Base Compiler Invocation
C benchmarks
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- icc
![[user]](https://www.spec.org/auto/cpu2017/images/user.png)
- CC, LD
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Invoke the Intel C compiler.
Fortran benchmarks
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- ifort
- FC, LD
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Invoke the Intel Fortran compiler.
Copyright © 2016 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Invoke the Intel C compiler.
Invoke the Intel Fortran compiler.
![[suite]](https://www.spec.org/auto/cpu2017/images/suite.png)
This option is used to indicate that the host system's integers are 32-bits wide, and longs and pointers are 64-bits wide. Not all benchmarks recognize this macro, but the preferred practice for data model selection applies the flags to all benchmarks; this flag description is a placeholder for those benchmarks that do not recognize this macro.
This option is used to indicate that the host system's integers are 32-bits wide, and longs and pointers are 64-bits wide. Not all benchmarks recognize this macro, but the preferred practice for data model selection applies the flags to all benchmarks; this flag description is a placeholder for those benchmarks that do not recognize this macro.
This option is used to indicate that the host system's integers are 32-bits wide, and longs and pointers are 64-bits wide. Not all benchmarks recognize this macro, but the preferred practice for data model selection applies the flags to all benchmarks; this flag description is a placeholder for those benchmarks that do not recognize this macro.
This option is used to indicate that the host system's integers are 32-bits wide, and longs and pointers are 64-bits wide. Not all benchmarks recognize this macro, but the preferred practice for data model selection applies the flags to all benchmarks; this flag description is a placeholder for those benchmarks that do not recognize this macro.
![[benchmark]](https://www.spec.org/auto/cpu2017/images/benchmark.png)
This macro indicates that Fortran functions called from C should have their names lower-cased.
Specifies that the format will be big endian for INTEGER*1, INTEGER*2, INTEGER*4, or INTEGER*8, and big endian IEEE floating-point for REAL*4, REAL*8, REAL*16, COMPLEX*8, COMPLEX*16, or COMPLEX*32.
This option is used to indicate that the host system's integers are 32-bits wide, and longs and pointers are 64-bits wide. Not all benchmarks recognize this macro, but the preferred practice for data model selection applies the flags to all benchmarks; this flag description is a placeholder for those benchmarks that do not recognize this macro.
Fortran to C symbol naming. C symbol names are lower case with one underscore. _symbol
This option is used to indicate that the host system's integers are 32-bits wide, and longs and pointers are 64-bits wide. Not all benchmarks recognize this macro, but the preferred practice for data model selection applies the flags to all benchmarks; this flag description is a placeholder for those benchmarks that do not recognize this macro.
For netcdf, if defined uses Fortran symbol names ABC as abc_
Specifies that the format will be big endian for INTEGER*1, INTEGER*2, INTEGER*4, or INTEGER*8, and big endian IEEE floating-point for REAL*4, REAL*8, REAL*16, COMPLEX*8, COMPLEX*16, or COMPLEX*32.
Specifies that the units for the OPEN statement RECL specifier (record length) value are in bytes for unformatted data files, not longwords (four-byte units). For formatted files, the RECL value is always in bytes.
This option is used to indicate that the host system's integers are 32-bits wide, and longs and pointers are 64-bits wide. Not all benchmarks recognize this macro, but the preferred practice for data model selection applies the flags to all benchmarks; this flag description is a placeholder for those benchmarks that do not recognize this macro.
This option is used to indicate that the host system's integers are 32-bits wide, and longs and pointers are 64-bits wide. Not all benchmarks recognize this macro, but the preferred practice for data model selection applies the flags to all benchmarks; this flag description is a placeholder for those benchmarks that do not recognize this macro.
This option is used to indicate that the host system's integers are 32-bits wide, and longs and pointers are 64-bits wide. Not all benchmarks recognize this macro, but the preferred practice for data model selection applies the flags to all benchmarks; this flag description is a placeholder for those benchmarks that do not recognize this macro.
