Advice on good GPU:s for VM pass-through

[eribob]

Dear community! 

I am very pleased with my unraid machine and it gives me a little punch of joy in my stomach every time I open the dashboard. It is a continuous work in progress and I feel that better GPU:s are the next step for me. 

 

Currently I have an Rx 580 4Gb (2.5 slot) and a R7 370 (2 slot). It works ok but gives me some problems. 

1a. The Rx 580 is passed through to a Windows 10 VM and every time I restart or shut down the VM it goes into what must be a version of the reset bug. When I try to launch the VM again I see the BIOS logo but just as Windows is about to start the monitor goes to sleep and the VM pauses. I have to force stop it and run the reset script provided by Spaceinvader One to be able to start the VM again.

1b. The card is so wide (2.5 slots) and large that it covers other PCI-E x 1 ports on my motherboard that I wants to insert USB cards into.

 

2. The R7 370 is ok for linux VM:s and the 2 slot size is also ok, but my Catalina VM does not accept it. Maybe this can be solved with special drivers but I would rather not go there. 

 

I am looking for 2 new GPU:s that do not need to be very powerful. I play some games but mostly CS:GO... The Rx580 4GB is adequate. So somewhere in that neighborhood or a bit more powerful is fine. Being able to buy used is only a plus. I think that new GPU:s are very over-priced in general. At least one of them needs to be AMD so that my Catalina VM will accept it. The other for the windows VM can be NVIDIA or AMD. Another requirement is that it is possible to run them smoothly without reset bugs or other issues. I want to be able to restart my VM:s! 😃

 

One final thing: I do not want to insert a third GPU for unraid only if not absolutely necessary. As it is today I do not need that, and my CPU and motherboard are really too limited in PCI-E express lanes. 

 

Thank you so much in advance for any advice!