CPU2006 Flag Description
Hewlett-Packard Company HP Integrity Superdome X (160 core, 2.20 GHz, Intel Xeon E7-4830 v2)

Copyright © 2006 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved.


Base Compiler Invocation

C benchmarks

C++ benchmarks

Fortran benchmarks

Benchmarks using both Fortran and C


Peak Compiler Invocation

C benchmarks

C++ benchmarks

Fortran benchmarks

Benchmarks using both Fortran and C


Base Portability Flags

410.bwaves

416.gamess

433.milc

434.zeusmp

435.gromacs

436.cactusADM

437.leslie3d

444.namd

447.dealII

450.soplex

453.povray

454.calculix

459.GemsFDTD

465.tonto

470.lbm

481.wrf

482.sphinx3


Peak Portability Flags

410.bwaves

416.gamess

433.milc

434.zeusmp

435.gromacs

436.cactusADM

437.leslie3d

444.namd

447.dealII

450.soplex

453.povray

454.calculix

459.GemsFDTD

465.tonto

470.lbm

481.wrf

482.sphinx3


Base Optimization Flags

C benchmarks

C++ benchmarks

Fortran benchmarks

Benchmarks using both Fortran and C


Peak Optimization Flags

C benchmarks

433.milc

470.lbm

482.sphinx3

C++ benchmarks

444.namd

447.dealII

450.soplex

453.povray

Fortran benchmarks

410.bwaves

416.gamess

434.zeusmp

437.leslie3d

459.GemsFDTD

465.tonto

Benchmarks using both Fortran and C

435.gromacs

436.cactusADM

454.calculix

481.wrf


Implicitly Included Flags

This section contains descriptions of flags that were included implicitly by other flags, but which do not have a permanent home at SPEC.


Commands and Options Used to Submit Benchmark Runs

submit= MYMASK=`printf '0x%x' $((1<<$SPECCOPYNUM))`; /usr/bin/taskset $MYMASK $command
When running multiple copies of benchmarks, the SPEC config file feature submit is used to cause individual jobs to be bound to specific processors. This specific submit command, using taskset, is used for Linux64 systems without numactl.
Here is a brief guide to understanding the specific command which will be found in the config file:
submit= numactl --localalloc --physcpubind=$SPECCOPYNUM $command
When running multiple copies of benchmarks, the SPEC config file feature submit is used to cause individual jobs to be bound to specific processors. This specific submit command is used for Linux64 systems with support for numactl.
Here is a brief guide to understanding the specific command which will be found in the config file:

Shell, Environment, and Other Software Settings

numactl --interleave=all "runspec command"
Launching a process with numactl --interleave=all sets the memory interleave policy so that memory will be allocated using round robin on nodes. When memory cannot be allocated on the current interleave target fall back to other nodes.
KMP_STACKSIZE
Specify stack size to be allocated for each thread.
KMP_AFFINITY
Syntax: KMP_AFFINITY=[<modifier>,...]<type>[,<permute>][,<offset>]
The value for the environment variable KMP_AFFINITY affects how the threads from an auto-parallelized program are scheduled across processors.
It applies to binaries built with -openmp and -parallel (Linux and Mac OS X) or /Qopenmp and /Qparallel (Windows).
modifier:
    granularity=fine Causes each OpenMP thread to be bound to a single thread context.
type:
    compact Specifying compact assigns the OpenMP thread <n>+1 to a free thread context as close as possible to the thread context where the <n> OpenMP thread was placed.
    scatter Specifying scatter distributes the threads as evenly as possible across the entire system.
permute: The permute specifier is an integer value controls which levels are most significant when sorting the machine topology map. A value for permute forces the mappings to make the specified number of most significant levels of the sort the least significant, and it inverts the order of significance.
offset: The offset specifier indicates the starting position for thread assignment.

Please see the Thread Affinity Interface article in the Intel Composer XE Documentation for more details.

Example: KMP_AFFINITY=granularity=fine,scatter
Specifying granularity=fine selects the finest granularity level and causes each OpenMP or auto-par thread to be bound to a single thread context.
This ensures that there is only one thread per core on cores supporting HyperThreading Technology
Specifying scatter distributes the threads as evenly as possible across the entire system.
Hence a combination of these two options, will spread the threads evenly across sockets, with one thread per physical core.

