Dell launches its new VMware ESXi powered servers tomorrow, prefers AMD

Dell is expected to launch tomorrow its new servers supporting VMware ESXi.

The first two products will be the PowerEdge R805 and R905 which features some interesting (and surprising) hardware components:

  • AMD Opteron Quad-Core CPUs (up to 2)
  • 16 DIMM slots (up to 128GB RAM DDR2-5300)
  • PERC 6/i SAS Controller
  • Quad-Port 1Gb NIC with TCP/IP Offload Engine (TOE) and Intel I/O Acceleration Technology (IOAT)
  • 32MB SecureDigital with VMware ESXi pre-installed

Still no words on the price that Dell will ask for the VMware lightweight hypervisor. In March a VMware representative reported that the OEM may offer the product for free.

Anyway the new servers will provide support also for other hypervisors like the Citrix XenServer and the new Oracle VM.