@hmw - did you manage to get this up and running with ESXi yet?
I'm really curious how all of the hardware works with ESXi 7.0 and what all of the device pass through options end up looking like
I wondering whether to create a new thread or post it all in this thread
But what I can tell you quickly is:
- Using EPYC 7302P from the HP DL385 Upgrade kit
- Using 8 x Samsung 16GB DDR4-3200 RDIMMs (
M393A2K43DB3-CWE | RDIMM | Samsung Module | Semiconductor)
- Network card is a Mellanox ConnectX-3
- Passthrough IO controller is LSI2308
- Passthrough GPU is GTX 1080 Mini
All the above is working with ESXi 6.7u3. Managed to get a TimeSpy benchmark run on a Windows 2004 VM, it was 5% higher than a what I got with the card attached as an eGPU to my 2.8 GHz quad core MacBook Pro. Also managed to install a Windows 2019 Server VM with the LSI2308 passed through. Still need to attach a drive or two and test out whether the 2308 is stable.
Sadly installing ESXi 7.0 was a no-go. It gave 'decompression' errors and I checked the MD5 & SHA checksums to make sure the ISO was not corrupted.
First thoughts on Tyan and their customer service: Weird
- I asked them where I could get the SlimSAS-8i to 2xNVMe cable and they responded with: 'it's a non-standard cable, what would you possibly want with this?'
- I also asked them to correct an error on their website stating support for Dual Rank Samsung 16GB RDIMMs - M393A2K40DB2-CWE. Except that it is a SINGLE rank RDIMM and not dual rank
Temps: I'm seeing 31c, ESXi doesn't show me anything other than CPU_Tctl_value. I have a Supermicro 4U heatsink and fan on it. The FAN controls on the Tyan motherboard are close to non-existent (more on that later)
Over the weekend I will test out the Windows VMs in greater detail (ordered a dummy HDMI plug to keep the GPU happy) but also need to work on modding PSU cables to fit in my RPC-4308 server case. At the time, the AX1200i seemed like a good deal- now I am afraid I might have to get another PSU if that doesn't fit
I've written down what I did to make passthrough work - so will put that up as well ...