NVIDIA Exam NCA-AIIO Topic 1 Question 1 Discussion

In a virtualized cloud environment with NVIDIA GPUs, underperformance in one VM despite identical GPU allocation suggests a configuration issue. Misconfigured GPU passthrough settings---where the GPU isn't directly accessible to the VM due to improper hypervisor setup (e.g., PCIe passthrough in KVM or VMware)---is the most likely cause. NVIDIA's vGPU or passthrough documentation stresses correct configuration for full GPU performance; errors here limit the VM's access to GPU resources, causing slowdowns.

Inadequate storage I/O (Option B) or CPU allocation (Option C) could affect performance but would likely impact all VMs similarly if uniform. An incorrect GPU driver (Option D) might cause failures, not just underperformance, and is less likely in a managed cloud. Passthrough misalignment is a common NVIDIA virtualization issue.