CPU2017 Flag Description
Dell Inc. PowerEdge R740xd (Intel Xeon Gold 6246, 3.30GHz)

Copyright © 2016 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved.


Base Compiler Invocation

C benchmarks

Fortran benchmarks

Benchmarks using both Fortran and C

Benchmarks using Fortran, C, and C++


Peak Compiler Invocation

C benchmarks

Fortran benchmarks

Benchmarks using both Fortran and C

Benchmarks using Fortran, C, and C++


Base Portability Flags

603.bwaves_s

607.cactuBSSN_s

619.lbm_s

621.wrf_s

627.cam4_s

628.pop2_s

638.imagick_s

644.nab_s

649.fotonik3d_s

654.roms_s


Peak Portability Flags

603.bwaves_s

607.cactuBSSN_s

619.lbm_s

621.wrf_s

627.cam4_s

628.pop2_s

638.imagick_s

644.nab_s

649.fotonik3d_s

654.roms_s


Base Optimization Flags

C benchmarks

Fortran benchmarks

Benchmarks using both Fortran and C

Benchmarks using Fortran, C, and C++


Peak Optimization Flags

C benchmarks

619.lbm_s

638.imagick_s

644.nab_s

Fortran benchmarks

603.bwaves_s

649.fotonik3d_s

654.roms_s

Benchmarks using both Fortran and C

621.wrf_s

627.cam4_s

628.pop2_s

Benchmarks using Fortran, C, and C++


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 -qopenmp 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 -qopenmp 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'.

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.

Determinism Slider:

It controls whether BIOS will enable determinism to control performance. Performance: BIOS will enable 100% deterministic performance control. Power: BIOS will not enable deterministic performance control.

Adaptive Double DRAM Device Correction (ADDDC):

When Adaptive Double DRAM Device Correction (ADDDC) is enabled, failing DRAM’s are dynamically mapped out. When set to enabled, it can have some impact to system performance under certain workloads. This feature is applicable for x4 DIMMs only.

DCU Streamer Prefetcher:

Enables or disables Data Cache Unit (DCU) Streamer Prefetcher. This setting can affect performance, depending on the application running on the server. DCU streamer prefetchers detect multiple reads to a single cache line in a certain period of time and choose to load the following cache line to the L1 data caches. Recommended for High Performance Computing applications.

Memory Frequency:

Governs the BIOS memory frequency. The variables that govern maximum memory frequency include the maximum rated frequency of the DIMMs, the DIMMs per channel population, the processor choice, and this BIOS option. Additional power savings can be achieved by reducing the memory frequency, at the expense of reduced performance.

Turbo Boost:

Governs the Boost Technology. This feature allows teh processor cores to be automatically clocked up in frequency beyond the advertised processor speed. The amount of increased frequency (or 'turbo upside') one can expect from an EPYC processor depends on the fewer cores being exercised with work the higher the potential turbo upside. The potential drawback for Boost are mainly centered on increased power consumption and possible frequency jitter that can affect a small minority of latency-sensitive environments.

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. The possible settings are: Performance, Balanced Performance, Balanced Energy, Energy Efficient.

Energy Efficient Turbo:

Permits Energy Efficient Turbo to be Enabled or Disabled.
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.

Memory Refresh Rate:

The memory controller will periodically refresh the data in memory. The frequency at which memory is normally refreshed is referred to as 1X refresh rate. When memory modules are operating at a higher than normal temperature or to further increase system reliability, the refresh rate can be set to 2X, but may have a negative impact on memory subsystem performance under some circumstances.

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 enabled, 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 States is enabled, Monitor/Mwait should also be Enabled.

Monitor/Mwait:

Specifies whether Monitor/Mwait instructions are enabled. Monitor/Mwait is only active when C States is set to Disabled.

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 Efficient 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.

Memory Interleaving:

When Enabled, memory interleaving is supported if a symmetric memory configuration is installed. When set to Disabled, the system supports Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) (asymmetric) memory configurations. Channel interleaving is available with all configurations and is the intra-die memory interleave option. With channel interleaving the memory behind each UMC will be interleaved and seen as 1 NUMA domain per die.


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/Intel-ic19.0u1-official-linux64.2019-07-09.html,
http://www.spec.org/cpu2017/flags/Dell-Platform-Flags-PowerEdge14G-revE3.html.

You can also download the XML flags sources by saving the following links:
http://www.spec.org/cpu2017/flags/Intel-ic19.0u1-official-linux64.2019-07-09.xml,
http://www.spec.org/cpu2017/flags/Dell-Platform-Flags-PowerEdge14G-revE3.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 v1.0.5.
Report generated on 2019-08-21 12:04:30 by SPEC CPU2017 flags formatter v5178.