How much GPU ram is required to run about 8 to 10 virtual machines at the same time?

Question

I am doing a project that requires me to conduct tests on multiple virtual machines simultaneously. I just recently built a PC and here are the specs:

RAM: 32 GB - Processor: Intel i7-8700k - Storage: 500 GB Samsung SSD - OS: Ubuntu 16.04 - VM: Oracle VirtualBox (I'm still playing around with libvirt/kvm) I plan to allocate 4 GB memory for 2 main VMs and around 2 GB for the rest. I don't plan on gaming (atleast until this project is over) so this is entirely for my project. Project involves OpenStack, VMs, etc - setting up a mini cloud infrastructure for testing purpose.

I do have a (not so) old GPU - EVGA GeForce GTX 1050 - 2GB GDDR5

Since graphic cards are pretty difficult to get a hold of these days, I have ordered a MSI GTX Gaming X+ G1060GX6SC - 6GB which is on back-order and I can cancel any time.

My question is, will the GPU I currently have do the job? Should I cancel my back-order? Please advise.

Solution

You really do not need any GPU for a virtual machine. A virtual machine will only use the graphics card if you connect to it, but even then, its not actually using the GPU itself, but only an interface driver. Any GPU will do fine.

You are more concerned about the memory and the processor to handle this many Virtual PC's.

The only reason why you want good GPU's, is if the system allows linking the GPU's to the Virtual PC's, and you need to natively access them (this is not supported by VirtualBox anyway). This would mean one GPU per Virtual PC of cource and would only be benefitial if you plan to run GPU intensive apps or games inside the Virtual PC's.

Comments

[cybernard]

Nothing you have said so far reflects any special GPU usage. 4,4,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2 =24GB of CPU RAM.

[jpaugh]

Normally, your VM(s) will use the same (single) graphics card as the host, because they are displayed as windows within the host. Allocating GPUs really only comes into play when you're talking about running calculations on otherwise unused GPUs, such as Folding@Home.

[Keltari]

Depending on your VM usage, your single SSD might not have enough IO. Running disk intensive tests with a single drive containing the host and 10 VMs could bring the entire system to a halt. Obviously, run the tests and see what happens. You might have to purchase one or more extra SSDs.

[Ramhound]

Worth pointing out VMWare Workstation doesn’t support VT-d which is required to use the GPU within a virtual machine

[Ramhound]

VirtualBox doesn’t either: “AGP and certain PCI Express cards are not supported at the moment if they rely on GART (Graphics Address Remapping Table) unit programming for texture management as it does rather nontrivial operations with pages remapping interfering with IOMMU.“

[LPChip]

@Ramhound added a note. tnx. :)