When doing GPU passthrough, is an EFI VM better performing than a BIOS based VM?

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Ch33rios

Member
Nov 29, 2016
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I've never really bothered with messing with too many of the settings when creating a VM in my ESXi 6 server but while browsing through a post the other day on Reddit (not sure if it was Homelab or the Nvidia subs) I saw a discussion regarding someones experience with GPU passthrough on ESXi with an nVidia card and them having some issues but one of the things that caught my eye was that they mentioned: Apparently there was a notable increase in the 3DMark scoring in their Windows 10 VM when doing GPU passthrough after switching to EFI.

Now my initial thoughts were that this made a minimal difference if even any sort of difference at all but before I go about testing this (I have a single GPU for passthrough and it'd be sort of a pain to do full testing myself...) I figured I'd ask some experienced folks here....is this accurate?
 

Tom5051

Active Member
Jan 18, 2017
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I doubt it would make a difference since the passthrough is hardware and ESXi software based. By the time it is passed through to the guest, it is essentially a virtual device to the guest.