Linux on the Mac — state of the union [LWN.net]

Linux on the Mac — state of the union

Posted Dec 3, 2016 22:31 UTC (Sat) by bronson (subscriber, #4806)
In reply to: Linux on the Mac — state of the union by zlynx
Parent article: Linux on the Mac — state of the union

Good point. If PCIe has the bandwidth and latency, then I'm happy to consider it a virtual passthrough.

It's hard to picture it being sufficient for a 4K or 5K monitor... but busses these days are pretty amazing.

to post comments

Linux on the Mac — state of the union

Posted Dec 3, 2016 23:24 UTC (Sat) by excors (subscriber, #95769) [Link] (1 responses)

DisplayPort 1.3 apparently does around 26 Gbit/s, which is enough for 5K 60Hz. Modern NVIDIA GPUs support PCIe 3.0 x16, which is about 126 Gbit/s. That sounds like it should be plenty.

Linux on the Mac — state of the union

Posted Dec 4, 2016 18:29 UTC (Sun) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

I agree, it seems possible, especially since the hardware was made for gamers. But I don't think that PCIe supports bandwidth reservations does it? Display traffic is scary finicky, and more throughput doesn't cure latency problems.

If it can do seamless 60Hz 5K PCIe-passthrough while the CPU is pegged and some bursty disk/network I/O is going on, then I'll buy it. Especially with an external monitor or two plugged in.