Where to start? $1k budget for CPU/Memory/Ram for ESXI 8 vmware host

[Alfa147x]

Sweet - I'm not worried about licenses. I was able to source some through someone I've worked with and have the licenses/keys ready to roll

 

[nexox]

Skylake SP has just barely enough PCIe lanes to hit your requirements in a single socket, but you can build one cheaper and probably lower power consumption than an Epyc system. There's an X11SPM-TF on ebay for around $300 with two x16, one x8, one m.2, plus dual 10GBase-T ports. Just add a $20 Xeon Gold 6132 or $100 6150 and another $100 or so for 6x16GB ddr4. My dual 6132 desktop with a mid-range GPU, four various NVMe drives, and single 10GBase-T card idles around 100W, a single socket should do somewhat better.

Edit: there's also an X11SPI-TF currently available cheaper, the PCIe layout isn't really any better than the Micro ATX X11SPM, but it does at least have DCPMM support if you get a Cascade Lake CPU.

 

[Alfa147x]

Newegg is doing the Rosewill for $99 - https://www.neweggbusiness.com/product/product.aspx?item=9b-11-147-327

Thanks for putting the legwork in for me! This is super helpful and gives me a starting point to research. Unfortunately I can't find a case that can fit an eATX mobo. I'm working with a short-depth rack

 

[hmw]

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Thanks for putting the legwork in for me! This is super helpful and gives me a starting point to research. Unfortunately I can't find a case that can fit an eATX mobo. I'm working with a short-depth rack

Rosewill does do short depth 2U chassis - 15” deep

The other server chassis that can take an EATX and is less than 17” is the Norco 4U chassis but they’re mostly second hand on eBay, haven’t seen new ones

 

[Alfa147x]

Although this thread is a few months old, I'm still itching to do this upgrade. Does anyone have any new recommendations?

 

[hmw]

You can try with Skylake - Supermicro X11 mobo's are $200 ~ $300, CPUs are ~ $30 for Xeon 20 core and RAM is the same DDR4 RAM except you can use cheaper DDR4 2666. NVMe disks cost 2x ~ 3x more than they did 6-8 months ago. Coolers like the Supermicro SNK-P0070APS4 4U cooler are ~ $75. Supermicro 4U Tower chassis isn't cheap, you might want to get a cheap Antec EATX case for $100

When the time comes, you can upgrade from Skylake to Skylake Refresh, probably the prices for those will have fallen by then

UPDATE: oh wow the Xeons went to $45 - I purchased 10 of them for $35 not too long ago