Example: KMP_AFFINITY=compact,1,0
Specifying compact will assign the n+1 thread to a free thread context as close as possible to thread n.
A default granularity=core is implied if no granularity is explicitly specified.
Specifying 1,0 sets permute and offset values of the thread assignment.
With a permute value of 1, thread n+1 is assigned to a consecutive core. With an offset of 0, the process's first thread 0 will be assigned to thread 0.
The same behavior is exhibited in a multisocket system.
OMP_NUM_THREADS
Sets the maximum number of threads to use for OpenMP* parallel regions if no other value is specified in the application. This environment variable applies to both -openmp and -parallel (Linux and Mac OS X) or /Qopenmp and /Qparallel (Windows). Example syntax on a Linux system with 8 cores: export OMP_NUM_THREADS=8
Set stack size to unlimited
The command "ulimit -s unlimited" is used to set the stack size limit to unlimited.
Free the file system page cache
The command "echo 1> /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches" is used to free up the filesystem page cache.

Red Hat Specific features

Transparent Huge Pages
On RedHat EL 6 and later, Transparent Hugepages increase the memory page size from 4 kilobytes to 2 megabytes. Transparent Hugepages provide significant performance advantages on systems with highly contended resources and large memory workloads. If memory utilization is too high or memory is badly fragmented which prevents hugepages being allocated, the kernel will assign smaller 4k pages instead.
Hugepages are used by default unless the /sys/kernel/mm/redhat_transparent_hugepage/enabled field is changed from its RedHat EL6 default of 'always'.

Operating System Tuning Parameters

OS Tuning

submit= MYMASK=`printf '0x%x' \$((1<<\$SPECCOPYNUM))`; /usr/bin/taskset \$MYMASK $command

When running multiple copies of benchmarks, the SPEC config file feature submit is sometimes used to cause individual jobs to be bound to specific processors. This specific submit command is used for Linux. The description of the elements of the command are:

Using numactl to bind processes and memory to cores

For multi-copy runs or single copy runs on systems with multiple sockets, it is advantageous to bind a process to a particular core. Otherwise, the OS may arbitrarily move your process from one core to another. This can effect performance. To help, SPEC allows the use of a "submit" command where users can specify a utility to use to bind processes. We have found the utility 'numactl' to be the best choice.

numactl runs processes with a specific NUMA scheduling or memory placement policy. The policy is set for a command and inherited by all of its children. The numactl flag "--physcpubind" specifies which core(s) to bind the process. "-l" instructs numactl to keep a process memory on the local node while "-m" specifies which node(s) to place a process memory. For full details on using numactl, please refer to your Linux documentation, 'man numactl'

numactl --interleave=all "runspec command"

Launching a process with numactl --interleave=all sets the memory interleave policy so that memory will be allocated using round robin on nodes. When memory cannot be allocated on the current interleave target fall back to other nodes.

Transparent Huge Pages

Transparent Hugepages increase the memory page size from 4 kilobytes to 2 megabytes. Transparent Hugepages provide significant performance advantages on systems with highly contended resources and large memory workloads. If memory utilization is too high or memory is badly fragmented which prevents hugepages being allocated, the kernel will assign smaller 4k pages instead.

On RedHat EL6 and later, Transparent Hugepages are used by default if /sys/kernel/mm/redhat_transparent_hugepage/enabled is set to always. The default value is always.

On SUSE SLES11 and later, Transparent Hugepages are used by default if /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled is set to always. The default value is always.

ulimit -s [n | unlimited] (Linux)

Sets the stack size to n kbytes, or unlimited to allow the stack size to grow without limit.

KMP_STACKSIZE=integer[B|K|M|G|T] (Linux)

Sets the number of bytes to allocate for each parallel thread to use as its private stack. Use the optional suffix B, K, M, G, or T, to specify bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, or terabytes. The default setting is 2M on IA32 and 4M on IA64.

KMP_AFFINITY=physical,n (Linux)

Assigns threads to consecutive physical processors (for example, cores), beginning at processor n. Specifies the static mapping of user threads to physical cores, beginning at processor n. For example, if a system is configured with 8 cores, and OMP_NUM_THREADS=8 and KMP_AFFINITY=physical,2 are set, then thread 0 will mapped to core 2, thread 1 will be mapped to core 3, and so on in a round-robin fashion.

