vSphere 8 Essentials with Intel Raptor Lake Series

[Loxodont]

I have vSphere 7 Essentials and I intend on purchasing vSphere 8 Essentials once I can install the software onto my new machine.

I have just built a brand new rackmount server with all the latest.
Asus Z790 Chipset
Intel NIC
Intel i9-13900KF (24 physical cores)
128GB DDR5 RAM
Samsung NVME

With the default Vsphere 8 Essentials USB key booted, I get a CPU Incompatibility Crash while booting into the Install Menu. I never get close enough to start the install.

HW Feature incompatibility detected; cannot start
FMS=06/b7/1 uCode=0x10b

Fatal CPU mismatch on feature: Intel Performance Monitoring
Fatal CPU mismatch on feature: Cores Per Die-> cpu8 value = 0x20 but cpu8 value= 0x10
Fatal CPU mismatch on feature: Cores Per tile-> cpu8 value = 0x20 but cpu8 value= 0x10
Fatal CPU mismatch on feature: Cores Per Module-> cpu8 value = 0x20 but cpu8 value= 0x10
Fatal CPU mismatch on feature: Hyperthreads per core-> cpu8 value = 0x1 but cpu8 value=0x2
Fatal CPU mismatch on feature: Cores per Package-> cpu8 value = 0x20 but cpu8 value= 0x10

Fatal CPU mismatch on feature: Cores Per Die-> cpu9 value = 0x20 but cpu8 value= 0x10
Fatal CPU mismatch on feature: Cores Per tile-> cpu9 value = 0x20 but cpu8 value= 0x10
Fatal CPU mismatch on feature: Cores Per Module-> cpu9 value = 0x20 but cpu8 value= 0x10
Fatal CPU mismatch on feature: Hyperthreads per core-> cpu9 value = 0x1 but cpu8 value=0x2
Fatal CPU mismatch on feature: Cores per Package-> cpu9 value = 0x20 but cpu8 value= 0x10

This is 100% reproducible so if you need more information, please ask.

Now I get that I am on the BLEEDING EDGE of available tech. The answer might simply be... there is no support for this.  Any idea when support WILL be available?  If there is a solution today with the current VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) 8.0.0 2022-10-11 and it requires me to build a custom install package, I'd love instructions on how to go that route.  Happy to include my results along this journey, as it seems I might be the first to experience this use case.

Onwards,

Lox

[IRIX201110141]

I have my doubt that you will ever see a "supportet" with a Desktop CPU setup.  Will it work somewhere in the future... maybe.

Because vSphere 8 is new... did you try ESX 7.0u3?

Regards,
Joerg

[William Lam]

This is not a vSphere 8 issue.

Starting with Intel 12th Gen CPU AND newer, you will face this issue due to a change in using the big.LITTLE cpu architecture. Going forward, you will need to apply an ESXi kernel option to by-pass the issue, which is described in detailed on my blog https://williamlam.com/2022/02/esxi-on-intel-nuc-12-extreme-dragon-canyon.html and this also applies to latest 13th Gen CPUs regardless of vSphere 7.x or 8.x

[IRIX201110141]

 

Regards.
Joerg

[GerhardUM]

William,

any update on whether ESSI will begin supporting the big little CPU architecture from Intel?

It’s been a year or so and I’m wondering if you guys had any conversations related to this from a product standpoint.

GB

[William Lam]

As shared in the past, there are no plans to support Intel Consumer CPU w/Hybrid Architecture for ESXi, especially with this only limited to Intel-based Consumer CPUs. Even AMD's implementation of Hybrid CPUs has consistent features across the cores and would be uniform from ESXi perspective. 

Your options are as I've suggested in past, disable either E or P Cores based on your needs or look at Intel Datacenter CPU or AMD ...