New Core i7 Virtualization Support

[state4plasma]

Hey everyone I'll be building a rig for myself in the coming month or two and have decided to go with a Core i7-950 CPU. I have question regarding its virtualization support.

As we know, the i7-950 is intended to replace the 920 and 940. The 975XE is intended to replace the 965XE. Now I checked the specs of each of those processors. I found out that all processors have Intel Virtualization Technology (VT-x for short) support. But, the outgoing models have support for another virtualization technology known as the Intel Virtualization Technology with Directed I/O (VT-d for short).

This tech is not mentioned for the 950 or the 975XE. So my question is, does the i7-950 support VT-d?

It makes sense that the 950 and 975XE are newer models and should support it but I can't find any relevant proof/information about it.

Any guesses?

 

[nightmare99]

I would have to guess that they do have it as they are based off the same stepping as the previous chips. I would guess it has not been added to the specs on the processor finder. Also the 950 has replaced the 940 while the 920 is still current.

 

[state4plasma]

Hi nightmare99 Yes I was thinking the same. Not sure how much difference it would make whether or not it ends up having VT-d or not. I'm planning on running a couple of VMs simultaneously on my yet to be built rig, hence was wondering about it. I sure imagine that since it does hardware based I/O stuff, it may come in handy somehow.

Also the 950 has replaced the 940 while the 920 is still current.

Oops...didn't realise that Do you know of anyone using the 950 and what the performance is like? It'd be my first time breaking the 3GHz barrier. Quite looking forward to it

 

[Soldier786]

Hi nightmare99 Yes I was thinking the same. Not sure how much difference it would make whether or not it ends up having VT-d or not. I'm planning on running a couple of VMs simultaneously on my yet to be built rig, hence was wondering about it. I sure imagine that since it does hardware based I/O stuff, it may come in handy somehow.



Oops...didn't realise that Do you know of anyone using the 950 and what the performance is like? It'd be my first time breaking the 3GHz barrier. Quite looking forward to it

Hey man, *rjkoneill* played around with the i7 950, maybe this will help you...

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18017286

 

[state4plasma]

Hi Soldier786 Thanks for the link. The 950 looks pretty promising. Pushing it to 4.5GHz is pretty impressive at a much lower BCLK compared to the 920 D0. I won't be overclocking it (much anyway). Might just OC it a bit to get a bit more speed out of my RAM, but not sure, let's see how it goes.