Suggestion for a cheap mainboard for linux and single gpu passthrough

I am curious if there are AM4 mainboards that allow gpu passthrough with just one GPU or with one dedicated and an integrated vega that are cheaper than the dual pcie 16x mainboards. i am interested in vfio passthrough but i dont know if i will really need it or get it to work as i like so i am skeptical weather to invest in a bigger power suppply, a more expensive mainboard and a second graphics card however i want to keep the door open for singe gpu passthrough if it is not much more expensive.

do you know any good value boards that are supported well on linux and meet the single gpu passthrough requirements?

I need more info before I can effectively help.

  1. What CPU(s) are you looking at?
  2. What is your total budget for cpu, mobo, ram etc.
  3. What motherboard chipset(s) and other features do you need or want?

There are no motherboards with Vega graphics even if it has ports for video out. There are however multiple amd CPUs with Vega graphics, these all fall under the category of APU. Many, possibly all AM4 boards have video ports for APUs. However, the APUs only go up to 4 cores, rather then the 6-8 of the CPUs.

Also, there are NO true dual x16 PCIe boards on AM4. Even if a board has two slots x16 long, the cpu only has x20 of bandwidth going to the slots.

GT 710’s are available for not that much, are very low power so you do not need to up the PSU very much at all, and work fine for the host OS video out.

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my build plan so far now was:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/kjvbV6

i can get a more powerful psu, more expensive mainboard and i might even have a second gpu although i have to check if power consumption doesnt get too high. but i dont know if it really makes sense if it is a compromise anyway and single gpu passthrough will theoretically work similarly well. so if i aim for single gpu passthrough i didnt waste any money if it turns out to not work sufficiently well enough.

i thought about a 2400 but i am not sure if it is enough for vr and in the long run and if it is worth it paying almost as much for a significantly weaker cpu but i thought it doesnt harm to have a mainboard that works well with it in case i buy a new cpu some day that has an igpu.

the lack of true dual gpu is another reason to attempt/wait for single gpu passthrough.

its not really that it is super important to save up every last penny but i dont want to regret having bought a mainboard for the same price than one that would have allowed gpu passthrough. its also something i can then suggest other people to get even if they dont consider linux or gpu passthrough but if they decide to switch i just have to tell them how to do it instead of having to tell them they have to replace their perfectly good hardware.

That level of motherboard is fine for using two GPUs.

Pretty much ANY PCIe GPU is fine for the Linux host os if you are doing all your gaming in the windows guest. As in my previous post, the GT 710 is a popular new option and is only 25 watts tdp. https://pcpartpicker.com/product/stnG3C/evga-video-card-02gp32713kr

The main reason for using one motherboard over another with PCI passthrough is how the the IOMMU groups grouped. Someone else would know more on what AM4 IOMMU groupings are like.

Single GPU passthrough is possible, but not as developed or as easy as normal gpu passthrough using to GPUs.

The main reason for using one motherboard over another with PCI passthrough is how the the IOMMU groups grouped. Someone else would know more on what AM4 IOMMU groupings are like.

yeah, that is what i am wondering about. can the iommu groups be fucked up with only one pcie 16x port? and do mainboards of that class even have vdi?

VDI is a software feature of an OS not of the motherboard.

If you were meaning AMD-Vi / Intel VT-d, then yes absolutely all x370/x470 motherboards should have it.

I really don’t know enough about AM4 IOMMU to say how the groups are like in general.

The motherboard you have specifically picked out has a listing of the groups here and does not look too bad-

There are however multiple amd CPUs with Vega graphics, these all fall under the category of APU. Many, possibly all AM4 boards have video ports for APUs. However, the APUs only go up to 4 cores, rather then the 6-8 of the CPUs.

Also worth noting that most, if not all, APUs on AM4 output to HDMI, not DisplayPort. Even though they’re quite capable of pushing 2160p@60hz, the port itself doesn’t support it.