OMP_NUM_THREADS=n

This Environment Variable sets the maximum number of threads to use for OpenMP* parallel regions to n if no other value is specified in the application. This environment variable applies to both -openmp and -parallel (Linux) or /Qopenmp and /Qparallel (Windows). Example syntax on a Linux system with 8 cores:
export OMP_NUM_THREADS=8
Default is the number of cores visible to the OS.

vm.max_map_count=-n (Linux)

The maximum number of memory map areas a process may have. Memory map areas are used as a side-effect of calling malloc, directly by mmap and mprotect, and also when loading shared libraries.

intel_idle.max_cstate=n kernel boot option (Linux)

Linux has a kernel boot option to control C-States - similar to how C-States can be controlled through BIOS options. This feature selects the processor's lowest idle core power state (C-state) which the operating system will utilize. The higher the C-State, the lower the power usage of that idle state (3 is the lowest power idle core state supported by the processor). Values for this setting can be:

Free the file system page cache (Linux)

The command "echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches" is used to free up the filesystem page cache.

Performance Governors (Linux)

The in-kernel CPU frequency governors are pre-configured power schemes for the CPU. The CPUfreq governors use P-states to change frequencies and lower power consumption. The dynamic governors can switch between CPU frequencies, based on CPU utilization to allow for power savings while not sacrificing performance.

For the Performance Governor the CPU frequency is statically set to the highest possible for maximum performance.

On SUSE SLES 11 and 12 systems you can set the in-kernel CPU frequency governor for all CPUs to the Performance Governor with the following command:

Disable unused Linux services via stop_services.sh script.

The following unused Linux services may be disabled before the run in simple shell scirpt via the command "service {name} stop": abrt-ccpp, abrt-oops, abrtd, acpid, atd, auditd, autofs, avahi-daemon, cgconfig, cpuspeed, crond, cups, haldaemon, irqbalance, kdump, libvirt-guests, mcelogd, mdmonitor, messagebus, portreserve, postfix, rhnsd, rhsmcertd, rpcbind, rpcgssd, rpcidmapd, certmonger, lvm2-monitor, netfs, and sysstat. If the stop_services.sh script was run, it will be stated in the "Operating System Notes" or "General Note" section of the report.


Firmware / BIOS / Microcode Settings

Firmware Settings

One or more of the following settings may have been set. If so, the "Platform Notes" section of the report will say so; and you can read below to find out more about what these settings mean.

Intel Hyperthreading Options (Default = Enabled):

This feature allows enabling/disabling of logical processor cores on processors supporting Intel's Hyper-Threading Technology. This option may improve overall performance for applications that will benefit from higher processor core count.

Processor Core Disable (Intel Core Select) (Default = number of physical cores/processor):

This feature allows disabling of processor cores using Intel's Core Multi-Processing (CMP) Technology. This option allows disabling of a specific number of the cores on each physical processor. This option has the following potential uses: Reduce processor power usage and potentially improve performance/watt with some applications; improve overall performance for applications that will benefit from higher performance cores rather than more processing cores; address issues with software that is licensed on a per-core basis.

Specific cores for each socket (for example core0, core1, etc., core14) can be explicitly enabled or disabled. By default all cores of all sockets are enabled.

Memory RAS Configuration (Default = RAS):

This option controls the configuration of memory reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) features. When setting this option to Maximum Performance system performance is optimized. When setting this option to RAS (also known as lockstep mode) system reliability is enhanced with a degree of memory redundancy.

An article describing the Intel IvyBridge-EX implementation of these two modes can be found at:

First created October 30th, 2014.


Flag description origin markings:

[user] Indicates that the flag description came from the user flags file.
[suite] Indicates that the flag description came from the suite-wide flags file.
[benchmark] Indicates that the flag description came from a per-benchmark flags file.

The flags files that were used to format this result can be browsed at
http://www.spec.org/cpu2006/flags/Intel-ic14.0-official-linux64-revC.html,
http://www.spec.org/cpu2006/flags/HP-Platform-Flags-Intel-V1.2-Integrity-revA.html.

You can also download the XML flags sources by saving the following links:
http://www.spec.org/cpu2006/flags/Intel-ic14.0-official-linux64-revC.xml,
http://www.spec.org/cpu2006/flags/HP-Platform-Flags-Intel-V1.2-Integrity-revA.xml.


For questions about the meanings of these flags, please contact the tester.
For other inquiries, please contact webmaster@spec.org
Copyright 2006-2015 Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation
Tested with SPEC CPU2006 v1.2.
Report generated on Tue Apr 21 18:22:40 2015 by SPEC CPU2006 flags formatter v6906.