KVM Smokes VirtualBox On Initial AMD EPYC Linux Tests

[phoronix]

Phoronix: KVM Smokes VirtualBox On Initial AMD EPYC Linux Tests

I've been working on some AMD EPYC virtualization tests on and off the past few weeks. For your viewing before ending out the new year are some initial VirtualBox vs. Linux KVM benchmarks for seeing how the guest VM performance compares.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=25747

[dwagner]

It would be very interesting to also include result numbers for the same benchmarks run directly on the physical host hardware (so outside of virtual machines).

[Michael]

It would be very interesting to also include result numbers for the same benchmarks run directly on the physical host hardware (so outside of virtual machines).

Yes I plan to do that when running 64 vCPUs.... Basically when it matches the CPU configuration. Didn't think in the real world many people would boot EPYC with maxncpus=16 or so, so didn't do it for this round of testing and since wasn't sure how setting the maxncpus would map nicely for EPYC's design or not, etc.

[ravenet]

I'd also like to see the opensource xen performance thrown into the mix as well.

[numacross]

Awesome benchmarks, thanks. Is it possible to also test PCI passthrough with a GPU for both Xen and KVM? A comparison to native would also be appreciated to compare the overheads.

There should be no problems with AMD cards, but nVidia's driver (at lest on Windows) will detect a hypervisor and refuse to load. A workaround for that is to tell the hypervisor to either lie about the computer manufacturer or to not expose VM-specific interfaces to the guest at all (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...to_Windows_VMs).

[kmand]

Any info on KVM vs Virtualbox on Intel?

[Michael]

I'd also like to see the opensource xen performance thrown into the mix as well.

libxenlight was giving me problems on Ubuntu 17.10 and didn't have time to dig deeper into it, will in the new year.

[Michael]

Any info on KVM vs Virtualbox on Intel?

WIll do some fresh Intel tests probably in a few weeks will find the time.

[Wielkie G]

Is it possible some of the results have to do with the CPU extensions exposed by VM to the guest? Could you compare /proc/cpuinfo across bare metal/virtualbox/kvm? I remember AVX not being enabled by default on virtualbox, but that might have changed some time ago.

[tildearrow]

before ending out the new year

You probably mean "the year".