bhyve virtualization on AMD Ryzen 7

[patpro]

Hello,

I’m considering some AMD options for a new fanless computer:
- AMD Ryzen 7 7840U
- AMD Ryzen 7 8700G

but I’m not familiar at all with AMD CPUs and I miss an ark.intel.com database equivalent for AMD…

Can someone confirm that both these Ryzen 7 CPU support comprehensive virtualization-related instructions, including PCI passthrough?

Thanks!

 

[tingo]

but I’m not familiar at all with AMD CPUs and I miss an ark.intel.com database equivalent for AMD…

You mean like this:

https://www.amd.com/en/products/processors/laptop/ryzen/7000-series/amd-ryzen-7-7840u.html

https://www.amd.com/en/products/processors/desktops/ryzen/8000-series/amd-ryzen-7-8700g.html

look under "General Specifications", there you will find which extensions are supported for each processor.
If you need a translator for what AMD (and Intel) call the different virtualization extensions, Wikipedia has it covered: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_virtualization

 

[patpro]

I’m aware of those product pages, they do not have the adequate level of detail. I’ve also read that same wikipedia page before posting here.
I’ve also checked https://linux-hardware.org/ for detailed dmesg and cpuinfo outputs.
Still it’s not that clear because of various names / instructions involved.

 

[bakul]

I have been using VMs + PCI passthroughs on a Ryzen 2700 machine for a few years now.

 

[GlitchyDot]

Info about this cpu in terminal by Serve The Home. Maybe it will help you to see needed things.
It does have AMD-V(SVM)
But if you look at

AMD Ryzen™ 7 PRO 8700GE​

vs

AMD Ryzen™ 7 8700G Desktop Processor​

You can see that 8700G does not support but PRO 8700GE supports but AMD did some last minute changes with this cpu but yes, their datasheets are bad. Im in same boat like you but with different cpu choice and needs.

 

[astyle]

I'd recommend the 7840U.

Reason being - the 7000 series of Ryzens are known to work fine under FreeBSD.

The 7000 series only recently got a FreeBSD-specific graphics driver that apparently works, and I have yet to try it on my Ryzen 5 7600. Graphics are unrelated to virtualization, because a VM will provide its own emulated GPU. PCI pass-through can be a pain, no matter the OS.

Virtualization should be fine. As the very first step, you just need to get into the BIOS and enable SMT for the processor. That is actually independent of the OS, it doesn't even matter if you're running FreeBSD or Windows.

I have not seen any info that reports success/failure of FreeBSD on Ryzen 8000 and newer. (But for Ryzen 9000, I've seen reports that to enable virtualization, you have to kiss the PSU first, and then make sure to push and hold Ctrl-Alt-Del while pushing the power button with your left thumb)