No VT-d support for IVB-E on R4E boards

[Nodens]

From all the research I've done on the subject of VT-d - Asus boards (except the c200 I think?) - are 'slated' on various forums for NOT supporting VT-d, some posts going so far as to say to avoid them.

It has been stated allover this thread, multiple times, that this is not true. VT-d works on ASUS boards just fine. It's just not implemented yet for the new chips. That's all. And for the RIVE there's a beta UEFI version in this thread that enables it.

That said the X79 appeals to a LOT of usage scenarios. I use it for game/software development and testing on VMs. Others use it for rendering, modeling, low cost non-critical servers etc etc. The amount of users of this type of virtualization on X79 is actually miniscule (and boils down to low cost non-critical VM servers or enthusiasts/power users wanting PCI Passthrough for gaming under Linux -- both legitimate usage scenarios of course but also both very small minorities), otherwise implementing support for IB-E VT-d would be higher in the priority list. Let's be realistic about our claims please.

What Praz is trying to say is that people that actually need this for critical work (business use) would have switched to a workstation/server type board by now because work can not wait. Hence if you don't actually need it for work, posting a "smart" comment about it every couple of days serves no purpose. It has been stated that it will be implemented for the new chips so please be patient. If this is critical to your work, switching to workstation/server board will save you time and money. If you're a large business customer then use your business channels to increase priority. Other than those options all you can do is wait till it's done as no amount of witty comments will make ASUS R&D implement it sooner than their schedule dictates/allows.

[-Nax-]

This is exactly what my post was in reference to. If VT-d was actually needed there is nobody that I know, including myself, who would still be posting one liners 5 months later. They would have moved to a working solution long ago.

Do you know why i do not buy an P9X79-E WS ? Hope is the answer ... after 2 month waiting you think that it will be release soon ... and after 3 month ... 4 month ... and here we go 5 month ... 6 month ...

So if Asus do not want to add vt-d can they just say it clearly ? Do not make people hope for month ...

The other reason is that i'm not really sure that P9X79-E WS support VT-D (ok asys says it does but you can't be sure if you do not really test it.)

Moreover i know that my quote isn't really important for Asus or for anybody else but if no one talk about it i'm sure that things will never change.

[Nodens]

Do you know why i do not buy an P9X79-E WS ? Hope is the answer ... after 2 month waiting you think that it will be release soon ... and after 3 month ... 4 month ... and here we go 5 month ... 6 month ...

So if Asus do not want to add vt-d can they just say it clearly ? Do not make people hope for month ...

Thing is they did say clearly that they will add it. They also said clearly that it's not high priority for these boards so if other things are of higher priority this gets moved down. So all you can do is wait.

The other reason is that i'm not really sure that P9X79-E WS support VT-D (ok asys says it does but you can't be sure if you do not really test it.)

It has also been said that workstation boards have this feature as high priority.

Moreover i know that my quote isn't really important for Asus or for anybody else but if no one talk about it i'm sure that things will never change.

What you seem to fail to understand is that talking about it will also not change anything. R&D does not even read the forum. And even if they did they would not prioritize this because someone is posting something about it every couple of days. Prioritizing is not made like that. These boards have overclocking stability and performance on the top of the list. So as long as there are related items on the TODO list, this will always come after them.
We have transferred the request and you already got a reply. It's in the works but it's not high priority for these boards. So it will be done when it's done. Any additional comments are only read by us and serve only as noise in the thread. We don't transfer the same things over and over because someone decides to post every couple of days about it. We asked, we got a reply and that's it. Now you wait till it's done. If you can't wait then we already discussed all the other available options.

[-Nax-]

I understand, but it makes me happy to post here ^^.

Well i sold my RIVBE and bought a P9X79-E WS ... like this i won't make problems here anymore ... the only things that i really do not understand is maybe the lack of beta bios with vt-d for cards different than RIVE (nothing for the expensive and all new RIVBE) ...

Real problem is that i spend time to choose a new computer and today it is really hard to choose ... socket 1150, perfect maimboard less core but faster, no vt-d with overclocking ... socket 2011 old mainboard with no native usb 3 support no thunderbolt one generation CPU late but more core and the important thing overclocking AND Vt-d.

