For those looking to install ESXi 8.0 but have an unsupported CPU, the following kernel boot option allowLegacyCPU=true can be added which would bypass the installer pre-check as shown in the screenshot below.
When the ESXi installer bypass happens, instead of an error which forces you to reboot, you will get a warning message and user must acknowledge they understand they are using an unsupported CPU and then continue with the installation.
Note: For more information, also checkout my vSphere 8 Homelab considerations blog post for more tips and tricks.
For an interactive installation of ESXi, the additional acknowledgment is not an issue but for an automated installation of ESXi using Kickstart, this can be a problem since you are still required to manually hit enter before the installation actually begins. The question from a couple of my readers, is there a workaround for this?