Hello
This is my first post in this site.

I will like to share my results with this hardware (I often test different hardware with vmware for compatibility)

Configuration:
ASUS M5A78L-M lx (cheap AM3+ mobo) with AMD x2 250, 2x 4GB kingston 1333 CL9

To install it's necessary one of the supported cards, like the Intel pro 1000CT desktop adapter PCI-E.
ESXi 4.1 sucessfully detected onboard HBA controller in AHCI mode, and I could create a datastore with local SATA drives right out of the box.

To support onboard NIC I installed the driver from this post:
3Com driver for ESXi

I know this driver is for 3Com board and the onboard is RTL 8111 but, for some reason when you install this driver, all realtek cards became available and properly detected!.

so once you manage to boot, load the oem.tgz as this post recommend and you can use the onboard nic with this mobo.
(if you can't find the oem.tgz, PM me and I email you)

performance is as espected for such a cheap motherboard but it's pretty stable!, not bad for the buck!.

regards
Induktor