I was recently given a new i7-980X.  I've been considering a new unRAID build for a while, and with 5.0 final out and that second USB drive gathering dust, this is as good a reason as any.  I realize that the i7-980X isn't state of the art any more, but it still looks like a good processor, and with 6 physical cores, I think it'd be a good candidate for setting up virtualized machines.

 

I'm tentatively planning to combine it with a Supermicro X8ST3-F, which supports both IPMI 2 and Vt-d.

 

I'm just dipping my toes into running virtualized machines, and I was wondering if anyone had any experience with these and/or could warn me about any gotcha's that might exist with these as a starting point.

 

Thank you.

 

Kevin

While I cannot comment whether or not that processor supports virtualization, i can give a little feedback.

 

For my first Xenserver I recently built, I used an i7-860.  I am loving it.  Running Windows 7, unraid, 2 instances of ubuntu and working on getting pfsense to work.

 

If it supports it, give it a spin.

 

Cheers,

Steve

Steve

 

Thanks for the reply.  I'm excited about the new project. :-)

 

Kevin

I had that same processor, though not in a virtual environment. It is still plenty fast by today's standards, just a little heavy on the power usage.

 

Should make for an awesome virtual build. given the 6 physical and 6 virtual cores(hyperthreading).

you wont be able to pass any external peripherals to the VM. while it supports vt-x. vt-d is required for that.  i would look for a low power 6 core xeon if your going to pass your sata cards to an unraid vm.

 

ive seen some six core xeons going for 80$ on ebay

 

 

Thanks for the feedback. I'm going to look for something that supports both Vt-x and Vt-d.

 

Kevin