How much does Intel VT and AMD-V help when running a virtual machine?

[BigToque]

I've recently started playing around with VM's, and even though I've got 4GB ram which I assumed would be enough for playing around with 1 VM, my CPU doesn't support Intel VT.

Would upgrading the CPU to one with VT provide a tangible benefit? I've got an E5200 right now.

 

[podspi]

It helps, but play around first before you upgrade your CPU w/out even seeing if it'll do what you need.

I regularly use VMs on my laptop (which is a C2D @ 1.5ghz, also no Intel VT) without any issue.


Actually, I am also running a VM on an old Pentium 4 HT @ 3ghz too, though it is very low utilization.

 

[mooseracing]

Depends on what you are doing, but I wouldn't do a VM without it for my needs. They are just too slow. Hardware virtualization was a massive step forward.

 

[blckgrffn]

Depending on the hypervisor, it is also a requirement for 64 bit VMs...

 

[nenforcer]

If you are using VMWare, the industry leader, you don't necessarily need to upgrade the CPU.

If you are using something like Microsoft Virtual PC then you probably could use all the performance boost you can get.

I would look into the specifics of your VM i.e. VirtualBox to see if it can take advantage of those things.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

It's nice to have, but VirtualBox still runs fine without it.
I was using VB on my T2310 lappy (1.46GHz, C2D-based, no VT) just fine for a simple XP VM until I upgraded to a M11x R1.

One thing to note though - I don't think you'll be able to run Parallels if you're Hackintoshing without VT. I was too much of
a cheap bastich to upgrade my E5200, so I'm using VB instead.

 

[Fox5]

It's been a while, but last I saw Virtualbox didn't get much of a performance boost from it. VMWare did though.

 

[PreferLinux]

Depends what you use. I've used KVM (in Linux) both with and without it, and it was nearly impossible to use without it, but great with it. Admittedly, one was with a P4 541 and the other a 2500K, but with it it doesn't slow down much, but without it it slows down a long way.