Multi purpose virtualized machine with ryzen

[bon_scott]

Hi I have an idea for a new rig that should work fine on Intel chips but the big question is could this work on a Ryzen platform (and be cheaper).

 

My idea is to build a multi purpose machine that runs a hypervisor (KVM/VMware) and provides separate virtual machines for Firewall (Pfsense), NAS(OpenSuSE or other distro) and Windows (Working + Gaming).

To improve performance I want to use PCIe-pass trough on the graphics card (for the windows machine) and for a 4 port gigabit card for the Firewall (for the local LAN).

 

On an Intel based platform this is "relatively easy" and supported, the hardware must support VT-d and VT-x etc. The thing though is that Ryzen offers more Cores for the same price witch is interesting for the setup I have in mind. Keep in mind that i don't require a top notch system for gaming, i play mainly older titles.

 

My questions therefore to anyone who might have an idea are:

-How well does Ryzen handle virtualization and PCIe-passthrough, does it work at all?

-GPU: Nvidia or AMD (what is better supported)?

 

Thanks for any advice.

[Rohime]

13 minutes ago, bon_scott said:

Hi I have an idea for a new rig that should work fine on Intel chips but the big question is could this work on a Ryzen platform (and be cheaper).

 

My idea is to build a multi purpose machine that runs a hypervisor (KVM/VMware) and provides separate virtual machines for Firewall (Pfsense), NAS(OpenSuSE or other distro) and Windows (Working + Gaming).

To improve performance I want to use PCIe-pass trough on the graphics card (for the windows machine) and for a 4 port gigabit card for the Firewall (for the local LAN).

 

On an Intel based platform this is "relatively easy" and supported, the hardware must support VT-d and VT-x etc. The thing though is that Ryzen offers more Cores for the same price witch is interesting for the setup I have in mind. Keep in mind that i don't require a top notch system for gaming, i play mainly older titles.

 

My questions therefore to anyone who might have an idea are:

-How well does Ryzen handle virtualization and PCIe-passthrough, does it work at all?

-GPU: Nvidia or AMD (what is better supported)?

 

Thanks for any advice.

 

You might need to wait for Software support .. 

 

 

 

 

 

[LyyK]

Why would you run pfSense and a NAS on a VM? Just curious. 

[bon_scott]

1 minute ago, LyyK said:

Why would you run pfSense and a NAS on a VM? Just curious. 

Currently i have one PC that does the pfsense (old core duo) a Windows machine(P4) and no NAS. If i would add a nas i wold have yet another box and cable laying around. The idea is of mine is to squeeze everything in one box to save space and tidy up.

This means having pfsense to deal with the network only and the NAS to be NAS related stuff only. I know the setup that I'm going for is not really standard but that is what makes it fun :-). 

[leadeater]

It's far too soon to try using Ryzen as a hypervisor, that is a rather specialized task and requires tight integration which just isn't there yet. All (x86/AMD64) hypervisors are optimized for Intel's stack of technologies, VT-x/VT-d etc, so trying to use Ryzen now will almost certainly result in not just one issue but multiple issues.

 

Wait until Naples is released and watch the enterprise focused reviews on it.

[bon_scott]

51 minutes ago, leadeater said:

It's far too soon to try using Ryzen as a hypervisor, that is a rather specialized task and requires tight integration which just isn't there yet. All (x86/AMD64) hypervisors are optimized for Intel's stack of technologies, VT-x/VT-d etc, so trying to use Ryzen now will almost certainly result in not just one issue but multiple issues.

 

Wait until Naples is released and watch the enterprise focused reviews on it.

I think your point of waiting for enterprise focus on Naples is correct, I Just hope that the customer grade Ryzen CPU's will be supported too because the whole point is to have a cheaper 8 core CPU than what Intel offers, if only Naples will be supported (an therefore enterprise hardware is required) this concept will not really work.

 

[grimreeper132]

31 minutes ago, bon_scott said:

I think your point of waiting for enterprise focus on Naples is correct, I Just hope that the customer grade Ryzen CPU's will be supported too because the whole point is to have a cheaper 8 core CPU than what Intel offers, if only Naples will be supported (an therefore enterprise hardware is required) this concept will not really work.

 

depends on the price of naples, because AMD seams to be making a point by making all their CPUs cheaper as they know they don't have the same performance compared to intel per core, so are going for nearly the same for much much less, which seams to have caught everyone's eye and I have a feeling the trend might continue to the server grade stuff to

[DieselWeasel]

As far as the support of GPU virtualization goes.. almost all AMD GPUs support virtualization, but in the Nvidia corner only Quadro and I think Grid GPUs support virtualisation. This is if you plan on using VMware's ESXi, for KVM I belive there is a way to passtrough GTX cards too

 

EDIT: Also the free version of ESXi only allows 8 cores/threads per VM 

[leadeater]

9 hours ago, bon_scott said:

I think your point of waiting for enterprise focus on Naples is correct, I Just hope that the customer grade Ryzen CPU's will be supported too because the whole point is to have a cheaper 8 core CPU than what Intel offers, if only Naples will be supported (an therefore enterprise hardware is required) this concept will not really work.

 

Should be, it's the same common Zen architecture so once we see support improved for AMD's virtualization stack of technologies Ryzen will be a fine choice.

[bon_scott]

Well if Naples is as cheap as they say and the motherboards are also no to pricey this could get VERY interesting, have a look at this article from arstechnica:

 

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/03/amd-naples-server-processor-more-cores-bandwidth-memory-than-intel/

[wrrls0]

While I do believe this is way to early to look into purchasing a ryzen for virtualisation I was looking into a similar idea. While naples will offer a brilliant amount of cores for the price I still believe the price will be way over the consumer budget. There are also no clock speeds released at this time and as well all know fewer cores with higher clock speed and higher IPC benefit games much more than loads of cores and slower single threaded performance.

I believe the best way to go would be to go through unRAID if you're looking for gaming performance as well as virtualisation. 

After reading some ryzen performance reviews on the new linux 4.10 kernel its performance is very strong compared to is competitors:

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ryzen-7-1800X-Reader-Comparison

The codec for ALC1220 has only been included in kernel 4.11

 

The issue here is that unRAIDs current version 6.3.2 is currently running the linux kernel 4.9.10

 

Would be interesting to see an unRAID running on 4.10 or 4.11 to see virtualisation/ gaming performance though.

I think the best thing you can do at this time would be to pickup a uses XEON or wait to see what happens with the ryzen. Hopefully all the intel fanboys called it bad due to the gaming/ single threaded performance not being as great as the 7700k at 1080p will cause a competitive price drop, but that is just false hope.