AMD FX-8120: Confirmed VMDirectPath compatible motherboard?

Zarathustra[H]

Zarathustra[H]

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hey all,

I have been researching this to death, and I can't seem to get any wiser.

Does anyone have a FX-8120 (or any other AMD FX) in their lab with VMDirectPath I/O confirmed working? If so, what motherboard are you using?

I have seen some say that the Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3, but I have read about others having issues with it.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Matt
 
I have the M5A97 from the Microcenter deal in my ESX system right now. I'll see if I can test it out when I get home and let you know. I haven't tried VMDirectPath yet since I'm currently using the video card slot for a multiport NIC (the PS in my rack mount case blocks most of the PCI slots).
 
Zarathustra[H];1038729367 said:
That is one motherboard have been considering, especially with the fantastic Micro Center AMD Bundle deals.

If you don't mind, please report back and let me know how everything goes!
Click to expand...

yes I got in on this bundle and I'm waiting on some hardware. What would you guys like me to try and passthrough/test? I've never used vmdirect path before.
 
I played with it a bit without luck last night on my M5. I'm pretty sure I enabled everything in BIOS, but was not able to easily check without a video card installed. I'll try and do some more testing tonight if I have time to pull it out of the rack and put a video card in.
 
holden j caufield said:
yes I got in on this bundle and I'm waiting on some hardware. What would you guys like me to try and passthrough/test? I've never used vmdirect path before.
Click to expand...

For me, I would just be interested to see if the function is identified as available, or if ESXi just tells you your hardware doesn't support it.

There are too many variables in individual components to make them reliable tests. I'd be happy just to see that ESXi recognizes the IOMMU. :)
 
Zarathustra[H];1038733248 said:
For me, I would just be interested to see if the function is identified as available, or if ESXi just tells you your hardware doesn't support it.

There are too many variables in individual components to make them reliable tests. I'd be happy just to see that ESXi recognizes the IOMMU. :)
Click to expand...

yes it does give me the option to passthrough with iommu enabled. I have not actually passed through anything yet because I don't have a vm. esxi is installed on a usb, waiting on my SSD. So I don't have a datastore now.
 
I can confirm that it works on the M5A97. I'd probably still go with the Gigabyte one first though to see if it works, probably the UD5 since it has the best slot options for upgrades. I'm actually considering getting one of those myself since I either can have video or extra network ports but not both in my current setup.
 
Excellent.

Thank you both of you.

I am looking primarily at the UD3 due to its good price in Microcenter deals, and it has more than enough expansion slots for my server needs (I'm adding two server NIC's (one with two ports, one with one) and one storage controller.

I'm also throwing in a old PCI VGA card so I can hook up a monitor for ESXi install and console access.

So all I really need is:
2 PCIe 1x slots
1 PCIe 4x (or larger) slot
1 legacy PCI slot.

The UD3 has this and more.
 
holden j caufield said:
you probably already know but if you're looking to passthrough video which I plan on doing get a radeon.and not nvidia
Click to expand...

Thanks for that note.

Personally I have no interest in passing through video cards. This is going to be strictly a server box that resides in my basement, but for those who are interested in doing this, I'm sure that is a really good piece of information.

Just because I am curious, how come AMD video cards are the best choice here?
 
hi guys
i want to buy a ASUS motherboard & AMD FX8150 CPU. which mobo supports ESX4.x/ESXi5.x can anyone guide me?

i have selected ASUS M5A97 mobo which has AMD 9-series chipset which supports IOMMU. & the mobo's BIOS has also IOMMU but only 64MB option. is that sufficient for fully IO virtualization? can i assign each physical LAN card port to each VM directly?

ASUS SABERTOOTH 990FX mobo has some 64MB option & also more options i think. so which mobo would be better for virtualization?
as it has written in the manual does it support only Linux based OS. is ESXi5.x Linux based?

thanks
 
I should follow up here that yes, with an FX-8120 my GA-990FX-UD3 does fully support VM Driectpath I/O.

I would imagine that this would be the same for MOST 990FX boards, but some may have decided not to implement it in BIOS.
 
Zarathustra[H];1039391521 said:
I should follow up here that yes, with an FX-8120 my GA-990FX-UD3 does fully support VM Driectpath I/O.

I would imagine that this would be the same for MOST 990FX boards, but some may have decided not to implement it in BIOS.
Click to expand...

I'm planning on building a very similar box. I do have some questions. Does ESXi recognize your onboard NIC? Have you tried passing the onboard SATA controller to a VM?
 
SeeThruHead said:
I'm planning on building a very similar box. I do have some questions. Does ESXi recognize your onboard NIC? Have you tried passing the onboard SATA controller to a VM?
Click to expand...

On board NIC is recognized, yes. I use it for the Management interface only though, as I have a single Broaccom NetXtreme and a dual port Intel Server NIC in there as well. It's usually a good idea to use an Intel or other server NIC for server type networking though, as Realtek chips tend to be kind of crappy.

I have not tried passing the on board storage through to a VM, but from my reading of the ESXi Box thread, it looks like others have successfully.

I boot my system from and have my main datastore on the on board satya controller, so I can't pass it through.

I have been using an IBM M1015 server SAS controller for my storage VM which passed through successfully.
 
holden j caufield said:
you probably already know but if you're looking to passthrough video which I plan on doing get a radeon.and not nvidia
Click to expand...

Welllllll, it is not that simple. IF you are thinking of passing video through, check the VMware HCL to see what cards ESXi supports. I've got a $99 AMD card (can't remember the name at the moment) but ESXi was not happy with it. Turns out I had mis-read the HCL and that card is not supported. Oops! At least it wasn't a $400 mistake.
 
