CPU2017 Flag Description
Hewlett Packard Enterprise ProLiant DL325 Gen10 (2.10 GHz, AMD EPYC 7251)

Test sponsored by HPE

This result has been formatted using multiple flags files. The "default header section" from each of them appears next.


Default header section from aocc100-flags-revC-I

AMD Optimizing C/C++ Compiler Suite SPEC CPU2017 Flag Description

Compilers: AOCC Suite


Default header section from gcc

GNU Compiler Collection Flags

Flag descriptions for GCC, the GNU Compiler Collection

Note: The GNU Compiler Collection provides a wide array of compiler options, described in detail and readily available at https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Option-Index.html#Option-Index and https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gfortran/. This SPEC CPU flags file contains excerpts from and brief summaries of portions of that documentation.

SPEC's modifications are:
Copyright (C) 2006-2017 Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the Invariant Sections being "Funding Free Software", the Front-Cover Texts being (a) (see below), and with the Back-Cover Texts being (b) (see below). A copy of the license is included in your SPEC CPU kit at $SPEC/Docs/licenses/FDL.v1.3 and on the web at http://www.spec.org/cpu2017/Docs/licenses/FDL.v1.3. A copy of "Funding Free Software" is on your SPEC CPU kit at $SPEC/Docs/licenses/FundingFreeSW and on the web at http://www.spec.org/cpu2017/Docs/licenses/FundingFreeSW.

(a) The FSF's Front-Cover Text is:

A GNU Manual

(b) The FSF's Back-Cover Text is:

You have freedom to copy and modify this GNU Manual, like GNU software. Copies published by the Free Software Foundation raise funds for GNU development.


Base Compiler Invocation

C benchmarks

C++ benchmarks

Fortran benchmarks


Base Portability Flags

500.perlbench_r

502.gcc_r

505.mcf_r

520.omnetpp_r

523.xalancbmk_r

525.x264_r

531.deepsjeng_r

541.leela_r

548.exchange2_r

557.xz_r


Base Optimization Flags

C benchmarks

C++ benchmarks

Fortran benchmarks


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

This result has been formatted using multiple flags files. The "submit command" from each of them appears next.


Submit command from aocc100-flags-revC-I

AMD Optimizing C/C++ Compiler Suite SPEC CPU2017 Flag Description

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'

Note that some versions of numactl, particularly the version found on SLES 10, we have found that the utility incorrectly interprets application arguments as it's own. For example, with the command "numactl --physcpubind=0 -l a.out -m a", numactl will interpret a.out's "-m" option as it's own "-m" option. To work around this problem, a user can put the command to be run in a shell script and then run the shell script using numactl. For example: "echo 'a.out -m a' > run.sh ; numactl --physcpubind=0 bash run.sh"


Submit command from gcc

GNU Compiler Collection Flags

SPECrate runs might use one of these methods to bind processes to specific processors, depending on the config file.


Commands and Options Used for Feedback-Directed Optimization

No special commands are needed for feedback-directed optimization, other than the compiler profile  flags.


Shell, Environment, and Other Software Settings

This result has been formatted using multiple flags files. The "sw environment" from each of them appears next.


Sw environment from aocc100-flags-revC-I

AMD Optimizing C/C++ Compiler Suite SPEC CPU2017 Flag Description

Transparent Huge Pages (THP)

THP is an abstraction layer that automates most aspects of creating, managing, and using huge pages. THP is designed to hide much of the complexity in using huge pages from system administrators and developers, as normal huge pages must be assigned at boot time, can be difficult to manage manually, and often require significant changes to code in order to be used effectively. Most recent Linux OS releases have THP enabled by default

Linux Huge Page settings

If you need finer control and manually set the Huge Pages you can follow the below steps:

Note that further information about huge pages may be found in your Linux documentation file: /usr/src/linux/Documentation/vm/hugetlbpage.txt

ulimit -s <n>

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

ulimit -l <n>

Sets the maximum size of memory that may be locked into physical memory.

OMP_NUM_THREADS

Sets the maximum number of OpenMP parallel threads applications based on OpenMP may use.

powersave -f (on SuSE)

Makes the powersave daemon set the CPUs to the highest supported frequency.

/etc/init.d/cpuspeed stop (on Red Hat)

Disables the cpu frequency scaling program in order to set the CPUs to the highest supported frequency.

LD_LIBRARY_PATH

An environment variable set to include the LLVM, JEMalloc and SmartHeap libraries used during compilation of the binaries. This environment variable setting is not needed when building the binaries on the system under test.

kernel/randomize_va_space

This option can be used to select the type of process address space randomization that is used in the system, for architectures that support this feature.
*** 0 - Turn the process address space randomization off. This is the default for architectures that do not support this feature anyways, and kernels that are booted with the "norandmaps" parameter.
*** 1 - Make the addresses of mmap base, stack and VDSO page randomized. This, among other things, implies that shared libraries will be loaded to random addresses. Also for PIE-linked binaries, the location of code start is randomized. This is the default if the CONFIG_COMPAT_BRK option is enabled.
*** 2 - Additionally enable heap randomization. This is the default if CONFIG_COMPAT_BRK is disabled.

