I'm looking to start using one or both of these applications.
I want to run about 2-3 machines at once.
What specs should I look for? I believe a dual core and at least 2gig of Ram are the starting points.
As a reference of what I personally have been looking at, I have been monitoring ebay for HP and Dell workstations that have Dual Xeon processors with at least 2 gig of ram. I'm lookin to spend about $600 total (including shipping)
If you know of a good website that sells used computers too, please fill me in.

I ran 3 virtual machines on a p4 2.0 with 1GB of ram.

so you figure it out from there, how much ram you need depends on what OS are you going to be running

you ran all three at once? the response times had to be pretty slow, right?

You really shouldn't be too concerned with response time if you're using MS vpc. It's usually meant more for a testing or small project environment not a production environment. MS Virtual Server is pretty fast, about 2-5X the speed of vpc. It usually is supposed to be faster than VMWare, Parallels or VirtualBox as well. The speed will be based not only on the amount of CPU and RAM but the hard disk access as well.

I like vmware, and no I did not see things slow, at the time the os I was testing did not need too much ram (xp pro, win2000, longhorn, all ran on home xp)

you can see it here, its old tho this is back in 2003 or some thing like that I think

Thanks for the responses.
I've been looking at HP XW8000's since they have 2 CPUS and a SCSI hard drive. So, I think I will be content with the hardware. I spose I could even look for a desktop PC but I think for my price range, the workstation will be a powerhouse compared to a desktop PC.
Is there other free software for virtual 'O/S' testing? I'm stickin with Virtual PC and Virtual Server partly because they are free but I know they are used quite a bit where I work. If someone has suggestions for other software to try out, let me know (especially if I can run a Linux based O/s)

I use wmware so I recommend that and it can run all kinds of OS you can download it from my site the link will take you to it

Virtual Iron is a nice alternative:

http://www.virtualiron.com/products/Free_Download.cfm

I like vmware better

Thanks guys. Looks like I have a couple options as soon as I find a good PC

good luck tom