topic Is vmware workstation Pro compatible with Ryzen 7 4800 H Processor ? in VMware Workstation Pro Discussions

Is vmware workstation Pro compatible with Ryzen 7 4800 H Processor ?

DDE_Server — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 00:28:21 GMT

Hi Gents,

i am planning to buy the following laptop:

Lenovo ideapad Gaming 3 with the following specification

Laptop 15.6'' 120Hz FHD, AMD Ryzen 7 4800H, GTX 1650Ti 4GB GPU, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD + 512GB SSD, Windows 10, English Backlit Keyboard

so i want to know if VMware workstation pro work well with Ryzen 7 4800H or shall i buy intel version

i am thinking of AMD Ryzen because it has more cores/Threads which benefits me in creating a lot of VM working at the same time

Also , i want to know if AVX 512 extension is mandatory for VMware because it is not supported as the following quote from AMD:

"Hardware virtualization is available on the Ryzen 7 4800H, which improves virtual machine performance up to some extent and Programs using Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) can run on this processor, boosting performance for calculation-heavy applications. Besides AVX, AMD is including the newer AVX2 standard, too, but not AVX-512"

Thanks in advance

Re: Is vmware workstation Pro compatible with Ryzen 7 4800 H Processor ?

bluefirestorm — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 02:38:28 GMT

8GB RAM is not a lot to run VMs. Maybe at best you can run 2 VMs concurrently (maybe each with 2GB or 1 with 4GB and the other with 2GB virtual RAM assigned). So unless you intend to upgrade the RAM immediately after the purchase, having those extra cores is not going to help you run more VMs concurrently. Also keep in mind these days, many laptops have RAM modules that are either soldered (i.e. not upgradeable) or an upgrade might require opening up the whole laptop (thereby voiding warranty) to access the RAM slots. So you also have to check whether it is easily upgradeable or not for the RAM.

As for AVX2, AVX512, it is not required to run VMs. AVX2 has been around since 2013 in Intel Haswell generation.

If you intend to use the laptop and/or the VMs for things like machine learning/deep learning, having AVX2 and AVX512 will reduce a lot of compute time. Even for stuff like image recognition would use AVX/AVX2/AVX512 instruction set. I don't think AMD has the INVPCID instruction either. That instruction will prevent heavy context switching for I/O heavy applications (either network or disk or both). It will also prevent your VM entering into a VM-exit state (something like switching the VM out of context).

Better to go for a model with an Intel CPU and with at least 16GB of RAM.

Re: Is vmware workstation Pro compatible with Ryzen 7 4800 H Processor ?

DDE_Server — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 09:31:49 GMT

yes i plan to upgrade to 32 GB of RAM however i will proceed with Ryzen for largest core number. Thanks @bluefirestorm for your detailed reply