MALLOC_CONF

An environment variable set to tune the jemalloc allocation strategy during the execution of the binaries. This environment variable setting is not needed when building the binaries on the system under test.


Sw environment from gcc

GNU Compiler Collection Flags

One or more of the following may have been used in the run. If so, it will be listed in the notes sections. Here is a brief guide to understanding them:


Operating System Tuning Parameters

OS Tuning

ulimit:

Used to set user limits of system-wide resources. Provides control over resources available to the shell and processes started by it. Some common ulimit commands may include:

Performance Governors (Linux):

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.

To set the governor, use the following commmand: "cpupower frequency-set -r -g {desired_governor}"

Disabling Linux services:

Certain Linux services may be disabled to minimize tasks that may consume CPU cycles.

irqbalance:

Disabled through "service irqbalance stop". Depending on the workload involved, the irqbalance service reassigns various IRQ's to system CPUs. Though this service might help in some situations, disabling it can also help environments which need to minimize or eliminate latency to more quickly respond to events.

Tuning Kernel parameters:

The following Linux Kernel parameters were tuned to better optimize performance of some areas of the system:

tuned-adm:

The tuned-adm tool is a commandline interface for switching between different tuning profiles available to the tuned tuning daeomn 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.

Transparent Huge Pages (THP):

THP is an abstraction layer that automates most aspects of creating, managing, and using huge pages. THP is designed to hide much of the complexity in using huge pages from system administrators and developers, as normal huge pages must be assigned at boot time, can be difficult to manage manually, and often require significant changes to code in order to be used effectively. 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. Most recent Linux OS releases have THP enabled by default.

Linux Huge Page settings:

If you need finer control and manually set the Huge Pages you can follow the below steps:

Note that further information about huge pages may be found in your Linux documentation file: /usr/src/linux/Documentation/vm/hugetlbpage.txt


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.

AMD SMT Option (Default = Enabled):

This feature allows enabling or disabling of logical processor cores on processors supporting AMD SMT. When enabled, each physical processor core operates as two logical processor cores. When disabled, each physical core operates as only one logical processor core. Enabling this option can improve overall performance for applications that benefit from a higher processor core count.

Thermal Configuration (Default = Optimal Cooling):

This feature allows the user to select the fan cooling solution for the system. Values for this BIOS option can be:

Performance Determinism (Default = Performance Deterministic):

This option allows the processor to use a given performance level as the max cap, or to let the processor operate as close to the thermal design point (TDP) as possible. Values for this BIOS option can be:

Processor Power and Utilization Monitoring (Default = Enabled):

This BIOS option allows the enabling/disabling of iLo Processor State Mode Switching and Insight Power Management Processor Utilization Monitoring.

When set to disabled, the system will also set the Power Regulator mode to Static High Performance mode and the HP Power Profile mode to Custom. This option may be useful in some environments that require absolute minimum latency.

Workload Profile (Default = General Power Efficient Compute):

This option allows a user to choose a workload profile that best fits the user`s needs. The workload profiles control many power and performance settings that are relevant to general workload areas. Values for this BIOS option can be:

Minimum Processor Idle Power Core C-State (Default = C6 State):

This option can only be configured if the Workload Profile is set to Custom, or this option is not a dependent value for the Workload Profile. This feature selects the processor's lowest idle power state (C-state) that the operating system uses. The higher the C-state, the lower the power usage of that idle state (C6 is the lowest power idle state supported by the processor). Values for this setting can be:

Memory Patrol Scrubbing (Default = Enabled):

This option allows for correction of soft memory errors. Over the length of system runtime, the risk of producing multi-bit and uncorrected errors is reduced with this option. Values for this BIOS setting can be:

Last updated January 3, 2018.


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/cpu2017/flags/HPE-Platform-Flags-AMD-V1.2-EPYC-revD.html,
http://www.spec.org/cpu2017/flags/aocc100-flags-revC-I.2018-02-16.html,
http://www.spec.org/cpu2017/flags/gcc.2018-02-16.html.

You can also download the XML flags sources by saving the following links:
http://www.spec.org/cpu2017/flags/HPE-Platform-Flags-AMD-V1.2-EPYC-revD.xml,
http://www.spec.org/cpu2017/flags/aocc100-flags-revC-I.2018-02-16.xml,
http://www.spec.org/cpu2017/flags/gcc.2018-02-16.xml.


For questions about the meanings of these flags, please contact the tester.
For other inquiries, please contact info@spec.org
Copyright 2017-2019 Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation
Tested with SPEC CPU2017 v1.0.2.
Report generated on 2019-02-21 18:08:23 by SPEC CPU2017 flags formatter v5178.