AMD FX-8120 powered ESXi 5.x server

So as mentioned in a previous post, I had managed to save a bit of bonus money and decided to build a bigger, better, faster VMware system.  This system would then serve as my home “lab” for work.  Why not just use HP’s equipment?  There are a number of reasons:

• The equipment is in Highfield, England.
• I am in Fort Worth, TX.  — the internet has gotten fast but not as fast as a 1gig ether connection
• Disk-space on the HP equipment is at a premium.   I’m running out of goats to use as offerings to the gods.
• Then there is that pesky network security stuff to have to deal with.  I got more hoops to have to jump through than a Ringling Bros’ circus lion.  It can literally take days to copy 4-8gb of data up to the site.

So I said no thanks.  Especially so since ESXi 5.0 has come out.  That version now supports the Realtek 8120 ethernet chipset as well as a number of other “consumer” or “pro-sumer” level pieces of hardware.

So here is what I ended up with, thanks to some timely sales at Newegg.com:

• AMD FX-8120 Zambezi 3.1GHz Socket AM3+ 125W Eight-Core Desktop Processor.  More Power, uh, uh!
• G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9Q-32GBXL. I NEVER would have thought I would have 32gb in a home system.  If I remember correctly, the DEC-10 I started on had an incredibly small amount of memory.  The first VAX 11-780 I worked with had a whopping 4MB (Yes, mega-bytes!)
• HIS H675F1GD Radeon HD 6750 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card.  (Discontinued–ashame ’cause it is a pretty nice card for the money.)  Really bought this for the GPU to speed up video rendering and not for games.
• Rosewill BLACKHAWK Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case, come with Five Fans, window side panel, top HDD dock (The blue LEDs is what has prompted me to call it Big-Blue.  Cute, eh?)
• GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard.  I REALLY like this motherboard.  It has some heft to it.  The BIOS allows pass-thru for the VMware.  And it allowed me to easily boot from a usb-drive (unlike the ASUS mobo in Little-Blue.)
• Intel EXPI9301CTBLK Network Adapter 10/ 100/ 1000Mbps PCI-Express 1 x RJ45.  Just in case the Realtek support doesn’t come through with ESXi 5
• A couple of 1tb disks from the local CompUSA (I guess they are called TigerDirect now)
• A couple of 500gb disks I had around the house.

Here is what it looks like