I look at asus bios note for asus rampage iv gene:
Rampage-IV-Gene BIOS 1005
"1. Enhance PCIe 3.0 Support Capability.
2. Enhance DRAM Compatibility.
3. Enhance CPU OC capability.
4. Enable VT-d support for VT-d enabled processor.
5. Speed up S3 resume time "

Then i made my choice ... socket 2011 with Ivy-Bridge-E (more core less hot and power need)... then i installed vmware ESXI and WHAT THE HELL ??? No VT-D support for ivy-bridge-E ... when you realise this you realize that you make the wrong choice you lost your time and your money ... CAN YOU UNDERSTAND IT ? Can you understand how cool it is when you discover it ?

That's why ASUS should have been clear with VT-D support.

Well implement VT-D or not but ASUS must make a notice on every X79 mainboard ans CLEARLY explain if VT-D is enable or not.

[Nodens]

Well i sold my RIVBE and bought a P9X79-E WS ... like this i won't make problems here anymore ... the only things that i really do not understand is maybe the lack of beta bios with vt-d for cards different than RIVE (nothing for the expensive and all new RIVBE) ...

This has been answered already. There would be no beta UEFI for the RIVE had I not leaked it here to help people. A person with business channel access had it sent to them via said channels. They sent it to me to check it out and help them figure out a problem they had. So since people wanted IB-E VT-d I posted it here. It's that simple. Had that person not gone through his business channels, there would be no beta for the RIVE either. And If they didn't have an issue, unrelated to the beta UEFI as it was proved while solving it, they would not have sent it to me and no one would have gotten that either.

Real problem is that i spend time to choose a new computer and today it is really hard to choose ... socket 1150, perfect maimboard less core but faster, no vt-d with overclocking ... socket 2011 old mainboard with no native usb 3 support no thunderbolt one generation CPU late but more core and the important thing overclocking AND Vt-d.

I look at asus bios note for asus rampage iv gene:
Rampage-IV-Gene BIOS 1005
"1. Enhance PCIe 3.0 Support Capability.
2. Enhance DRAM Compatibility.
3. Enhance CPU OC capability.
4. Enable VT-d support for VT-d enabled processor.
5. Speed up S3 resume time "

Then i made my choice ... socket 2011 with Ivy-Bridge-E (more core less hot and power need)... then i installed vmware ESXI and WHAT THE HELL ??? No VT-D support for ivy-bridge-E ... when you realise this you realize that you make the wrong choice you lost your time and your money ... CAN YOU UNDERSTAND IT ? Can you understand how cool it is when you discover it ?

That's why ASUS should have been clear with VT-D support.

Well implement VT-D or not but ASUS must make a notice on every X79 mainboard ans CLEARLY explain if VT-D is enable or not.

UEFI 1005 was made waaay before IB-E came out. So it is quite obvious that its changelog does not apply to IB-E. You made a mistaken assumption. Had you read that changelog in a UEFI version higher than 4403 which introduces support for IB-E, you could have safely made that assumption but 1005 is dated 2011-12-26 how could it possibly mean that it enabled VT-d for chips that would appear 2 years later? IOMMU support is not the same in all chip architectures.
As much as I sympathize with you for the issue you got yourself into, there is nothing unclear in this. Perhaps next time you should ask prior to buying, when in doubt.

[-Nax-]

This has been answered already. There would be no beta UEFI for the RIVE had I not leaked it here to help people. A person with business channel access had it sent to them via said channels. They sent it to me to check it out and help them figure out a problem they had. So since people wanted IB-E VT-d I posted it here. It's that simple. Had that person not gone through his business channels, there would be no beta for the RIVE either. And If they didn't have an issue, unrelated to the beta UEFI as it was proved while solving it, they would not have sent it to me and no one would have gotten that either.



UEFI 1005 was made waaay before IB-E came out. So it is quite obvious that its changelog does not apply to IB-E. You made a mistaken assumption. Had you read that changelog in a UEFI version higher than 4403 which introduces support for IB-E, you could have safely made that assumption but 1005 is dated 2011-12-26 how could it possibly mean that it enabled VT-d for chips that would appear 2 years later? IOMMU support is not the same in all chip architectures.
As much as I sympathize with you for the issue you got yourself into, there is nothing unclear in this. Perhaps next time you should ask prior to buying, when in doubt.

