$600 ESXi Server

This is in response to Mike D's Blog post:
http://www.mikedipetrillo.com/mikedvirtualization/2008/10/building-a-500-vmware-esxi-host.html

In Mike's post he builds a computer for about $500. In as little as a few months the costs of many parts have decreased in price. I wanted Quad-core and 8 GB of RAM for my rig. This is what I came up with for a bit over $600.

CASE:
Rosewill TU-155 case with 400W power supply
$64.99

PROCESSOR:
AMD Phenom 9850 BLACK EDITION 2.5GHz Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Processor Model HD985ZXAGHBOX - Retail
$139.99

MOTHERBOARD:
MSI KA780G AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
$89.99

RAM:
8 GB - 4 x 2 GB G.SKILL DDR2 800 -
$91.98

HARD DRIVE:
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
$129.99

I/O Controller:
Promise Technology FastTrak TX2300
$69.99

NIC:
Old Intel PRO/100 I had lying around
$FREE

TOTAL COST:
586.93 + ~30 shipping = $616.93 from NEWEGG.COM

As you can tell from the list, I had to get a separate SATA controller since ESXi does not support the AMD SB700 chipset. In addition, I had to get a separate network interface card for the same reason. The motherboard comes with a Realtek NIC which is also not supported.

ESXi is VERY PICKY about hardware. I recommend you take a REALLY close look at the non-official whitebox HCL http://www.vm-help.com/esx/esx3.5/Whiteboxes_SATA_Controllers_for_ESX_3.5_3i.htm.

If you have the money, take a look at the official HCL http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi35_systems_guide.pdf.

So far I have 3 VMs (1 Linux, 1 SQL Server, 1 Domain Controller). The server response is wicked fast and I can't wait to put it through its paces.