Hello, I am looking recommendations on my setup
AMD Ryzen 3600
MSI B450m Mortar Titanium
RTX 2060
RX 580
will i encounter hardware based virtualization problems in this setup?
i’m planning to create 2 Windows VMs for gaming and 1 GPU / 2C4T for each VMs
also what’s a good linux distro for this use case?
sorry if i posted this on the wrong section
For virtualization with pci-e passtrough for gpu’s,
i would highely recommend to go with either a X470 or X570 motherboard really.
The reason for this is that B450 is kinda limited when it comes to the pci-e lane layout.
Of course it could work, but with a X470 / X570 you will have a bit more flexibility.
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To be a bit more detailed from what i said above.
With the Msi B450 Mortar Titanium, it has two pci-e x16 slots.
However only the first slot is connected as pci-e 3.0 16x.
The second pci-e x16 slot is only wired as pci-e 2.0 4x.
This is pretty much a limitation you will run into with pretty much any B-series boards.
So yeah although it could work, but with a X470 / X570 board you just have more flexibility.
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So i would have problems if i also used NVMe ?
can’t pcie lanes be assigned? for example both x8 for each gpu and the left over for NVMe?
my choice of MB was my build theme, there’s no X470 mb w/ white pcbs so i opted for b450
On B450 i don’t think so let me check out.
because the board supports crossfire so it would be okay to do this
or am i missing something?
You can use one nvme, however not two.
Because the second m.2 slot is shared, when you use the second pci-e X16 gen2 4x slot,
the second m.2 will be disabled visa versa.
Thats why i said, X470 / X570 give you allot more flexibility.
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- 1 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slot (PCI_E1)
- Supports x16 speed with 1st, 2nd and 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen™ processors
- Supports x8 speed with Ryzen™ with Radeon™ Vega Graphics and 2nd Gen AMD Ryzen™ with Radeon™ Graphics processors
- Supports x4 speed with Athlon™ with Radeon™ Vega Graphics Processors
- 1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 slot (PCI_E4, supports x4 mode)
- 2 x PCIe 2.0 x1 slots
- PCI_E4 slot will be unavailable when an M.2 SSD is installed in the M2_2 slot.
- PCI_E2 slot will be unavailable when an expansion card is installed in the PCI_E3 slot.
Source Msi B450 Mortar Titanium specs.
so it’s cool if i only had 1 nvme and 2 GPU and just use sata if i require other drives
thanks!
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Yup.
The first m.2 slot is directly wired into the cpu 4x gen3 on B450.
But the second m.2.2 can’t be used because its shared with the second pci-e 16X gen2 4x slot on that particular board.
And it’s likely the same situation on all other B450 boards.
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The only other am4 board with a Titanium colored pcb is the Msi X370 Xpower titanium.
However the vrm on that particular board is such a pile of garbage,
that it isnt even worth considering buying at it’s premium price.
and also it would work even if i opted for a pcie wifi card right? those that use pcie x4 slot
Well yeah you could only use slot E3 then anyways,
because of clearance issues. 
considering i’ll watercool it in the future, it’ll reduce the gpus into single slot
thank you for answering my questions 
No problem
Of course if you could look passed the white / titanium coloured pcb.
Then like i said an X470 / X570 board will give allot more flexibility of course.
But on B450 i can work, its just limited on expend ability.
1 Like
I’m generally one to be anti-X570, but really, if we are talking about a dual GPU System that’ll be custom Watercooled at some point with the intention to run Virtualized gaming, just spend more for X570 now. It’ll save you a lot of hassle in the long run. IOMMU Grouping on most B450 Boards is sub par plus all the PCIe juggling talked above.
I guess this is the one case where i can see the 100 Bucks more invested into a mainboard to actually make sense…
i thought the acs override patch can solve the problem in iommu grouping?
i’ll just use usb-based wifi card and just be done with it
also space constraints prevents me from using a larger board
this is also why im planning to have 2 user in a pc insted of having 2 separate PCs