I'm note agree, How can i imagine that VT-D is different between Ivy or Sandy ??? The CPU support VT-D and the mainboard is supporting VT-D on Sandy-Bridge-E, so how can i imagine it won't work with Ivy (delayed CPU moreover). Here is the only place where i found information about no support. The VT-D implementation that i quote in bios release was for me a implementation information due to lack of vt-d to C1 Sandy-Bridge-E not more (C2 with vt-d support was release later).

[Nodens]

Its not a matter of imagining. IOMMU is not the same on every chip architecture. For any different chip architecture support has to be build in the UEFI. Much like the UEFI has to support the new IMC on the new chip arch, so it has to support IOMMU etc. You just assumed that it would work "as is" due to lack of better knowledge on the subject. Chipset is capable, chip is capable but firmware has to be capable as well because that is what "drives" the board.

And regarding the SB-E and VT-d it's not exactly like that. C1 chips were supposedly VT-d capable as well. SB-E in general is, stepping has nothing to do with it. The C1 stepping was just bugged, it is not that it did not support VT-d, it did. It just wasn't working due to a bug. That is why Intel was offering free replacements of C1 to C2 (which many people took just for a chance of getting a better chip overclocking-wise--although they had no idea what VT-d is heh). The C2 VT-d support is not a new feature but a bug fix (and is actually the only difference between the steppings according to the Intel white papers--they rushed to fix this so if you read the white papers you'll see that all other issues were not fixed). The changelog on that UEFI version is just the implementation of VT-d for SB-E chips in general. Stepping has nothing to do with it.

EDIT: Here's the white paper in case you're interested: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...ion-update.pdf

Always have in mind that support for new chip architectures always has to be implemented in UEFI (or BIOS for older boards). That includes every feature of the chip. Never assume that a feature of a new chip arch would work "as is" on a chipset that is designed for a previous chip arch. There may be cases where a simple feature is 100% compatible and implementation equals just enabling and passing QA but even in that case it takes time and even when that happens have in mind that it is the exception and not the rule. Engineers have to study the white papers, identify differences, implement support for them without breaking existing stuff (solve any new chips arch quirks in the process) and then go through QA to make sure it works properly and doesn't break anything else (and it still may end up breaking something else because you can not test every possible scenario in house). It's not a fast process and you really don't want to cut any corners on this one. Those of us who swear by ASUS boards, we do it mainly for this. They got the most stable firmware around (anything better is server market segment and is updated slowly/once every couple of years) and they actually fix stuff unlike the majority of other OEMs. I have 19 UEFI versions in my RIVE repository and I'm sure I don't have all of them. I think they are around 28 or so and that's not including Shamino's special versions posted only in the forum. Find me another OEM with as many updates to their flagship X79 board or that is actually as stable or that can outperform a RIVE..I'm pretty sure it's impossible

[vacaloca]

This thread has become a bit long and it's not clear to me by scanning through it what the case is for the RIVE board (I have a 4930k):

1) I see a beta BIOS here for RIVE for Ivy chips. Any issues I should be aware of?

2) As per this link, it mentions that VT-d on Ivy chips should work with 4802 as well, is that also correct, so I won't need the beta BIOS above?

Sorry for the questions, but with the discussion on semantics I'm not clear if I need to flash the beta BIOS to be able to use the feature.

[Nodens]

This thread has become a bit long and it's not clear to me by scanning through it what the case is for the RIVE board (I have a 4930k):

I know and it's mostly repeating the same stuff..

1) I see a beta BIOS here for RIVE for Ivy chips. Any issues I should be aware of?

None that I know of.

2) As per this link, it mentions that VT-d on Ivy chips should work with 4802 as well, is that also correct, so I won't need the beta BIOS above?

I have not tested 4802 myself with IB-E but another user said that 4802 does not enable it for IB-E. Probably the next version will. Use the beta for now.

Sorry for the questions, but with the discussion on semantics I'm not clear if I need to flash the beta BIOS to be able to use the feature.

No problem

[-Nax-]

New bios 4804 ... new hope (but not VT-D confirmation in changelog) ... i will test it this week-end !