VM Host Hardware (was Re: RIP: cyberbird.yi.org - no nightly windows builds for a while)

[warlord at MIT.EDU]

Quoting Andrew Sackville-West <andrew at swclan.homelinux.org>:

> On Sat, Aug 23, 2008 at 12:26:43PM -0400, Derek Atkins wrote:
>> "Nathan Buchanan" <nbinont at gmail.com> writes:
>>
>> >     Perhaps it's time to contemplate a new gnucash server that can run
>> >     VMs for things like builds and testing?  I could certainly imagine
>> >     running a few win32 VMs so we could test packages on XP and Vista,
>> >     perhaps even in different configurations?
>> >
>> > That would definately be nice, and I agree VMs would be the way to 
>> go. Having
>> > a single machine dedicated to a single version of an OS is a bit 
>> restrictive.
>>
>> Hmm..  An 8-core machine, 2 x QuadCore (Intel Xeon E5472), 16GB,
>> 4x750GB SATA, with a Supermicro X7DWN+ - EATX - Intel 5400
>> ChipsetSupermicro X7DWN+ - EATX - Intel 5400 Chipset Mobo is about
>> $5k.   That could certainly run a bunch of VMs.   I just don't
>> know if I could run ESXi or if I'd need to run Fedora + vmware-server.
>
> And it should heat the place nicely too....

Heheh..  THat's why it would live in the basement.  ;)

So another question:  Intel or AMD?  What's the difference between:
  1) Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® E5472 3.00GHz 1600FSB 12MB Cache (80W)
2a) Quad-Core AMD Opteron? Model 2356 - 2.3GHz 2MB Cache (75W)
2b) Quad-Core AMD Opteron? Model 2360 SE - 2.5GHz 2MB Cache (105W)

I have no idea the difference between the AMD series ("", SE, and HE)
or how they would compare to the Intel CPU in terms of computrons or
memory throughput.

On the other hand the Intel Mobo has 16 DIMM slots, the AMD Mobo only
has 8, so that implies I could upgrade the Intel box with more memory
than the AMD box down the road.

Anyone have any opinions/suggestions?

-derek