i need to study for mcitp, but i also need to study for sharepoint 2010

i have a poweredge 1850 with two single-core CPUs + two 73G drives - it kills me on electricity, so don't want to use it, and it won't do VT, but it could be one of three boxes for a lab that's cheap, but will cost a lot on electricity

i was thinking . . .

OPTION #1

Opteron 4170 HE (50 watt chip), 6-core, only two-bills ($200), but the board's are $250, so that's an $800 box, then get another box to dual-boot Win7/Hyper-V on the cheap...?

OPTION #2

Used Quad - but how many VM's that are really banging away could it run at same time? (Server 2008r2, SQL 2008r2, Search Server)

OPTION #3

Study from books and just get one box that can run two VM's at same time, even if slowly.

the last time i had and used a home lab was five years ago when i had a DC, SQL, Exchange and business app box, that's where i got my server skills was just banging on it for four years, but didn't read any books, so now i have to get certified and know the material, and just am not sure how much attention i should pay to the box i use versus the studying time and reading.

sorry it's a subjective question, and am obviously open to all sorts of abuse here, but hope you can tell me also how many VM's i can run at the same time given what they'll be doing (SQL and SharePoint FAST search server are resource hungry)

thanks!