Help choosing CPU for VM and VGA passthrough

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LongTimeGamer

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Feb 5, 2014
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After exhaustively researching VGA passthrough using XEN/KVM/ESXi, I believe that it will fit my current and future needs, but now I have to decide which CPU to use. Here are my choices:

i7-4770 (Currently $280 at Frys)
Xeon E3-1230v3 (Currently $250 at Newegg)
i7-4570 (Currently $200 at Newegg)
FX-8350 (Currently $200 at Newegg)

I am planning to buy only one R9-270x GPU to start and then add another one or a 280x--when the price gets to reasonable levels--later but within one year. These will each run one Windows 8.1 VM acting as an HTPC. With the exception of the Xeon, I could even run another, albeit non-gaming, HTPC with the onboard GPU/iGPU. Depending on the performance of this setup and future expansion needs, I may replace this setup with a Haswell-E setup.

Does anyone have any experience with something similar? Which CPU do you recommend?
 
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killakallies
I run an ESXi server at my home for test labs. Never experimented with VGA pass through but the Xeon E3-1230v3 fits the bit perfectly. You will get excellent performance out of that processor especially in a virtualization environment. You should be able to handle quite a few VM's using that processor. I have dual Xeon quad cores in my ESXi server w/ 6 VM's running and I hardly use the full processor MHz resource pool. RAM is more of where you need to cover yourself get more than you need, you will be happy you did in the end.
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killakallies

killakallies

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Jan 22, 2014
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I run an ESXi server at my home for test labs. Never experimented with VGA pass through but the Xeon E3-1230v3 fits the bit perfectly. You will get excellent performance out of that processor especially in a virtualization environment. You should be able to handle quite a few VM's using that processor. I have dual Xeon quad cores in my ESXi server w/ 6 VM's running and I hardly use the full processor MHz resource pool. RAM is more of where you need to cover yourself get more than you need, you will be happy you did in the end.
 
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L

LongTimeGamer

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Feb 5, 2014
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Thanks for replying. I would like to throw one more CPU into the mix: i7-4820k. This CPU is only $325 at Newegg, but the MBs (LGA2011 X79) are about $100 more than the average 1150 (although Newegg does have some refurbished and open box boards for even less). I put this one on the list since I could upgrade to a 6-core CPU in the future. I started thinking that perhaps a quad-core CPU wouldn't be enough for two gaming systems, since it would have seven threads available after keeping one thread back for dom0, unless Xen/KVM/ESXi can scale CPU resources from non-running VMs to currently running VMs. Do you know if they do that?

I'm beginning to wonder if my ambition is too great. I haven't read anyone stating that they could passthrough two GPUs. Furthermore, few people state what kind of stability they experience, either with the dom0 or domU's. The last thing I want is to have to troubleshoot something for days/weeks instead of being able to enjoy the system.
 
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killakallies

killakallies

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Jan 22, 2014
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In my experience using ESXi all the cores are combined into a pool of MHz and your VM's will simply pull from this pool. A quad core like the Xeon you have listed will show up in the ESXi MHz resource pool as 8 x 3.2Ghz as it has 8 threads. The Xeon will provide you enough power for running two gaming machines.

I would recommend looking into my link below as it seems to be a good solution to what your trying to achieve. The Xeon processor has VT-d instructions so you would just have to ensure your motherboard BIOS and chipset had the abilities to support it also.

http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_VGA_Passthrough
 
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LongTimeGamer

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Feb 5, 2014
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I decided on the Xeon E3-1230V3 even though I have decided not to turn it into a couple of gaming computers by using VGA passthrough in Xen or KVM. I'll look again at ESXi, as it might be more mature for doing this, but unless it's relatively hassle-free after setup, it'll be a no-go. Longer term, at least with this CPU and the MB I bought, I'll be able to revisit this dream of mine in the future since they both support VT-d.
 
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