No VT-d on K series?

[combust3r]

Nah, this isn't about blaming anyone I was supprised though and tried to find some more info about this. I've downloaded tech docs for 6 series chipset and this is what I've found:

Table above shows feature difference between the PCH SKUs. If a feature is not listed in the table it is considered a Base feature that is included in all SKUs

And table 1.3 shows only this

PCI Express* 2.0 Ports
PCI Interface No No
USB* 2.0 Ports
Total number of SATA ports
• SATA Ports (6 Gb/s, 3 Gb/s, and 1.5 Gb/s)
• SATA Ports (3 Gb/s and 1.5 Gb/s only)
HDMI/DVI/VGA/SDVO/DisplayPort*/eDP*/LVDS
Integrated Graphics Support with PAVP 2.0
Intel® AHCI
RAID 0/1/5/10 Support
Rapid Storage Technology
Intel® Anti-Theft

So I'm lead to belive that H67 should support VT-d, even though Intel did differentiate VT-d support across chipsets before.

 

[ViRGE]

Where did you get this ? Can you provide a link please ? Thanx.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/...-core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/2

There's a table at the bottom of the page that clearly shows that K processors lack VT-d.

 

[combust3r]

You missunderstood me. With a VT-d enabled processor (i.e. i5 2400) would H67 chipset prevent me from using VT-d.

KronigMag suggested that H67 chipset lacks support for VT-d regardless of processor being used.

 

[mv2devnull]

Gosh, this gets tricky to find. Intel site has older pages about VT-d, where it is assumed that at least the CPU and chipset have to support it. However, the support was in Northbridge, and NB is now in the CPU, so ...

KronigMag?

 

[soccerballtux]

What is VT-d?

google

WOW!!! Intel manage to include google on die.

lol

 

[KronicMag]

Gosh, this gets tricky to find. Intel site has older pages about VT-d, where it is assumed that at least the CPU and chipset have to support it. However, the support was in Northbridge, and NB is now in the CPU, so ...

KronigMag?

Sorry for not providing links to substantiate my claim that the H67 lacked Vt-d support. It was a rather round about effort to find this information and required just the right set of keywords in my search efforts.

First I came across this wikipedia article. The table includes a column for VT-d, but labels it as hardware virtualization support. Based on the document I cite below, I think they got VT-x and VT-d mixed up a bit. At the bottom of the page under references there are links to 4 mobile 6 series chipsets, the HM67, QS67 and QM67, HM65. The information on the pages linked, shows that out of those chipsets, only the QS67 supports VT-d. Unfortunetly, I can not find how to get to those same pages from Intel's site, nor can I find the same information on the 6 series desktop chips. I've found similar pages (look under Desktop Chipsets), but they don't list VT-d (amongst other advanced features).

I finally found this page, Desktop board compatibility with Intel® Virtualization Technology.It shows that both the P67 and H67 support the base hardware level virtualization VT-X/Intel VT (first table), but that only the P67 supports VT-d (second table). As I mentioned above, the wikipedia article seems to mix VT-x with VT-d, but label it as VT-d.

In order to take advantage of these features, your processor, chipset, motherboard/bios, and virtualization software all need to support them.

And it's KronicMag, not KronigMag

 

[combust3r]

Thnx KronicMag.

That suckz big time, why on earth would they disable VT-d on H67 chipset if CPU supports is beyond me

 

[86waterpumper]

haha seems along with the sandy bridge comes alot of heartache doesn't it? Plenty of tradeoffs to be sure. No vt-d, no video capabilities, drm, motherboards with a lesser feature set than previous ones. It look like to me that intel is trying to follow in the footsteps of apple. Which is to say give the customer barely enough but nothing extra. Don't worry I'm sure future sandy bridge cpus will have vt-d enabled so you can upgrade in a few months

 

[flexcore]

It's really a mess. I haven't tried looking into it much, but I shouldn't have to dig to deep to find this kind of information. I don't understand why Intel has so much fragmentation.

