4 ms·

definitely going ryzen for my next desktop CPU.

jchw 8y ago
Can recommend. I have a Ryzen 7 2700X and it mops the floor against all my other builds (which are admittedly all older builds.) Runs Linux great and IOMMU works very well - it seems they now officially support it, so GPU pass through has worked super well and saves me from needing to dual boot. Another bonus: the stock CPU fan, although flashy with it's RGB LEDs, is very formidable and can probably even stand up to a bit of overclocking. I am glad to see competition in the CPU space again. It's been too long.
- kop316 8y ago
  What are you using for your virtualization? I may have to try that when I get back. I have a Ryzen 5 2700x and an AMD Fury 9x.
  - jchw 8y ago
    I'm passing through a spare GTX 1070 using good ol' qemu kvm. It's extremely easy to set up the PCI passthrough itself in virt manager, the system-level configuration is a bit more involved. You may also want a KVMFR like Looking Glass, since otherwise you'll need a physically separate keyboard/mouse/video setup. I'm using Nix, so my system configuration is easy to summarize: https://gist.github.com/jchv/b0e4b39679e450536a17cc6a5d69169a https://gist.github.com/jchv/b0e4b39679e450536a17cc6a5d69169... (On that note, I can definitely recommend NixOS, it's hard to even describe how helpful it's been in making my configuration understandable and reproducible.) There are plenty of guides as well. Here's one for NixOS, but undoubtedly you can find more. https://forum.level1techs.com/t/nixos-vfio-pcie-passthrough/130916 https://forum.level1techs.com/t/nixos-vfio-pcie-passthrough/... I don't think most commercial VM solutions support this kind of configuration, I'd guess Vbox might but I know for a fact VMware Workstation doesn't. (and there's no VMware Workstation package for NixOS yet, so my license is collecting dust at the moment :() It's worth noting you need a separate GPU for this right now. Intel just recently started supporting something called GVT-G that lets you split an Intel IGP into multiple VMs, not as useful for me since I want a better GPU but maybe useful to others. I have yet to try it.
    - kop316 8y ago
      Thank you so much, that is extremely useful!
    - pedrocr 8y ago
      Thanks for the GVT-G reference. For running a Windows VM in a laptop that seems like the only missing piece. Graphical performance is clearly lacking and if that works as described it seems like it would fix it.
    - equalunique 8y ago
      +1 for the NixOS configuration tip!!! Glad to learn it's working well on Ryzen!
    - FredFS456 8y ago
      Last time I checked, Proxmox supports passthrough pretty well. It's just using qemu/kvm under the hood anyway.
    - dave7 8y ago
      Can you specify which motherboard please? And I guess it's a pair of Nvidia cards fitted? I'd like a setup like this in my future!
      - jchw 8y ago
        Sure. I believe the motherboard is an ASUS X470 Prime Pro. I picked it up at Fry's and I'm not home to look at what it is so I could be a little off. It is indeed a pair of NVidia cards, but that part only matters a little bit. I don't really highly recommend NVidia for the host and as far as I know you can run whatever card you want on the Linux host. Looking Glass may care about the guest GPU simply because it's still a bit experimental, but there's not really any reason I'm aware of it can't work with AMD or Intel graphics processors.
        westmeal 8y ago
        Do the GPUs have to be the same architecture/model?
- noir_lord 8y ago
  I went 2700X as well (paired with 32GB DDR4-3200 and an RTX2080), solid machine but the RTX2080 was not cheap (went EVGA since when you get into silly an extra 100 for the warranty/customer service and build quality hardly matters).
tracker1 8y ago
Did a 2600 build late last year... actually a little faster than my 4790K from 5 years ago, and a fraction of the cost. Waiting on Zen 2 to upgrade my own desktop later this year... hoping to see a 16-core mainline, or might wait for threadripper.

jchw 8y ago

Can recommend. I have a Ryzen 7 2700X and it mops the floor against all my other builds (which are admittedly all older builds.) Runs Linux great and IOMMU works very well - it seems they now officially support it, so GPU pass through has worked super well and saves me from needing to dual boot. Another bonus: the stock CPU fan, although flashy with it's RGB LEDs, is very formidable and can probably even stand up to a bit of overclocking. I am glad to see competition in the CPU space again. It's been too long.

kop316 8y ago
What are you using for your virtualization? I may have to try that when I get back. I have a Ryzen 5 2700x and an AMD Fury 9x.
- jchw 8y ago
  I'm passing through a spare GTX 1070 using good ol' qemu kvm. It's extremely easy to set up the PCI passthrough itself in virt manager, the system-level configuration is a bit more involved. You may also want a KVMFR like Looking Glass, since otherwise you'll need a physically separate keyboard/mouse/video setup. I'm using Nix, so my system configuration is easy to summarize: https://gist.github.com/jchv/b0e4b39679e450536a17cc6a5d69169a https://gist.github.com/jchv/b0e4b39679e450536a17cc6a5d69169... (On that note, I can definitely recommend NixOS, it's hard to even describe how helpful it's been in making my configuration understandable and reproducible.) There are plenty of guides as well. Here's one for NixOS, but undoubtedly you can find more. https://forum.level1techs.com/t/nixos-vfio-pcie-passthrough/130916 https://forum.level1techs.com/t/nixos-vfio-pcie-passthrough/... I don't think most commercial VM solutions support this kind of configuration, I'd guess Vbox might but I know for a fact VMware Workstation doesn't. (and there's no VMware Workstation package for NixOS yet, so my license is collecting dust at the moment :() It's worth noting you need a separate GPU for this right now. Intel just recently started supporting something called GVT-G that lets you split an Intel IGP into multiple VMs, not as useful for me since I want a better GPU but maybe useful to others. I have yet to try it.
  - kop316 8y ago
    Thank you so much, that is extremely useful!
  - pedrocr 8y ago
    Thanks for the GVT-G reference. For running a Windows VM in a laptop that seems like the only missing piece. Graphical performance is clearly lacking and if that works as described it seems like it would fix it.
  - equalunique 8y ago
    +1 for the NixOS configuration tip!!! Glad to learn it's working well on Ryzen!
  - FredFS456 8y ago
    Last time I checked, Proxmox supports passthrough pretty well. It's just using qemu/kvm under the hood anyway.
  - dave7 8y ago
    Can you specify which motherboard please? And I guess it's a pair of Nvidia cards fitted? I'd like a setup like this in my future!
    - jchw 8y ago
      Sure. I believe the motherboard is an ASUS X470 Prime Pro. I picked it up at Fry's and I'm not home to look at what it is so I could be a little off. It is indeed a pair of NVidia cards, but that part only matters a little bit. I don't really highly recommend NVidia for the host and as far as I know you can run whatever card you want on the Linux host. Looking Glass may care about the guest GPU simply because it's still a bit experimental, but there's not really any reason I'm aware of it can't work with AMD or Intel graphics processors.
      - westmeal 8y ago
        Do the GPUs have to be the same architecture/model?
noir_lord 8y ago
I went 2700X as well (paired with 32GB DDR4-3200 and an RTX2080), solid machine but the RTX2080 was not cheap (went EVGA since when you get into silly an extra 100 for the warranty/customer service and build quality hardly matters).

tracker1 8y ago

Did a 2600 build late last year... actually a little faster than my 4790K from 5 years ago, and a fraction of the cost. Waiting on Zen 2 to upgrade my own desktop later this year... hoping to see a 16-core mainline, or might wait for threadripper.