Xen users - May 2011 - Finally cracked the mystery of motherboards with Vt-d support

After contacting Asus, MSI and Gigabyte, this is what I got back.

Only motherboards with the QXX chipsets and certified with the Intel 
VPro support the Vt-d virtualization technology.

I''m not sure about MSI though, because this is what I got from their 
support: "Almost board could support. Please refer to our website, 
http://www.msi.com/product/mb/."

The problem is that QXX chipset are only used for mini and micro ATX 
motherboards with very few expansion card slots making the Vt-d kind of 
useless.

-- 
Mgr. Simon Toth

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Some Intel motherboards have VT-d (made by Intel, not MSI/Asus/etc).

I have an Intel S5520HC mobo which supports VT-d and has enough
expansion slots... You might want to take a look at it

http://www.intel.com/products/server/motherboards/s5520hc/s5520hc-overview.htm


2011/5/20 "Mgr. Šimon Tóth"
<toth@fi.muni.cz>:
> After contacting Asus, MSI and Gigabyte, this is what I got back.
>
> Only motherboards with the QXX chipsets and certified with the Intel VPro
> support the Vt-d virtualization technology.
>
> I''m not sure about MSI though, because this is what I got from
their
> support: "Almost board could support. Please refer to our website,
> http://www.msi.com/product/mb/."
>
> The problem is that QXX chipset are only used for mini and micro ATX
> motherboards with very few expansion card slots making the Vt-d kind of
> useless.
>
> --
> Mgr. Simon Toth
>
> _______________________________________________
> Xen-users mailing list
> Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
>
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> Some Intel motherboards have VT-d (made by Intel, not MSI/Asus/etc).
>
> I have an Intel S5520HC mobo which supports VT-d and has enough
> expansion slots... You might want to take a look at it
>
>
http://www.intel.com/products/server/motherboards/s5520hc/s5520hc-overview.htm
Oh sorry, I was talking about non-server boards.

And btw. the situation on Intel boards is the same. Only QXX chipsets 
with VPro support Vt-d.

-- 
Mgr. Simon Toth

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2011/5/20 "Mgr. Šimon Tóth"
<toth@fi.muni.cz>:
>> Some Intel motherboards have VT-d (made by Intel, not MSI/Asus/etc).
>>
>> I have an Intel S5520HC mobo which supports VT-d and has enough
>> expansion slots... You might want to take a look at it
>>
>>
>>
http://www.intel.com/products/server/motherboards/s5520hc/s5520hc-overview.htm
>
> Oh sorry, I was talking about non-server boards.
>
> And btw. the situation on Intel boards is the same. Only QXX chipsets with
> VPro support Vt-d.
>
> --
> Mgr. Simon Toth
>
Well, desktop boards will always be inferior in terms of performance
and features, compared to server boards, so it''s not something
surprising that only a handful of them support this tech. Desktop
boards have low-cost as target rather than features for the
enthusiastic power user. That''s why I suggested it, because
I''m using
it in my own desktop computer.

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> Well, desktop boards will always be inferior in terms of performance
> and features, compared to server boards, so it''s not something
> surprising that only a handful of them support this tech. Desktop
> boards have low-cost as target rather than features for the
> enthusiastic power user. That''s why I suggested it, because
I''m using
> it in my own desktop computer.
The problem is that Xeons are totally useless on workstations. Core i7 
processors have ton more features and are much more suited for this 
environment.

-- 
Mgr. Simon Toth

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2011/5/20 "Mgr. Šimon Tóth"
<toth@fi.muni.cz>:
>> Well, desktop boards will always be inferior in terms of performance
>> and features, compared to server boards, so it''s not something
>> surprising that only a handful of them support this tech. Desktop
>> boards have low-cost as target rather than features for the
>> enthusiastic power user. That''s why I suggested it, because
I''m using
>> it in my own desktop computer.
>
> The problem is that Xeons are totally useless on workstations. Core i7
> processors have ton more features and are much more suited for this
> environment.
>
Sorry, but that''s just FUD... Recent Xeons and i7s are quite close in
terms of performance. The only major differences is that Xeons have 2
QPI buses in order to accomodate dual-processor setups and have ECC
support, while the only place where i7 really shines compared to Xeon
is TurboBoost, especially when activated on all 4 cores.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

However, I can understand that the price difference might be a
definitive factor in your choice... as ECC ram and the CPUs themselves
are quite pricey.

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You can get a complete list of VT mainboards here

http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/sb/cs-030922.htm


On 05/20/2011 02:56 AM, "Mgr. Šimon Tóth"
wrote:
> After contacting Asus, MSI and Gigabyte, this is what I got back.
>
> Only motherboards with the QXX chipsets and certified with the Intel 
> VPro support the Vt-d virtualization technology.
>
> I''m not sure about MSI though, because this is what I got from
their
> support: "Almost board could support. Please refer to our website, 
> http://www.msi.com/product/mb/."
>
> The problem is that QXX chipset are only used for mini and micro ATX 
> motherboards with very few expansion card slots making the Vt-d kind 
> of useless.
>

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> You can get a complete list of VT mainboards here
> 
> http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/sb/cs-030922.htm
Yes I know about that webpage. But according to Intel employees Vt-d
should work on motherboards that are not listed there.

-- 
Mgr. Simon Toth

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