs. Do you know of another app that would allow core assignment?