What am I missing if using Mobo without AMD-VI (IOMMU) [Intel's Vt-d]

[carrotpapaya]

Processor - AMD FX-6100

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103962

Motherboard - ASRock 960GM/U3S3 FX [Micro-ATX]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157323

I'm planning to use this combination for my ESXi whitebox.  This mobo is using chipset 7 series which does not has AMD-VI.  Souce: http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/VTd_HowTo

From the source, it even say

Even when the chipset supports IOMMU, the bios must have a ACPI IVRS table to enable the use of it! So actual support depends on the motherboard manufacturer. At the time of writing all motherboards seem to have a (beta)bios available supporting the IOMMU.

So even I'm buying mobo with chipset 890FX or 9xx series, the mobo BIOS might not support it.  So I might not able to use it even buying the more expensive mobo.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_virtualization

An input/output memory management unit (IOMMU) enables guest virtual machines to directly use peripheral devices, such as Ethernet, accelerated graphics cards, and hard-drive controllers, through DMA and interrupt remapping. This is sometimes called PCI passthrough

Do I need to use IOMMU in VCP5 lab session? as I'm using the ESXi to simulate the lab testing for VCP5, I have not think of anything to use for my whitebox later on.

In simple words, without IOMMU the VMs cannot access to the devices in host machine?  the VM can only access to those hardware devices in that computer that we use to access the VM?

[weinstein5]

I do not believe you will be able to install ESXi 5 without the AMD=VI or Intel-VT capablity -and to add from the documnetation there is also this -

To support 64-bit virtual machines, support for hardware virtualization (Intel VT-x or AMD RVI) must be enabled on x64 CPUs.

[carrotpapaya]

Thanks for the reply.

the processor AMD FX-6100 is AMD-V and RVI enabled.  AMD-VI (IOMMU) should be supported as well.

so have no problem to install ESXi hypervisor and creating nested ESXi or nested 64 bits VM, no?

the question is the motherboard i have chosen, ASRock 960GM/U3S3 is using chipset 7 series which does not support AMD-VI (IOMMU).

Motherboard that has chipset 9 series and 890FX do support AMD-VI (IOMMU), but the BIOS still need to be able to enable ACPI IVRS table, according to http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/VTd_HowTo

With motherboard that has chipset 9 series for example ASRock 970 Extreme 4 (no onboard video) + cheapest graphic card would cost me close to USD70.  Just want to find out, what I will not able to do if my motherboard not able to support AMD-VI (IOMMU), I'm using the whitebox for testing/educational purposes (VCP5 lab)

Thanks again.

[TomHowarth]

Without AMD-Vi (IOMMU) you will not be able to do passthrough,  it was AMD-V that allows the running of 64 bit guests and every AMD MoBo supports that now

Have a look at the following KB article for the minimum specs for running ESX set down in versions.

KB1003661

[carrotpapaya]

Without AMD-Vi (IOMMU) you will not be able to do passthrough

1] In simple words, without IOMMU the VMs cannot access to the devices in host machine? (example video card, USB, SATA and etc.)

*EDIT: I would like to know if I'm using the VMs in the host machine, can I access the host machine USB if motherboard is without AMD-VI (OMMU) support?  Thanks

2] May I know if VCP5 exam or lab course likes (Install, Configure, Manage Vsphere 5) would need us to do anything like passthrough?

Thanks