Zarathustra[H];1039395527 said:
On board NIC is recognized, yes. I use it for the Management interface only though, as I have a single Broaccom NetXtreme and a dual port Intel Server NIC in there as well. It's usually a good idea to use an Intel or other server NIC for server type networking though, as Realtek chips tend to be kind of crappy.

I have not tried passing the on board storage through to a VM, but from my reading of the ESXi Box thread, it looks like others have successfully.

I boot my system from and have my main datastore on the on board satya controller, so I can't pass it through.

I have been using an IBM M1015 server SAS controller for my storage VM which passed through successfully.
Click to expand...
I think in basically going to copy your setup . run a pfsense vm, server 2012 vm and a oi zfs nas in a vm. Have my boot drive and data store on the onboard sata and use the realtek for management. Then when I get more money I can migrate my nas into its own box and replace the local datastore with iscsi. Thanks you've been very helpful.
 
Just picked up an AMD FX 8120, ASROCK 970 EXTREME4, 2x8gb RAM and some other shit, gonna be testing this setup out....passthrough is the goal of this server.
 
So far so good to be noted on the setup above, VMDP/pci passthrough working great, I've sent a dual port intel nic, single port intel nic, ibm m1015 and a xfx radeon 6650 through with no problems on 5.1.
 
Is that the recent 5.1 update you're talking about? Was wondering if it supposedly fixed the passthrough issues that were biting people trying to run 5.1.

Edit: quick searching seems to show that general passthrough is indeed fixed, although passing a USB hub still doesn't work.
 
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Yep. Even on 5.0u1 it was partially working but now that I have some Intel NICs I can finally use the latest ESXi. Now that I've seen GPU passthrough work that's all I wanted to do with it lol. Pretty cool in concept.
 
ziggo0 said:
Yep. Even on 5.0u1 it was partially working but now that I have some Intel NICs I can finally use the latest ESXi. Now that I've seen GPU passthrough work that's all I wanted to do with it lol. Pretty cool in concept.
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Oh yea, vga passthrough is actually a lot of fun, albeit still not a perfect science. I actually have a test vm box on 5.0 with 2 vga passthroughs coupled with usb hubs passed, and the net effect is more or less fully functional desktops.

From what I'm hearing elsewhere, while 5.1u1 did fix some things, the usb hub passing is still screwed up, unless you can state otherwise(?) - whenever you assign the hub, it apparently checks off; but on restart it never actually passes over and defaults back. So still no 5.1 for me =(
 
I'm unable to pass through any USB devices or hubs...everyone on the vmware forums say 'plug in the device and wait 5 to 10 minutes, or more for it to 'see' the device............................yeah.
 
ziggo0 said:
I'm unable to pass through any USB devices or hubs...everyone on the vmware forums say 'plug in the device and wait 5 to 10 minutes, or more for it to 'see' the device............................yeah.
Click to expand...

How are you trying to pass them through?

You first have to add a virtual USB controller in the settings of your guest.

Virtual Machine Properties -> Add... -> USB Controller

(guest powered down, and reboot may be required after this)

Then after this you can add any USB device plugged in to the host by going to the same Add.. menu, and selecting "USB Device" and the list that pops up should ahve all USB devices connected to the host in it.

It's a little round about, but it works.

Don't expect exhilarating USB forwarded speeds though. USB forwarding under ESXi tends to be on the slow side.

If you need more speed, and your system supports it, you might have more luck doing a VMDirectPath I/O forward of the hardware USB controller itself to the guest (this sometimes works, sometimes not, and may work better with a USB expansion card, than on board USB) in which case you should get better USB speeds (but no guarantees)
 
Zarathustra[H];1039472044 said:
How are you trying to pass them through?

If you need more speed, and your system supports it, you might have more luck doing a VMDirectPath I/O forward of the hardware USB controller itself to the guest (this sometimes works, sometimes not, and may work better with a USB expansion card, than on board USB) in which case you should get better USB speeds (but no guarantees)
Click to expand...

I think this is what he was saying - while under 5.0 you could pass through the USB controller/hub itself, 5.1 and 5.1u1 have this functionality currently busted and will not work.
 
Tiporaro said:
I think this is what he was saying - while under 5.0 you could pass through the USB controller/hub itself, 5.1 and 5.1u1 have this functionality currently busted and will not work.
Click to expand...

This is correct. I can add a controller all day long, it simply says "USB Devices (unavailable)" - wasn't trying to add anything exotic either, just a mouse and keyboard.
 
Tiporaro said:
I think this is what he was saying - while under 5.0 you could pass through the USB controller/hub itself, 5.1 and 5.1u1 have this functionality currently busted and will not work.
Click to expand...

It worked for me with 5.1 (not using it right now though)
 
With the 8350 under $200 at Amazon, I'll plan my next build on that processor and the Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3. This way I could have a decent-ish gaming rig and then boot to VMware ESXI 5 on a flash drive when needed for studying/lab purposes. Keep all of the virtual disks on a separate internal hard drive.
Looks like AMD is the way to go to build a virtual host/gaming rig on a budget.
 
Faux-pas edit: Just saw the Microcenter bundle for the 8350 and GA-990FXA-UD3 bundle. I dig it. :grin:
 
benzino_86 said:
Faux-pas edit: Just saw the Microcenter bundle for the 8350 and GA-990FXA-UD3 bundle. I dig it. :grin:
Click to expand...

Exactly how I built my rig, except I cheaped out on the mobo....even though it can do IOMMU 110% fine, it suffers in poor voltage regulation, 4 phases + 8 core cpu = no happy
 
I can vouch for all of Asus 990FX series motherboards and IOMMU capability. I've personally tested the M5A99FX (?) and the Crosshair V Formula-Z. I'm currently using directpath with the Formula-Z to pass a 3ware 9750 into a FreeBSD VM.
 
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