So I'm going to be building a new PC in the next couple of weeks. Mostly new parts but also a few bits from my old PC. I run Linux 95% of the time, Windows for those few games that can not run under Linux. I have always dual booted and it's my intention to continue to do this for the time being. However, at some point in the future I will be having a look at hardware passthrough.
I'll not be getting a second graphics card for a while till the prices settle down.
So if someone could look through this parts list for any dumb choices on my part for future VFIO /Hardware Passthrough.
I know that my build will be able to do what I want right now. Dual booting Windows and Linux but what of the future, have I done something dumb that will get in the way?
The Taichi is a fair bit more, at around £210 rather than the £138 of the ASUS. Also I have had some bad experiences with ASRock in the past. Granted that was around 5 years or so ago and things may have improved. Wendel has tested the Taichi and found it to be the best board there is, or just the best board he has access to and tested? I know there is more than we see in videos but so far we have only seen two boards being tested, the ASRock and a Gigabyte board. Is the ASUS Prime Pro known to be a bad board for hardware passthrough or is it a case that @wendell has not got one to test and is recommending what is "known good"?
After all we are talking about dropping another £70 on a build for a motherboard from a manufacture I don't like. For something that is better now when I'm unlikely to attempt hardware passthrough for another six months or so. I trust Wendell of course but there is a difference between a recommendation after testing a couple of boards and one where many boards have been tested and there is a clear winner and clear losers.
The Asrock X370 Taichi and the Asrock X370 professional gaming, are pretty much the best boards that you could get for the Ryzen platform. Atleast in terms of build quality.
That looks like a pretty solid build. Like others are saying, the Taichi is the better motherboard.
The SSD looks like an awesome deal. They're really coming down in price, huh...
You're going to want to not use a team green GPU when you go to pass through (at least for the card you're passing through) because of the way the software is set up. Since you already have the 980ti, you're not at a huge disadvantage. Just use that for the Linux host when the time comes.
What's your PSU rated for? Depending on your limits, you may need to upgrade when you get the second GPU for passthrough, but aside from that, I think you'll do just fine.
You can use team Green GPUs, they just arent as friendly to virtualization as Red team, you just have to tell the Linux host to not tell the Windows VM it's running in a virtualized environment. I currently have a 1070 being passed to my WinVM and a 1060 on my host. Add a "hidden state" parameter to the VM's xml file like thus:
That way you should be able to successfully pass through a Nvidia GPU and not run into any troubles with the error 43 thing. I would still go red team out of principle but the cost of them in Aus has skyrocketed thanks to miners :--(
What I should have said it only added 8 pounds to your budget, but I see I made a math error. I would add 78 pounds to your budget. Just for your information, Asus and Asrock now use the same manufacturer for there motherboards, meaning there really isn't any difference in quality at least that is my two cents.
The prime x370 pro is a fine board feature-wise, has a robust VRM design, and I can't really imagine it won't work for hardware passthrough, given that most of that comes from AMD anyway. Only thing that might take a while is BIOS updates, as ASUS seems to be lagging behind a bit (a few weeks behind most of the others, nothing more serious) at the moment.
I will set aside by dislike of ASRock if it is a "better" option.
As the graphics card, the 980Ti will be for Linux and I intend to get an AMD card for passthrough but once the market has settled down. Once the miners have moved onto other hardware. A 580 or something of similar performance will be more than good enough for the handful of Windows games I want to play.
The PSU is 5 years old but it's a Corsair HX 1050W that I bought to power a pair of AMD 7970's in crossfire on my 2011 rig. I blew the motherboard and sold the 3930K and the quad channel RAM on eBay last month. This new build is to replace that machine.