This option is used to indicate that the host system's integers are 32-bits wide, and longs and pointers are 64-bits wide. Not all benchmarks recognize this macro, but the preferred practice for data model selection applies the flags to all benchmarks; this flag description is a placeholder for those benchmarks that do not recognize this macro.
Compiles for a 64-bit (LP64) data model.
Sets the language dialect to conform to the indicated C standard.
Code is optimized for Intel(R) processors with support for CORE-AVX512 instructions. The resulting code may contain unconditional use of features that are not supported on other processors. This option also enables new optimizations in addition to Intel processor-specific optimizations including advanced data layout and code restructuring optimizations to improve memory accesses for Intel processors.
Do not use this option if you are executing a program on a processor that is not an Intel processor. If you use this option on a non-compatible processor to compile the main program (in Fortran) or the function main() in C/C++, the program will display a fatal run-time error if they are executed on unsupported processors.
Multi-file ip optimizations that includes:
- inline function expansion
- interprocedural constant propogation
- dead code elimination
- propagation of function characteristics
- passing arguments in registers
- loop-invariant code motion
Enable O2 optimizations plus more aggressive optimizations, such as prefetching, scalar replacement, and loop and memory access transformations. Enable optimizations for maximum speed, such as:
On IA-32 and Intel EM64T processors, when O3 is used with options -ax or -x (Linux) or with options /Qax or /Qx (Windows), the compiler performs more aggressive data dependency analysis than for O2, which may result in longer compilation times. The O3 optimizations may not cause higher performance unless loop and memory access transformations take place. The optimizations may slow down code in some cases compared to O2 optimizations. The O3 option is recommended for applications that have loops that heavily use floating-point calculations and process large data sets.
-no-prec-div enables optimizations that give slightly less precise results than full IEEE division.
When you specify -no-prec-div along with some optimizations, such as -xN and -xB (Linux) or /QxN and /QxB (Windows), the compiler may change floating-point division computations into multiplication by the reciprocal of the denominator. For example, A/B is computed as A * (1/B) to improve the speed of the computation.
However, sometimes the value produced by this transformation is not as accurate as full IEEE division. When it is important to have fully precise IEEE division, do not use -no-prec-div. This will enable the default -prec-div and the result will be more accurate, with some loss of performance.
Enable/disable(DEFAULT) the compiler to generate prefetch instructions to prefetch data.
Allow optimizations for floating point arithmetic that assume arguments and results are not NaNs or Infinities
Controls the level of memory layout transformations performed by the compiler. This option can improve cache reuse and cache locality.
Definition of this macro indicates that compilation for parallel operation is enabled, and that any OpenMP directives or pragmas will be visible to the compiler. The behavior of this macro is overridden if -DSPEC_SUPPRESS_OPENMP also appears in the list of compilation flags.
This option instructs compiler to align branches and fused branches on 32 byte boundaries
Compiles for a 64-bit (LP64) data model.
Enable SmartHeap and/or other library usage by forcing the linker to ignore multiple definitions if present
Definition of this macro indicates that compilation for parallel operation is enabled, and that any OpenMP directives or pragmas will be visible to the compiler. The behavior of this macro is overridden if -DSPEC_SUPPRESS_OPENMP also appears in the list of compilation flags.
Code is optimized for Intel(R) processors with support for CORE-AVX512 instructions. The resulting code may contain unconditional use of features that are not supported on other processors. This option also enables new optimizations in addition to Intel processor-specific optimizations including advanced data layout and code restructuring optimizations to improve memory accesses for Intel processors.
Do not use this option if you are executing a program on a processor that is not an Intel processor. If you use this option on a non-compatible processor to compile the main program (in Fortran) or the function main() in C/C++, the program will display a fatal run-time error if they are executed on unsupported processors.
Multi-file ip optimizations that includes:
- inline function expansion
- interprocedural constant propogation
- dead code elimination
- propagation of function characteristics
- passing arguments in registers
- loop-invariant code motion
Enable O2 optimizations plus more aggressive optimizations, such as prefetching, scalar replacement, and loop and memory access transformations. Enable optimizations for maximum speed, such as:
On IA-32 and Intel EM64T processors, when O3 is used with options -ax or -x (Linux) or with options /Qax or /Qx (Windows), the compiler performs more aggressive data dependency analysis than for O2, which may result in longer compilation times. The O3 optimizations may not cause higher performance unless loop and memory access transformations take place. The optimizations may slow down code in some cases compared to O2 optimizations. The O3 option is recommended for applications that have loops that heavily use floating-point calculations and process large data sets.
