[Hampshire] Virtualisation

Hi all

I need a bit of help. As ever, I'm sure there's a webpage out there
somewhere with the exact answer on it but I can't find it so please bear
with me.

I'm interested in saving some space and power at home so I'm considering
ditching my cluster and running one higher spec box with 4-6 virtual
machines. Now here's the question - with limited funds - will the gain be
worthwhile?

I currently run a 6 node cluster - 6 physical machines - all pretty low spec
(top spec is probably P3-128Mb RAM) connected via a 10/100 network running
Slackware. I can probably buy some sort of machine for around 300UKP but
for that kind of price - how do I know the 6 virtual machines will be better
than the 6 physical. Obviously even without the speed issue, there's are
the space and power gains from what apparently is known as "p2v". Swings
and roundabouts though because these machines are so old, only the dump
awaits them.

I'm not so much bothered how quick it is - but what I don't want to do is
lash out on the new box to find it's not capable of the task. Running 6
VMs on any box is presumably asking a lot (though I believe we can now buy
CPUs with virtualisation technology built in).

Sorry this question's a bit wooly - but all constructive advice warmly
welcomed.

Cheers
Rob