Is Intel VT-d at all useful if direct device attachement is not required?

Question

It seems that one disadvantage of Intel i3 processors versus their more capable i5 and i7 brothers is the consistent lack of VT-d support. I understand the basics of IOMMU hardware and how it would benefit people that want their virtual machines to access their hardware directly.

What I am wondering is whether VT-d has any other uses besides that. Could it benefit in any way a user that is content letting their host OS handle the hardware? For example, is there any hypervisor that uses VT-d e.g. to speed-up paravirtualized devices somehow? Or, say, to run nested guests?

Note: I am not asking for either speculation or shopping advice - just concrete information, if possible...

Answer 1

No, there is not any benefit. VT-d (IOMMU) is just re-mapping of the device, it's pretty simple, actually re-mapped HW becomes unbinded and then host OS doesn't know about this device.

OT: For everybody who's checking his CPU, this is useful: http://ark.intel.com/search/advanced?VTD=true ... and beware of C1 stepping!