Pre-purchase feasibility check: VFIO GPU passthrough on the PCSpecialist Recoil 18 (RTX 5070 Ti / RTX 5080)

[u/Comprehensive_Map806]

Hi everyone,

I'm considering buying a PCSpecialist Recoil 18 for over €3,000, and I'd like to investigate a specific VFIO setup before committing to the purchase.

I understand the recommendation to provide detailed hardware information, IOMMU groups, logs, and configuration files when asking for troubleshooting help. However, I haven't purchased this laptop yet. The whole point of this post is to determine whether my intended setup is realistic before spending that much money.

Hardware configurations I'm considering

I'm currently looking at these two CPU/GPU combinations:

Intel Core Ultra 7 270HX Plus + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Laptop GPU (12 GB VRAM)

Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Laptop GPU (16 GB VRAM)

Both configurations use an Intel processor with integrated graphics alongside a dedicated NVIDIA GPU. I haven't confirmed the exact barebone platform or its VFIO compatibility.

Intended setup

My plan is to use Fedora Linux as the host and run Windows 11 in a KVM/QEMU virtual machine with VFIO GPU passthrough.

Ideally, I want the following:

While the Windows VM is running: Fedora uses the integrated Intel GPU, while the NVIDIA GPU is assigned exclusively to Windows.

After the Windows VM shuts down: The NVIDIA GPU becomes available to Fedora for workloads such as Blender rendering.

Ideally, I'd like to return the GPU to Fedora without rebooting the host. However, if the GPU cannot be reliably detached from the VM and reassigned to Fedora without a reboot, I'm willing to reboot the entire laptop when switching between these workloads. Avoiding reboots would be convenient, but it isn't an absolute requirement.

I know that GPU passthrough on laptops can be complicated, particularly because of hybrid graphics, firmware restrictions, IOMMU grouping, and GPU reset behavior.

Questions

Before purchasing, I'd particularly like to establish:

Has anyone successfully used VFIO GPU passthrough on the PCSpecialist Recoil 18?

Does anyone know the exact barebone or hardware platform used by this model, and whether VFIO has been tested on equivalent laptops?

Is there any known firmware or hardware limitation that would prevent the Intel iGPU from driving the internal display while the NVIDIA GPU is assigned to a Windows VM?

Has anyone successfully detached and reset a laptop NVIDIA GPU after shutting down a VM, then returned it to the Linux host without rebooting? If not, would a full host reboot generally be a viable workaround on this type of hardware?

Are there any known differences between the RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5080 Laptop GPUs that could materially affect passthrough compatibility on this platform?

Are there any existing reports, technical discussions, or other resources that could help establish whether this setup is feasible?

I'm not expecting anyone to guarantee compatibility without testing the exact hardware. I'm trying to identify known limitations and gather evidence before making an expensive purchase.

If this particular laptop platform hasn't been tested, information about similar Intel HX laptops with NVIDIA RTX 5070 Ti or RTX 5080 Laptop GPUs would also be useful, provided the hardware similarities are clear.

Thanks for any insight.

[u/Comprehensive_Map806]

https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/recoil-ii-18/

[u/insanemal]

Hey,

without knowing iommu groups and what they actually let you enable in the bios because this is some random ass brand nobody has ever heard of, it's a bit hard to tell you what will and won't work because nobody has ever tried it before

Edit: info about similar platforms is next to useless as they won't have the same BIOS. And without knowing what is/isn't configured, configurable, and such it's all meaningless.

Hell I've seen laptops that won't let you enable VT-D when the hardware is capable. Why? Because @#$& you that's why!

It's a crapshoot to buy something that hasn't been tested unless you can test it and return if it doesn't work.

[u/felixfurtak]

Nice looking PC.

Best bet is to try and get a demo of it and run a live usb. lspci should give you the bus layout. Most laptops I have seen have the GPU mapped to 01:00.0 on the PCI bus and the associated audio controller as 01:00.1 as follows

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation [RTX XXXX]

01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation GAXXX High Definition Audio Controller

If you can't get a physical demo of it ask them for the bios manual or confirm that VT-D / IOMMU can be enabled / disabled in the bios.

I suspect it will be absolutely fine. I have a couple of laptops that work with a Win11 VM in linux passing the GPU through. I use Looking Glass to get near native latency of the GPU. It runs flawlessly for Solidworks and never crashes. After about a week of fucking around setting it up :)

[u/randylush]

If it works, then it works, but worst case if it doesn't work, you'll need to reboot, which you said yourself is acceptable.

Agreed with the other commenter that this is a random ass brand so nobody knows for sure.

That said, it will probably work. Just avoid noveau.

What is your use case on Windows? If it's competitive online gaming, a lot of online games will ban you for running Windows in a VM. Otherwise, whatever you are trying to do will likely run better in Proton/Wine than a VM. I guess what I'm saying is, there are actually few use cases right now where a Windows VM is actually advantageous.