New
#11
Hi there
IMO most people use Virtual Machines for running old legacy hardware or applications that the newer OS'es won't run -- or also for testing newer versions of software such as Office 2010 on Windows 7.
Most of the applications aren't really CPU intensive so ESXi will run quite nicely on 2 cores as well as 4 cores.
What YOU MUST HAVE is LOADS AND LOADS of SPARE RAM and FAST I/O DEVICES and a capable Network to accomodate the number of users who are likely to be logged on to the virtual server(s).
I doubt you would use a Virtual machine for testing a new version of a Game -- modern games don't lend themselves to virtualisation since a lot of them react DIRECTLY with the hardware often bypassing standard OS calls.
Virtual servers given sufficient RAM are quite OK to run web sites, database applications and typical Office type apps.
You don't need humoungous amounts of CPU power for these types of apps.
Cheers
jimbo