SPEC CPU2017 Platform Settings for Lenovo Systems

Operating System Tuning Parameters

sched_cfs_bandwidth_slice_us
This OS setting controls the amount of run-time(bandwidth) transferred to a run queue from the task's control group bandwidth pool. Small values allow the global bandwidth to be shared in a fine-grained manner among tasks, larger values reduce transfer overhead. The default value is 5000 (ns).
sched_latency_ns
This OS setting configures targeted preemption latency for CPU bound tasks. The default value is 24000000 (ns).
sched_migration_cost_ns
Amount of time after the last execution that a task is considered to be "cache hot" in migration decisions. A "hot" task is less likely to be migrated to another CPU, so increasing this variable reduces task migrations. The default value is 500000 (ns).
sched_min_granularity_ns
This OS setting controls the minimal preemption granularity for CPU bound tasks. As the number of runnable tasks increases, CFS(Complete Fair Scheduler), the scheduler of the Linux kernel, decreases the timeslices of tasks. If the number of runnable tasks exceeds sched_latency_ns/sched_min_granularity_ns, the timeslice becomes number_of_running_tasks * sched_min_granularity_ns. The default value is 8000000 (ns).
sched_wakeup_granularity_ns
This OS setting controls the wake-up preemption granularity. Increasing this variable reduces wake-up preemption, reducing disturbance of compute bound tasks. Lowering it improves wake-up latency and throughput for latency critical tasks, particularly when a short duty cycle load component must compete with CPU bound components. The default value is 10000000 (ns).
numa_balancing
This OS setting controls automatic NUMA balancing on memory mapping and process placement. NUMA balancing incurs overhead for no benefit on workloads that are already bound to NUMA nodes. Possible settings: For more information see the numa_balancing entry in the Linux sysctl documentation.
kernel.randomize_va_space (ASLR)
This setting can be used to select the type of process address space randomization. Defaults differ based on whether the architecture supports ASLR, whether the kernel was built with the CONFIG_COMPAT_BRK option or not, or the kernel boot options used.
Possible settings: Disabling ASLR can make process execution more deterministic and runtimes more consistent. For more information see the randomize_va_space entry in the Linux sysctl documentation.
Transparent Hugepages (THP)
THP is an abstraction layer that automates most aspects of creating, managing, and using huge pages. It is designed to hide much of the complexity in using huge pages from system administrators and developers. Huge pages increase the memory page size from 4 kilobytes to 2 megabytes. This provides 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. Most recent Linux OS releases have THP enabled by default.
THP usage is controlled by the sysfs setting /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled. Possible values: THP creation is controlled by the sysfs setting /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defrag. Possible values: An application that "always" requests THP often can benefit from waiting for an allocation until those huge pages can be assembled.
For more information see the Linux transparent hugepage documentation.
tuned-adm
The tuned-adm tool is a commandline interface for switching between different tuning profiles available to the tuned tuning daemon available in supported Linux distros. The default configuration file is located in /etc/tuned.conf and the supported profiles can be found in /etc/tune-profiles. Some profiles that may be available by default include: default, desktop-powersave, server-powersave, laptop-ac-powersave, laptop-battery-powersave, spindown-disk, throughput-performance, latency-performance, enterprise-storage. To set a profile, one can issue the command "tuned-adm profile (profile_name)". Here are details about relevant profiles:
dirty_background_ratio
Set through "echo 40 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_background_ratio". This setting can help Linux disk caching and performance by setting the percentage of system memory that can be filled with dirty pages.
dirty_ratio
Set through "echo 8 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_ratio". This setting is the absolute maximum amount of system memory that can be filled with dirty pages before everything must get committed to disk.
ksm/sleep_millisecs
Set through "echo 200 > /sys/kernel/mm/ksm/sleep_millisecs". This setting controls how many milliseconds the ksmd (KSM daemon) should sleep before the next scan.
swappiness
The swappiness value can range from 1 to 100. A value of 100 will cause the kernel to swap out inactive processes frequently in favor of file system performance, resulting in large disk cache sizes. A value of 1 tells the kernel to only swap processes to disk if absolutely necessary. This can be set through a command like "echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/swappiness"
Zone Reclaim Mode
Zone reclaim allows the reclaiming of pages from a zone if the number of free pages falls below a watermark even if other zones still have enough pages available. Reclaiming a page can be more beneficial than taking the performance penalties that are associated with allocating a page on a remote zone, especially for NUMA machines. To tell the kernel to free local node memory rather than grabbing free memory from remote nodes, use a command like "echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/zone_reclaim_mode"
Free the file system page cache
The command "echo 3> /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches" is used to free pagecache, dentries and inodes.
cpupower
The OS 'cpupower' utility is used to change CPU power governors settings. Available settings are:

