GPU for passthrough

[ecosse]

If you value your time, you only have 2 clear choices, Quadro and Grid.

The minimum I recommended quadro is the old Quadro 4000. It can be used in 2 modes:

But remember ESXi 6 does not support a Quadro in vSGA mode so you are stuck to v5.5 Whereas my firepro works fine. Not on the HCL for 6.5 but with any luck might work once I upgrade.

There's a third way and that is hacking a card to act like a GRID (though obviously you don't get its power - just the ability to use vGPU... if you are lucky!) See [MOVED] Hacking NVidia Cards into their Professional Counterparts - Page 51 - not for the faint hearted though.

 

[nk215]

If I run benchmark Unigine_Heaven 4 then my Quadro 4K can get up to around 75C or so in a typical workstation case. In my rack case (which has good front/back air flow and is in the basement, colder part of the house), it never gets beyond 62Cor so.

It's correct that Quadro 4K is nolonger support in vSGA for ESXi 6 and above. My main setup is still on ESXi 5.5.

I don't have anything against firepro cards. They just don't meet my need. When I did my research, firepro usually had higher price. Cards such as S7000, W7000 were just more expensive than Quadro 4K.

There's no hack to make a GTX card works like GRID k1/k2 with vGPU feature (vSGA works). It's just not possible. I had a "modified" ASUS GT 640 to GRID K1 mostly for its passive heat sink and low power and testing purposes (only 2 resistor to change in this ASUS version of GT640, easiest to change). At the end, it was more trouble than it was worth. I was hoping that GT640 would work in T110ii but it didn't so I abandoned the "project".

 

[Kapel]

It's correct that Quadro 4K is nolonger support in vSGA for ESXi 6 and above. My main setup is still on ESXi 5.5.

I don't have anything against firepro cards. They just don't meet my need. When I did my research, firepro usually had higher price. Cards such as S7000, W7000 were just more expensive than Quadro 4K.

Just because I'm curious - what card would work with ESXi 6 and above?

Is there a list of cards that could do our job? As I see, you @nk215 are doing the same things I would like to do. What parameter / technology should I look at to be sure that the card is "passthroughable"? Would any firepro card do the job?