Power Consumption when GPU idle with Passthrough

[Nafr1]

Hello,

Currently I have 2 headless machines that I use as homelab machines. 1 machine is running proxmox with around 4 VMs and 5 LXC. The 2nd machine is a windows machine with a GPU RTX 3060 that I use for occasional game streaming (using steamlink). Most of the time that gaming machine is off, I only turn it on few hours a week....

Now I was thinking to get rid of the 2nd (gaming machine) and instead install my RTX 3060 on 1st machine (i.e running Proxmox) and do a gpu passthrough to a Windows 11 VM for gaming.

My question is, since that windows VM will only be used few hours a week, does the gpu (RTX 3060) that is passthrough to the VM, will still consume the power even when the VM is off/suspended?

Based on your experiences, would you guys suggest to leave the gaming machine baremetal (current setup)... or does it make sense to have a gaming VM?

Your input would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[celemine1gig]

Just a quick comment, concerning the power-consumption, but intentionally not fully tackling your "1 all-in-one machine vs. 2 dedicated machines" thought:
For pass-through to work, you usually completely unload all the relevant drivers from the host OS (Proxmox here). Which means, that this virtualization host will not really touch the graphics card.
As a result, the power-consumption with the "gaming VM" in off-state, will be higher than it could be, as no driver will send the GPU into its lowest power states.
So, if you plan to use the "all-in-one" approach, then consider, that the gaming VM should ideally always be running, for the GPU to be handled by a matching driver.

 

[Nafr1]

Just a quick comment, concerning the power-consumption, but intentionally not fully tackling your "1 all-in-one machine vs. 2 dedicated machines" thought:
For pass-through to work, you usually completely unload all the relevant drivers from the host OS (Proxmox here). Which means, that this virtualization host will not really touch the graphics card.
As a result, the power-consumption with the "gaming VM" in off-state, will be higher than it could be, as no driver will send the GPU into its lowest power states.
So, if you plan to use the "all-in-one" approach, then consider, that the gaming VM should ideally always be running, for the GPU to be handled by a matching driver.

Thanks very much for your response... is there any way (running a script or something when that gaming VM is suspended, that script would completley shut down the GPU).... Ideally,, I would like to set the GPU to almost no or minimum power use when the VM is Off... That GPU is only going to be used in that gaming VM and outside of it, I would like to keep it off to save Power bill...

 

[leesteken]

Thanks very much for your response... is there any way (running a script or something when that gaming VM is suspended, that script would completley shut down the GPU).... Ideally,, I would like to set the GPU to almost no or minimum power use when the VM is Off... That GPU is only going to be used in that gaming VM and outside of it, I would like to keep it off to save Power bill...

You can use a hookscript ( https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/pve-admin-guide.html#_hookscripts ) to start another VM with a driver for the GPU or unbind the GPU from vfio-pci and load the Linux driver for the GPU. There are examples in other threads about this on the forum.