Motherboard For Virtualization of Simultanious OS

Hardware Motherboards
1

Hey there,

Just wanted to put forth that I am new to this idea and I am not familiar with too much of the terminology, so I apologize if this has been discussed many times before - I tried search what I do know.

Here’s the plan; I am looking at upgrading my main machine to a Ryzen 1700X and what comes along with that. I will be coming from a i7 - 4770K so I am used to 4 cores 8 threads, which brings me to what I really want to do. From my rough understanding of virtual computing I would theoretically be able to allocate 4c 8t to one virtual OS and the other 4c 8t to the other virtual OS as well as each getting a dedicated GPU - I basically want to just be able to switch inputs on my monitor to switch OSes, no rebooting. I am looking for the best motherboard that can help make this happen, here’s a more specific breakdown of what I want to do.

Also, I believe I would need to allocate a core to the actual virtualization OS, so one of the OSes would be down a core I guess. Not sure on that.

OS One - Windows 10:

4 Cores; 8 Threads preferable
Dedicated GTX 1070, solely dedicated to the Windows machine.

OS Two - macOS/Hackintosh: - calm down, I like macOS okay, I’m a simple man. I tried Arch, got into it, but the lack of general Linux support gets me.

4 Cores; 8 Threads preferable
Dedicated GTX 770, solely dedicated to the macOS machine. Maybe a RX570 when they’re not overpriced - if that ever happens.

I was originally looking at picking up a Gigabyte Aorus AX370 Gaming 5, but after watching the review on that it sounds like that motherboard might present issues for what I want to accomplish. (https://youtu.be/UDpsKzSmL-I?t=5m56s)

Do you guys have any recommendations on a motherboard that can accomplish this without a huge amount of hassle? I understand there’s going to be a good amount of overhead to accomplish and maintain a machine like this, but something that at least allows me to accomplish this task.

I did see some topics on IOMMU which I am not sure if that applies to my case. Again, sorry if this is repetitious - please inform me if I am wrong.

Also, although it would be off-topic, I’m not opposed to some tips or links that cover what I’m trying to do! :wink:

Thank-you in advanced!

2

If you want to passtrough physical hardware to your virtual machine.
Like running Linux as host OS and Windows10 in a kvm with a dedicated gpu passtrough for gaming.
Then the iommu story applies to you.
Some of the recent ageesa bios updates did some improvements,
according to iommu support and pci-e groupings.
And most X370 boards should kinda work now.
There are several several topics about this that you could check out.
@wendell could also give you some tips according to this.

But if you just want to run Windows10 as your main OS,
and just play arround with Virtualbox or VMware running Mac Osx or Linux vm.
Then pci-e passtrough isnt needed persee.

3

Thank-you for your reply! That’s good to hear, so for the most part what was said about KVM pass-through is outdated in that review - to a point. I’ve definitely got some research ahead of me! :smile:

1 Like