SPEC CPU2006 Platform Settings for Intel-based systems

Firmware / BIOS / Microcode Settings

Hardware Prefetcher:

This BIOS option allows the enabling/disabling of a processor mechanism to prefetch data into the cache according to a pattern-recognition algorithm. This default setting is "Enabled".

In some cases, setting this option to Disabled may improve performance. Users should only disable this option after performing application benchmarking to verify improved performance in their environment.

Adjacent Cache Line Prefetch:

This BIOS option allows the enabling/disabling of a processor mechanism to fetch the adjacent cache line within a 128-byte sector that contains the data needed due to a cache line miss. This default setting is "Enabled".

In some cases, setting this option to Disabled may improve performance. Users should only disable this option after performing application benchmarking to verify improved performance in their environment.

Hyper-Threading:

Disabling Intel's Hyper-Threading Technology reduces the number of threads per core to 1. The default is Enabled; in this case each core provides additional resources for executing up to 2 threads in parallel.

Energy Performance:

This item decides the energy efficiency policy which is the energy per performance rate. This item is displayed when the EIST item is set to [Enabled].

Memory Voltage:

Specify the operating voltage of memory. The memory voltage may differ from that specified in this parameter depending on memory configuration.

Package C State Limit:

Specifies the lowest C-state for the processor package. This feature does not limit the processors to enter any of the core C-states. This default setting is "No Limit", all C-States supported by the processor are available. If set to "C0", no package C-state support.