<div dir="ltr">Hi Corey,<div><br></div><div>I'm afraid that the <span style="line-height:1.5">E5-1620 V3 doesn't have an integrated GPU. I'm not sure though, since Intel simply omitted the "graphics specification" section from its page:</span><span style="line-height:1.5"> <a href="http://ark.intel.com/products/82763/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-1620-v3-10M-Cache-3_50-GHz" target="_blank">http://ark.intel.com/products/82763/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-1620-v3-10M-Cache-3_50-GHz</a> . So you would need a separate video card for your host system, if you want to use Linux as a desktop. That's why I chose the i5-4690k over a Xeon.</span></div><div><span style="line-height:1.5"><br></span></div><div><span style="line-height:1.5">For the record: my Radeon r9-285 by ASUS works with OVMF, but if I turn the guest off, I need to reboot the host. Guest soft-reboots are fine.</span></div><div><span style="line-height:1.5"><br></span></div><div><span style="line-height:1.5">I think that my ASUS Z87-PRO would yeald a proper IOMMU configuration if I had only one video card. But I also have an Nvidia GTX-660, that I use for the Linux host, and both the Nvidia and the ATI cards are put in the same IOMMU group. So I need Alex Williamson's patch to enable overrides for missing ACS capabilities. This patch creates DMAR problems that affect my Intel i915 HDMI audio, used by my wife's seat -- yes, I'm running KVM on top of a multiseat system. These DMAR issues are fixed by disabling IOMMU for the integrated graphics, booting with </span><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Consolas,Menlo,Monaco,'Lucida Console','Liberation Mono','DejaVu Sans Mono','Bitstream Vera Sans Mono','Courier New',monospace,sans-serif;font-size:13px;line-height:16.9px;background-color:rgb(238,238,238)">CONFIG_CMDLINE_LINUX=intel_iommu=on,</span><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Consolas,Menlo,Monaco,'Lucida Console','Liberation Mono','DejaVu Sans Mono','Bitstream Vera Sans Mono','Courier New',monospace,sans-serif;font-size:13px;line-height:16.9px;background-color:rgb(238,238,238)">igfx_off</span><span style="line-height:1.5">. Phew!</span></div><div><span style="line-height:1.5"><br></span></div><div><span style="line-height:1.5">Good luck!</span></div><div><span style="line-height:1.5">Lucas</span></div><div><span style="line-height:1.5"><br></span></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr">On Thu, Oct 22, 2015 at 10:42 AM Corey Larson <<a href="mailto:corey@eatrunco.de" target="_blank">corey@eatrunco.de</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Thanks for all the help, everyone! I really appreciate it.<br>
<br>
So, to summarize and make sure I have condensed all this info properly,<br>
the consensus seems to be that:<br>
<br>
1. Current Skylake CPUs are a bad choice for vfio builds (because of a<br>
lack of ACS).<br>
2. Xeon E5 CPUs are good. E3 and Core iX CPUs are bad for vfio<br>
(because of a lack of ACS).<br>
3. Look for motherboards that explicitly list VT-d as a feature. ASUS<br>
boards seem to be wonky. People seem to have good success with ASRock<br>
boards.<br>
4. Configurations that rely on the ACS override patch may act weird,<br>
and are less likely to be supported. Which makes sense given the<br>
nature of the patch.<br>
<br>
As I was researching a build to leverage vfio, I did read AW's blog<br>
posts, but had thought "Xeon? I'm not made of money!" After seeing it<br>
pushed more on this list, I did more research and found that some of the<br>
"entry-level" Xeons (specifically the E5-1620 V3) are very much within<br>
the realm of regular people.<br>
<br>
Additionally, from those links to the HW lists, it seems that the an<br>
ASRock (in my case, a X99 Extreme4 since its cheaper than the 6, thanks<br>
for the pointer Nick) paired with a Xeon E5-1620 V3 is a practical and<br>
cost effective solution.<br>
<br>
Thanks again!<br>
<br>
On Wed, Oct 21, 2015, at 11:26 AM, Corey Larson wrote:<br>
> I am in a position where I can do a new build with this technology in<br>
> mind. How do I go about picking a motherboard that will have the best<br>
> compatibility to do vfio?<br>
><br>
> Currently, my plan is to use this board:<br>
> <a href="https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/H170-PRO-GAMING/specifications/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/H170-PRO-GAMING/specifications/</a>. I<br>
> plan to add an additional GPU (NVidia GTX 960) for the guest, and use<br>
> the integrated Intel graphics to drive Linux. I also plan to make use of<br>
> OVMF to avoid the Intel VGA arbitration patch.<br>
><br>
> I appreciate any information you can share with me to help guide me!<br>
> --<br>
> Corey Larson<br>
> <a href="mailto:corey@eatrunco.de" target="_blank">corey@eatrunco.de</a><br>
><br>
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</blockquote></div></div>