SPEC CPU2006 Platform Settings for Sugon Intel-based Systems

Firmware / BIOS / Microcode Settings

Energy Performance:

This BIOS switch allows 4 options: "Balanced performance", "Performance", "Balanced Energy" and "Energy Efficient". The default is "Balanced Performance", which has been optimized to maximum power savings with minimal impact on performance. "Performance" disables all power management options with any impact on performance. "Balanced Energy" is optimized for power efficiency and "Energy Efficient" for power savings. The BIOS switch is only selectable if the BIOS switch "Power Technology" is set to "Custom".

The two options "Balanced Performance" and "Balanced Energy" should always be the first choice as both options optimize the efficiency of the system. In cases where the performance is not sufficient or the power consumption is too high the two options "Performance" or "Energy Efficient" could be an alternative.

QPI (QuickPath Interconnect) Snoop Mode:

There're two switches below this option menu: "COD" and "Early Snoop", and each of them could be configured as "auto","disable","enable".Both of the default option are "auto". These two BIOS switches should be configured as one of the following four combinations:

- "COD"=enable, "Early Snoop"=disable:

When configured with such options, the system will work on "Cluster on Die" mode, which logically splits a socket into 2 NUMA domains that are exposed to the OS with half the amount of cores and LLC assigned to each NUMA domain in a socket. This mode utilizes an on-die directory cache in memory directory bits to determine whether a snoop needs to be sent. Use this mode for highly NUMA optimized workloads to get the lowest local memory latency and highest local memory bandwidth for NUMA workloads.

- "COD"=disable, "Early Snoop"=enable:

In this case, the system will use "Early Snoop" mode for workloads that are memory latency sensitive or for workloads that benefit from fast cache-to-cache transfer latencies from the remote socket. Snoops are sent out earlier, which is why memory latency is lower in this mode.

- "COD"=disable, "Early Snoop"=disable:

In this case, the system will use "Home Snoop" mode for NUMA workloads that are memory bandwidth sensitive and need both local and remote memory bandwidth. In "Home Snoop" and "Early Snoop" modes, snoops are always sent, but they originate from different places: the caching agent(earlier) in "Early Snoop" mode and the home agent (later) in "Home Snoop" mode.

- "COD"=auto, "Early Snoop"=auto:

This case is equally to "COD"=disable, "Early Snoop"=enable. See the configuration above.

CPU C1E Support

Enabling this option which is the default allows the processor to transmit to its minimum frequency when entering the power state C1. If the switch is disabled the CPU stays at its maximum frequency in C1. Because of the increase of power consumption users should only select this option after performing application benchmarking to verify improved performance in their environment.

QPI Link Frequency Select

This switch allows the configuration of the QPI link speed. Default is auto, which configures the optimal link speed automatically.

Power C-States:

Enabling the CPU States causes the CPU to enter a low-power mode when the CPU is idle.

Turbo Mode:

Enabling turbo mode can boost the overall CPU performance when all CPU cores are not being fully utilized.

Turbo Boost:

This BIOS option can be set to Power Optimized or Traditional. When Power Optimized is selected, Intel Turbo Boost Technology engages after Performance state P0 is sustained for longer than two seconds. When Traditional is selected, Intel Turbo Boost Technology is engaged even for P0 requests less than two seconds.

Hyper-threading:

This BIOS setting enables/disables Intel's Hyper-Threading (HT) Technology. With HT Technology, the operating system can execute two threads in parallel within each processor core.

NUMA:

This BIOS setting enables/disables Intel's Hyper-Threading (HT) Technology. With HT Technology, the operating system can execute two threads in parallel within each processor core.

Enforce POR:

This BIOS switch provider with two options: Enabled or Disabled, and the default is Enabled.

When this BIOS switch set as Enabled, the DIMMs should be populated as Intel recommended, and if populated as 2 DPC (Dimms Per Channel) in 2 SPC (Slots Per Channel) product or 3 SPC product with RDIMM memory, the system could support 1866 MHz at most;if populated as 3 DPC in 3 SPC product with RDIMM memory, the supported highest frequency of memory would be 1600 MHz. Of course, if populated with only 1 DPC in the system, the supported highest frequecy of memory is 2133 MHz. For LRDIMM memory, if populated with less than 2 DPC, the supported highest frequency is 2133 MHz, and if populated with 3 DPC in 3 SPC product, the supported highest frequency is 1600 MHz.

When this BIOS switch set as Disabled, the DIMMs population could go above Intel recommended. If populated as 2 DPC in 2 SPC product, or populated with 2 or 3 DPC in 3 SPC product, and with the RDIMM or LRDIMM memory, the system could support 2133 MHz or higher frequency. But one point should be noticed is that the rate of the memory may be not as high as you expected when populated as 3 DPC in 3 SPC product, although you are told by the dmidecode tool in the operating system such as RHEL6.4 that all of the memory are working at the expected frequency(e.g. 2133 MHz or higher frequency set in the BIOS DDR Speed option). So we do not recommend the memory populated this way.

Memory Frequency:

This BIOS switch allows options:Auto,3200,3000,2993,2800,2667,2600,2400,2200,2133,2000,1867,1800,1600,1400,1333 and four "reserved" options, the default is Auto.

-Auto When set the Memory Frequency as this option, the motherboard allows the memory to be clocked to the highest supported frequency.

-3200,3000,2993,2800,2667,2600,2400,2200,2000,1800,1400 and four "reserved" options were designed for the memory and processors which could support them in the future.

-2133,1867,1600,1333 is in the common use in Sugon product. These options allow the memory to be clocked to the specified frequency. These options will take effect only if the memory and processor could support such a frequency.