Motherboard SuperMicro X7DVL-E - Note 1
Processors 2 x Intel Xeon E5405, 85W (2.0GHz Quad-core)
Heatsink Fans  Dynatron H6EG (basically a big copper beast!)
Memory 4 x Kingston KVR667D2Q8F5/4G - 4G DDR2 ECC FB-DIMM - Note 2
RAID Dell PERC 5/i, same as an LSI Logic E8408
Hard Drives 3 x WD Caviar RE2 160G & 5 x WD Caviar RE2 320G
Power Supply Antec TPQ-850
Case CoolerMaster Cosmos 1000
SAS to SATA Cables 2 x Adaptec 2247500-R, SAS to 4xSATA Straight Thru Cable - Note 3
Additional Cooling Vantec Spectrum PCI Slot Fan - Note 4
Swiftech MC21 MOSFET Heatsinks on the PERC processor

 

Notes:

  1. In hindsight I think one of the SuperMicro X7DAx series motherboard would have been a better choice mostly
    due to having more RAM capabilities 32G vs. 16G.   Most of the SuperMicro boards probably work with ESX.
  2. Not listed for the SuperMicro boards at the Kingston site, but seem to work just fine and are pretty cheap!
  3. Lots of cable options out there, just make sure you get Straight Through cables & not X-over.   If your RAID
    card doesn't see any drives, you probably got X-over cable(s).
  4. I added the Vantec fan to blow directly on the RAID card since they are designed to be in systems with forced
    cooling, like a 1U or 2U rackmount server.   I also added heatsinks to the processor itself.

 

Other resources for whitebox VMware ESX systems:

www.vm-help.com
Ultimate ESX Whitebox