I am trying to create a virtual machine that has 1 socket with 4 cores. I am unable to do so because VMware is restricting my options (see attached pictures). I use esx 6.5.0 update 2 (build 8294253). What is happening is the number of cores is limited to the number of sockets so if i have 1 socket, i can only have 1 core. If i have 2 sockets, i can have up to 2 cores per socket. Three sockets means 3 cores per socket. and the pattern continues. Is this some weird restriction VMWare has put on ESXi? I don't understand why i would be limited. This creates problems for certain OSes and the way they license by socket/CPU.
"Cores per socket" is used to divide the number of defined "CPU".
If you want to have a single virtual 4 core socket, set both, "CPU" and "Cores per socket" to 4.
André