Any way to do PCIe passthrough on AMD platform?

[VM0Sean]

I have a nice and otherwise perfectly working inexpensive setup using an Asus M5A88-V with an 1090T running ESXi 5.  I have RDM passthrough working and found a cheap SATA card that ESXi natively recognizes (Asmedia 1061).  However the system just tells me that this host does not support PCIe passthrough.  Apparently VT-d is needed but that's an Intel technology.  Is it possible to do it on an AMD platform?

[Dave_Mishchenko]

There's an equivalent technology for AMD systems called I/O Virtualization Technology (AMD IOMMU) - http://vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/VMW-vSphere4-directpath-host.pdf.

[VM0Sean]

Ahh interesting - any idea how to find out what chipsets/chips support AMD-Vi?  I can't seem to find much info on it, only that not all of them do.

[Dave_Mishchenko · Accepted solution]

I 'm not sure it is supported with your CPU - http://forums.amd.com/devforum/messageview.cfm?catid=203&threadid=146432.

The Opteron specs list the feature - http://sites.amd.com/us/Documents/48101A_Opteron%20_6000_QRG_RD2.pdf - but I can't find the same for your processor.

[VM0Sean]

Le cry.

From what I was reading the i5/i7 line doesn't offer this either?  It's essentially just the server chipsets that support it?

[VM0Sean]

Nevermind - answered my own question.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_chipset

Search for VT-d - apparently most newer desktop-class chipsets support the functionality

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_i7_microprocessors

For example shows that most of them support both the VT-d and VT-x functionality.

Having said that a recent i5-2500k machine that I setup couldn't even boot ESXi install properly nevermind able to run it.