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Need advice in setting up VMWare ESX/Hyper-V lab

I'm really interested in setting up a home lab to allow me to study for my MS certs. I don't intend on paying more than $500 for a home server but in doing vigorous research on different processors that support virtualization I'm losing hope for something in that price range. Server processors (particularly Xeons) that are a few years old support VTx but not EPT. I need something that supports both VTx/EPT so I can run 64-bit VMs, the minimum required to set up MS labs. The reason for both is that Server 2008 R2 won't run inside a VM without them. I'm kinda stuck because I didn't want to put a significant investment into buying a powerful server for lab use. Even for desktops I can't find anything with 64-bit virtualization capability for under $700.

How should I proceed?

You can try using VM Workstation. I run it on my laptop with ease, currently running 2 Windows 2008 R2 x64 servers and a Linux machine. It should be more than enough to study for your MS certs. This would be the cheapest method, I believe licensing for it is around $150.

I spent $372 bucks for a MB/CPU/Memory (Gygabite/FX-8150/16GB) combo and installed it in my ATX case I already had. It is running VMWare like a champ.

I need help setting up a home VM lab. I have 2 dell towers which meet the requirements that I can install ESXI5 on. Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.
Both of the boxes are bare metal no OS or anything.

I have a windows machine do I install the Esxi on my windows machine or how does this work?