General question about Intel and AMD virtualiztion support in hardware

[Bill Davidsen]

Chris Adams wrote:
> Once upon a time, KC8LDO <kc8ldo at arrl.net> said:
>> Who seems to have the edge in hardware virtualization Intel or AMD? I've 
>> heard comments both ways with one IT person suggesting that AMD was the way 
>> to go.
> 
> As far as functionality, I believe they are pretty much equivalent.
> 
> If you are buying a desktop and want virtualization, then (the last time
> I looked), almost all (if not all) AMD CPUs have hw-virt extensions,
> while Intel seems to reserve it for the higher-end (read: more
> expensive) CPUs.
> 
If you are going to do anything but play with VM you will probably have one with 
hardware VM support. The prices are not Celeron (<$100) prices, but they are 
only $100-150 more from Intel. I have some of each, at one time the AMD did a 
better job of real mode handling, I still have a need to run Win-95 in a VM, and 
it does way too much in real mode. Haven't tried it on recent Intel, I leave 
well enough alone.

>> Also are there extra "features" supported under the various open source 
>> virtualization systems, KVM and Xen, under one manufacture but not the 
>> other of any real significance?
> 
> KVM is essentially a driver for the hw-virt CPU extensions, so of course
> it supports them. :-)  Xen also supports hw-virt I believe.
> 
It does, but unless I missed something, Fedora doesn't support Xen, because the 
patches needed aren't in the mainline kernel and took too much effort to 
maintain. I have RHEL, so it's not an issue for me.

I would say right now that Intel has the edge in performance per watt, if power 
use and heat are an issue at all. Other than that, not an issue. But be sure the 
BIOS doesn't disable the VM capability, some vendors do that.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot