Real Computer vs Virtual Computer Performance Showdown
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,397 words · ~6 min read
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we've done a lot of content using lime
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Tech's unraid operating system over the last little while some of it was focused
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on the safe redundant storage features of it like this one about repurposing
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older computer hardware to build a more robust NZ while some of it was more
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focused on the virtualization features of un raid that allow multiple virtual
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computers we've demoed as many as seven discrete gaming rigs at a time to live
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on top of that safe redundant storage
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but while we've discussed how cool that is and demonstrated really strong
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performance with these VMS or virtual machines we haven't Quantified Apples to
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Apples how they compare with running the operating system software directly on
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the hardware or the bare metal so let's
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do that today then shall
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we the G gtx980ti VR Edition from EVGA
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provides an industry-leading Graphics experience as well as a 5 and a/4 in Bay
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with easy access inputs for your VR device learn more at the link in the
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video description so I think we should open with a primer on what this word
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virtualization really means those of you who are intimately familiar with it can
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skip ahead because Taran gave me a hard time after we filmed the quadruple your
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networking Speed video about not really explaining what I was talking about and
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I was kind of like well it's kind of like SLI for networking and he's like well why didn't you just say that in the
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video so let's start with an analogy this is a gigabit network interface card
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or Nick it's physical because I can hold
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it in my hand and it's a network interface card because it connects
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whatever it's plugged into into a network and allows those two things to
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communicate or interface with each other at a speed of 1 gigabit or about 110
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megabytes per second pretty straightforward a virtual Nick is
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inherently more abstract while it does
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still require some Hardware I mean without a physical cable plugged into
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something it can't connect to a device outside of the machine on which it
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resides and in most cases it presents
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itself to the operating system as though it is a piece of Hardware it's actually
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just some clever software pretending to
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be Hardware which gives it some cool functionality not the least of which is
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that it is able to share its resources
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so back to our physical Nick again it's got that gigabit connection speed I
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talked about before well by creating two
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virtual Nicks we can actually share that
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speed between virtual devices like I did
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in the gaming Naas video where we had both a file server and a gaming machine
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using the same network connection so this is a very flexible solution because
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it means that either of these devices can use anywhere from zero all the way
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to 100% of the available resources
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sharing them dynamically and thanks to some really cool Tech from Intel and AMD
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this can even be done on things like CPUs meaning that you can create entire
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virtual computers full of virtual devices that share physical Resources
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with each other for better overall efficiency cool minus but what was up
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with that big asterisk a minute ago well the KVM kernel-based virtual machine
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project at red hat which is what unraid is using to power its virtualization is
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some pretty freaking impressive software but virtual devices do not have 100% of
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the performance of the physical devices because while the days of emulation
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that's a very slow way of doing this virtual device stuff are basically over
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there is still some overhead involved which thank you for your patience by the
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way brings us finally to the topic for today how much of our raw or bare metal
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performance are we giving up when we do a project like gaming NZ or seven Gamers
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one CPU so for this test I actually
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ended up using my personal rig because I had to work on it at home and I left my
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test bench at the office but the good news is that with its 5960x Rampage 5
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extreme 99 motherboard gtx980ti and 64
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gigs of Dominator memory my rig is pretty much the same as my usual test
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bench so I started then by establishing
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my Baseline performance I ran my test Suite with all eight cores active then I
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used the BIOS to turn off one of the
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physical cores on the CPU making it effectively a s core this was done
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because for the best performance on unraid anyway in games it's best to
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leave a core aside for unraid to use and
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give everything else to your virtual machine and while gaming actually didn't
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end up being affected negatively at all I mean these results are within my
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margin of error for these tests this was
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expected since games are not very CPU bound these days and the video card
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itself is actually passed through as a
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physical device to the virtual machine
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cinebench also showed the same result results our virtual 7 core and our bare
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metal 7 core performed the same leaving
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the only test that showed a dramatic difference being the synthetic memory
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and cache test in Ida 64 so depending on
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the workload it is possible that these extra Nan of additional latency could be
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a problem but from looking at performance in consumer oriented
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workloads it seems like we are pretty darn close to a VM being a Sol solid
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alternative to running straight on the hardware now then it's just got to get a
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little bit easier for everyday people to do because while some of the benefits uh
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virtualizing servers to consolidate functionality are more applicable to the
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data center there is some really cool stuff that I can Envision for a consumer
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facing product like unraid as well with
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the gaming Naz we did a little while back being just the tip of the iceberg
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tunnel bear is the easy to usee VPN app for mobile and desktop it lets you
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tunnel so to speak into up to 20
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different countries allowing you to browse the internet and use online
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services as though you are in a different country so you know let's say
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for example you want to access a website that is blocked in your country or you
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want to access a service that is just
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plain not available in your country due to licensing or whatever else ha screw
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that because they've got apps for iOS Android PC and mac and they also have a
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Chrome extension they're super easy to use just pick a country press the
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friendly looking button and boom your connection gets encrypted which by the
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way tunnel bear doesn't actually log any of your activity which is very cool and
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your public IP address gets switched so you show up as though you're in a
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different country and the best part of tunnel bear is that your first 500
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megabytes is absolutely free w and after
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that the unlimited plans are very reasonably priced so check it out at the
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link in the video description and uh by the way you can save 10% by using that
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link that's tunnel bear.com LT so thanks for watching guys if you
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