 

[veri745]

It's really a mess. I haven't tried looking into it much, but I shouldn't have to dig to deep to find this kind of information. I don't understand why Intel has so much fragmentation.

I'm guessing a lot of it is because VT-d is a very server oriented feature that only benefits a very limited number of systems that are I/O bound.

If you need VT-d, you probably know it, and you probably aren't running a consumer platform.

 

[mv2devnull]

But plain 2500 and 2600 (and P67) are "consumer platforms", are they not? SB-E, the 2011 socket, sound more like "server".

 

[Voo]

I'm guessing a lot of it is because VT-d is a very server oriented feature that only benefits a very limited number of systems that are I/O bound.

If you need VT-d, you probably know it, and you probably aren't running a consumer platform.

Well there are also lots of people who use virtualization on consumer platforms. Sure the advantages of vt-d are pretty limited in that scenario, but it's still a nice to have. And I really don't understand why we'd get such a feature on a 2500 but not a 2600K - shouldn't the more expensive, higher end CPU come with MORE features than less?


But yes, it's not a really important feature even for people who use virtualization and you only lose a bit of performance there and not really important stuff like you do without vt-x (which makes it much harder to swallow why there are still CPUs who don't get it~)

 

[nevertell]

I am sorry to be a necromancer, but there is a damn good reason I'd like to have vt-d.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OTY2NA

With vt-d, I could have the iGPU run my xserver and I could have virtualised windows 7 with direct access to my discrete GPU, so I wouldn't have to dual boot anymore. This is everything I've ever wanted actually

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

Ok guys lets clear a couple things up. What is VT-d? VT-d is Virtualization with Directed I/Os or the ability to assign ordering of DMAs in a VM. Where this really comes to play is when you have a number of VMs all looking for access to access a devise (let’s say a NIC card) at the same time. So they are all fighting over the DMA to get access to the NIC. To resolve this VT-d lets you set a set the order at which the VMs gain this access. There is more to it than that but that makes it as simple as I can for more information you can go to http://www.intel.com/technology/itj/2006/v10i3/2-io/1-abstract.htm.

Since VT-d is seen as a business feature the choice was made to not to include it on the Intel® Core™ i5-2500K or the Intel Core i7-2600K which are enthusiast processors.

Now about the H67 boards supporting VT-d? The answer is yes and no. The H67 chipset does support VT-d but no one enables it http://www.intel.com/Assets/PDF/datasheet/324645.pdf. The only boards that I know of that have support for VT-d enabled right now are the Q67 boards both by Intel and Gigabyte. The Intel Desktop Boards that support VT-x and VT-d can be found here http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/sb/CS-030922.htm.

Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team

 

[podspi]

Why is there VT-d support on 2500 and 2600 but not on the 2500K and 2600K? Also, what kind of impact on VMs will this have? I was going to get the 2500K but now I am not sure

Thanks,
RMSe17

This might help.

It essentially allows VMs to directly talk to some hardware. Probably not particularly useful for most home VM use.

I'm just curious -- and not trolling or trying to start an argument with anyone -- but what are people doing at home with virtualization that makes hardware support for it such a big deal?

Was this available in earlier, more recent generations of Intel processors?

I'm upgrading from an Athlon XP, so I'm really lost in the woods on this. I went with the 2500K, as I looked at each of the features not there that everyone is bringing up for debate here, and honestly can't state that any of them are a deal-breaker for me.

I use VMs extensively. For work, it's fantastic to have a secure environment that can be backed up easily. Additionally, I am also very cautious about what I run on my machine, and so I have a virtualized "testing" environment for any app that isn't from a major company.

Finally, while I prefer Windows, I have a few Linux and OSX-specific apps and see no reason to I need to dual-boot when virtualization has come so far.

Simply put, virtualization is great when you need multiple computers, but not the power of multiple computers.

Edit: Somehow I missed this thread was really old. I really have to start looking at the dates of posts... And also, look past the first page