-no-prec-div enables optimizations that give slightly less precise results than full IEEE division.
When you specify -no-prec-div along with some optimizations, such as -xN and -xB (Linux) or /QxN and /QxB (Windows), the compiler may change floating-point division computations into multiplication by the reciprocal of the denominator. For example, A/B is computed as A * (1/B) to improve the speed of the computation.
However, sometimes the value produced by this transformation is not as accurate as full IEEE division. When it is important to have fully precise IEEE division, do not use -no-prec-div. This will enable the default -prec-div and the result will be more accurate, with some loss of performance.
Enable/disable(DEFAULT) the compiler to generate prefetch instructions to prefetch data.
Allow optimizations for floating point arithmetic that assume arguments and results are not NaNs or Infinities
Controls the level of memory layout transformations performed by the compiler. This option can improve cache reuse and cache locality.
Option standard-realloc-lhs (the default), tells the compiler that when the left-hand side of an assignment is an allocatable object, it should be reallocated to the shape of the right-hand side of the assignment before the assignment occurs. This is the current Fortran Standard definition. This feature may cause extra overhead at run time. This option has the same effect as option assume realloc_lhs.
If you specify nostandard-realloc-lhs, the compiler uses the old Fortran 2003 rules when interpreting assignment statements. The left-hand side is assumed to be allocated with the correct shape to hold the right-hand side. If it is not, incorrect behavior will occur. This option has the same effect as option assume norealloc_lhs.
This option instructs compiler to align branches and fused branches on 32 byte boundaries
Specify build time link path for jemalloc 64bit built to support the CPU 2017 build. See jemalloc.net for more information.
Linker toggle to specify jemalloc linker library. See jemalloc.net for more information.
Compiles for a 64-bit (LP64) data model.
Sets the language dialect to conform to the indicated C standard.
Enable SmartHeap and/or other library usage by forcing the linker to ignore multiple definitions if present
Code is optimized for Intel(R) processors with support for CORE-AVX512 instructions. The resulting code may contain unconditional use of features that are not supported on other processors. This option also enables new optimizations in addition to Intel processor-specific optimizations including advanced data layout and code restructuring optimizations to improve memory accesses for Intel processors.
Do not use this option if you are executing a program on a processor that is not an Intel processor. If you use this option on a non-compatible processor to compile the main program (in Fortran) or the function main() in C/C++, the program will display a fatal run-time error if they are executed on unsupported processors.
Multi-file ip optimizations that includes:
- inline function expansion
- interprocedural constant propogation
- dead code elimination
- propagation of function characteristics
- passing arguments in registers
- loop-invariant code motion
Enable O2 optimizations plus more aggressive optimizations, such as prefetching, scalar replacement, and loop and memory access transformations. Enable optimizations for maximum speed, such as:
On IA-32 and Intel EM64T processors, when O3 is used with options -ax or -x (Linux) or with options /Qax or /Qx (Windows), the compiler performs more aggressive data dependency analysis than for O2, which may result in longer compilation times. The O3 optimizations may not cause higher performance unless loop and memory access transformations take place. The optimizations may slow down code in some cases compared to O2 optimizations. The O3 option is recommended for applications that have loops that heavily use floating-point calculations and process large data sets.
-no-prec-div enables optimizations that give slightly less precise results than full IEEE division.
When you specify -no-prec-div along with some optimizations, such as -xN and -xB (Linux) or /QxN and /QxB (Windows), the compiler may change floating-point division computations into multiplication by the reciprocal of the denominator. For example, A/B is computed as A * (1/B) to improve the speed of the computation.
