Platform Settings for 14G Dell PowerEdge Servers

Firmware / BIOS / Microcode Settings

C States:

C States allow the processor to enter lower power states when idle. When set to Enabled (OS controlled) or when set to Autonomous (if Hardware controlled is supported), the processor can operate in all available Power States to save power, but my increase memory latency and frequency jitter.

C1E:

When set to Enabled, the processor is allowed to switch to minimum performance state when idle.

CPU Interconnect Bus Link Power Management:

When enabled, CPU interconnect bus link power management can reduce overall system power a bit while slightly reducing system performance.

CPU Performance:

Maximum Performance is typically selected for performance-centric workloads where it is acceptable to consume additional power to achieve the highest possible performance for the computing environment. This mode drives processor frequency to the maximum across all cores (although idled cores can still be frequency reduced by C-state enforcement through BIOS or OS mechanisms if enabled). This mode also offers the lowest latency of the CPU Power Management Mode options, so is always preferred.

Energy Efficient Policy:

The CPU uses the setting to manipulate the internal behavior of the processor and determines whether to target higher performance or better power savings.

Energy Efficient Turbo:

Enables or disables the Energy Efficient Turbo.
Energy Efficient Turbo (EET) is a mode of operation where a processor's core frequency is adjusted within the turbo range based on workload.

Logical Processor:

Each processor core supports up to two logical processors. When set to Enabled, the BIOS reports all logical processors. When set to Disabled, the BIOS only reports one logical processor per core. Generally, higher processor count results in increased performance for most multi-threaded workloads and the recommendation is to keep this enabled. However, there are some floating point/scientific workloads, including HPC workloads, where disabling this feature may result in higher performance.

Memory Patrol Scrub:

Patrol Scrubbing searches the memory for errors and repairs correctable errors to prevent the accumulation of memory errors. When set to Disabled, no patrol scrubbing will occur. When set to Standard Mode, the entire memory array will be scrubbed once in a 24 hour period. When set to Extended Mode, the entire memory array will be scrubbed more frequently to further increase system reliability.

PCI ASPM L1 Link Power Management:

When enabled, PCIe Advanced State Power Management (ASPM) can reduce overall system power a bit while slightly reducing system performance.

NOTE: Some devices may not perform properly (they may hang or cause the system to hang) when ASPM is enable, for this reason L1 will only be enabled for validated qualified cards.

System Profile:

When set to Custom, you can change setting of each option. Under Custom mode when C state is enabled, Monitor/Mwait should also be enabled.

Sub NUMA Cluster:

When ENABLED, Sub NUMA Clustering (SNC) is a feature for breaking up the LLC into disjoint clusters based on address range, with each cluster bound to a subset of the memory controllers in the system. It improves average latency to the LLC.

Uncore Frequency:

Selects the Processor Uncore Frequency.
Dynamic mode allows processor to optimize power resources across the cores and uncore during runtime. The optimization of the uncore frequency to either save power or optimize performance is influenced by the setting of the Energy Efficiency Policy.

Virtualization technology:

When set to Enabled, the BIOS will enable processor Virtualization features and provide the virtualization support to the Operating System (OS) through the DMAR table. In general, only virtualized environments such as VMware(r) ESX (tm), Microsoft Hyper-V(r) , Red Hat(r) KVM, and other virtualized operating systems will take advantage of these features. Disabling this feature is not known to significantly alter the performance or power characteristics of the system, so leaving this option Enabled is advised for most cases.

nohz_full:

This kernel option sets adaptive tick mode (NOHZ_FULL) to specified processors. Since the number of interrupts is reduced to ones per second, latency-sensitive applications can take advantage of it.