Firmware / BIOS / Microcode Settings

Choose Operating Mode: (Default="Maximum Efficiency")
Select the operating mode based on your preference. Note, power savings and performance are also highly dependent on hardware and software running on system.
Determinism Slider:
Core Performance Boost:
Allows the processor to opportunistically increase a set of CPU cores higher than the CPU’s rated base clock speed, based on the number of active cores, power and thermal headroom in a system.
Global C-state Control:
C-states are idle power saving states. This setting enables and disables C-states on the server across all cores. When disabled, the CPU cores can only be in C0 (active) or C1 state. C1 state can never be disabled. A CPU core will be in the C1 state if the core is halted by the operating system.
cTDP:
Sets the maximum power consumption for CPU. cTDP is only configurable before OS boot.
cTDP Manual:
cTDP is the acronym for Configurable TDP. Some Rome CPU skus support a default TDP and a higher cTDP expressed in Watts.
ModelNormal TDPMinimum TDPMaximum TDP
EPYC 9654360320400
EPYC 9654P360320400
EPYC 9634290240300
EPYC 9554360320400
EPYC 9554P360320400
EPYC 9534280240300
EPYC 9474F360320400
EPYC 9454290240300
EPYC 9454P290240300
EPYC 9374F320320400
EPYC 9354280240300
EPYC 9354P280240300
EPYC 9334210200240
EPYC 9274F320320400
EPYC 9254200200240
EPYC 9224200200240
EPYC 9174F320320400
EPYC 9124200200240
EPYC 9754360320400
EPYC 9734340320400
EPYC 7663P240225240
EPYC 7643P225225240
EPYC 7303P130120150
EPYC 7303130120150
EPYC 7203P120120150
EPYC 7203120120150
EPYC 9684X400320400
Memory Speed:
Select the desired memory speed. Faster speeds offer better performance but consume more power.
4-Link xGMI Max Speed:
Sets the xGMI speed. N is the maximum speed and is auto-calculated from the system board capabilities. For system boards that do not support 4 discrete xGMI speed choices. some menu choices besides 'Minimum' will result in the xGMI speed getting set to the minimum value.
NUMA Nodes per Socket:
Specifies the number of desired NUMA nodes per socket. Default is NPS1.
Package Power Limit:
This Parameter sets the CPU package power limit. The maximum value allowed for PPL is the cTDP limit.
SMT Mode:
Can be used to disable symmetric multithreading. To re-enable SMT, a POWER CYCLE is needed after selecting Enable.
ACPI SRAT L3 Cache as NUMA Domain:
When enabled, the last level cache in each CCX in the system will be declared as a separate NUMA domain. It can improve performance for highly NUMA optimized workloads if workloads or components of workloads can be pinned to cores in a CCX and if they can benefit from sharing an L3 cache.
Efficiency Mode:
This setting enables an energy efficient mode of operation internal to AMD EPYC Gen2 processors at the expense of performance. The settings should be enabled when energy efficient operation is desired from the processor.
LCC as NUMA Node:
Exposes the processor's last level caches as NUMA nodes. When enabled, can improve performance for highly NUMA optimized workloads if workloads or components of workloads can be pinned into the caches.
DF P-states:
DF P-states is the processor uncore P-states. Setting DF P-states to P0, P1, P2, or P3 forces the uncore to operate in a specific P-state frequency.
SOC P-states:
Setting SOC P-states to P0, P1, P2, or P3 forces the uncore to operate in a specific P-state frequency.
L1 Stream HW Prefetcher:
Fetches the next cache line int to the L1 cache when cached lines are reused within a certain time period or accessed sequentially.
L2 Stream HW Prefetcher:
Fetches the next cache line int to the L2 cache when cached lines are reused within a certain time period or accessed sequentially.
P-state 1:
The processor P-state is the capability of running the processor at different voltage and/or frequency levels. Generally, P0 is the highest state resulting in maximum performance, while P1 is the second level state and will save power but at some penalty to CPU performance.
xGMI Maximum Link Width:
Sets the xGMI maximum allowable link width. The actual xGMI link width can vary between the minimum and maximum width selected.
DRAM Scrub Time:
Memory reliability parameter that sets the period of time between successive DRAM scrub events. Performance may be reduced with more frequent DRAM scrub events. Possible values:
DLWM Support:
Dynamic Link Width Management allows the processor to reduce the number of active xGMI lanes from 16 to 8 during periods of low socket-to-socket traffic.
Memory interleave:
This setting allows interleaved memory accesses across multiple memory channels in each socket, providing higher memory bandwidth.