I’m picking up an RX480 soon to pair with my GTX970 to do this. Was going to get a 5700, but I can do that later. Just want an 8 GB card.
Am I going to see issues in-system like say if I were to just boot linux normally? Like, before I configured the cards? I’m going to use Pop_OS (I don’t want to deal with Void and Nvidia again) so that my GTX970 is just ready to go, but I don’t want my 480 to get in the way.
Is this a valid worry or am I being an idiot?
would it not be easier to use the RX480 for Linux and the GTX970 for Windows?
Yes, however the 480 has more VRAM, which is more desirable for in VM for games.
Eventually I’ll have a 5700XT for VM and I’ll use the 970 or 480 for system. But, if the 480 is good enough I’ll wait for Big Navi.
The only thing you have to do is add the line:
blacklist amdgpu
to your /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf if you don’t want your host to use the RX480 at all. Then you can add its PCI ID to /etc/modprobe.d/vfio.conf and use it with the VM(assuming you’ve set up everything properly).
I also have a 5700XT (uses the same kernel module as the RX480) and it works well with passthrough if I blacklist amdgpu(using it with both the host and VM is a different story). You should be fine if you don’t want to use it with the host at all.
Cool. I have no plans to have it touch the host.