However, sometimes the value produced by this transformation is not as accurate as full IEEE division. When it is important to have fully precise IEEE division, do not use -no-prec-div. This will enable the default -prec-div and the result will be more accurate, with some loss of performance.
Enable/disable(DEFAULT) the compiler to generate prefetch instructions to prefetch data.
Allow optimizations for floating point arithmetic that assume arguments and results are not NaNs or Infinities
Controls the level of memory layout transformations performed by the compiler. This option can improve cache reuse and cache locality.
Definition of this macro indicates that compilation for parallel operation is enabled, and that any OpenMP directives or pragmas will be visible to the compiler. The behavior of this macro is overridden if -DSPEC_SUPPRESS_OPENMP also appears in the list of compilation flags.
This option instructs compiler to align branches and fused branches on 32 byte boundaries
Option standard-realloc-lhs (the default), tells the compiler that when the left-hand side of an assignment is an allocatable object, it should be reallocated to the shape of the right-hand side of the assignment before the assignment occurs. This is the current Fortran Standard definition. This feature may cause extra overhead at run time. This option has the same effect as option assume realloc_lhs.
If you specify nostandard-realloc-lhs, the compiler uses the old Fortran 2003 rules when interpreting assignment statements. The left-hand side is assumed to be allocated with the correct shape to hold the right-hand side. If it is not, incorrect behavior will occur. This option has the same effect as option assume norealloc_lhs.
Specify build time link path for jemalloc 64bit built to support the CPU 2017 build. See jemalloc.net for more information.
Linker toggle to specify jemalloc linker library. See jemalloc.net for more information.
Compiles for a 64-bit (LP64) data model.
Sets the language dialect to conform to the indicated C standard.
Enable SmartHeap and/or other library usage by forcing the linker to ignore multiple definitions if present
Code is optimized for Intel(R) processors with support for CORE-AVX512 instructions. The resulting code may contain unconditional use of features that are not supported on other processors. This option also enables new optimizations in addition to Intel processor-specific optimizations including advanced data layout and code restructuring optimizations to improve memory accesses for Intel processors.
Do not use this option if you are executing a program on a processor that is not an Intel processor. If you use this option on a non-compatible processor to compile the main program (in Fortran) or the function main() in C/C++, the program will display a fatal run-time error if they are executed on unsupported processors.
Multi-file ip optimizations that includes:
- inline function expansion
- interprocedural constant propogation
- dead code elimination
- propagation of function characteristics
- passing arguments in registers
- loop-invariant code motion
Enable O2 optimizations plus more aggressive optimizations, such as prefetching, scalar replacement, and loop and memory access transformations. Enable optimizations for maximum speed, such as:
On IA-32 and Intel EM64T processors, when O3 is used with options -ax or -x (Linux) or with options /Qax or /Qx (Windows), the compiler performs more aggressive data dependency analysis than for O2, which may result in longer compilation times. The O3 optimizations may not cause higher performance unless loop and memory access transformations take place. The optimizations may slow down code in some cases compared to O2 optimizations. The O3 option is recommended for applications that have loops that heavily use floating-point calculations and process large data sets.
-no-prec-div enables optimizations that give slightly less precise results than full IEEE division.
When you specify -no-prec-div along with some optimizations, such as -xN and -xB (Linux) or /QxN and /QxB (Windows), the compiler may change floating-point division computations into multiplication by the reciprocal of the denominator. For example, A/B is computed as A * (1/B) to improve the speed of the computation.
However, sometimes the value produced by this transformation is not as accurate as full IEEE division. When it is important to have fully precise IEEE division, do not use -no-prec-div. This will enable the default -prec-div and the result will be more accurate, with some loss of performance.
Enable/disable(DEFAULT) the compiler to generate prefetch instructions to prefetch data.
Allow optimizations for floating point arithmetic that assume arguments and results are not NaNs or Infinities
Controls the level of memory layout transformations performed by the compiler. This option can improve cache reuse and cache locality.
Definition of this macro indicates that compilation for parallel operation is enabled, and that any OpenMP directives or pragmas will be visible to the compiler. The behavior of this macro is overridden if -DSPEC_SUPPRESS_OPENMP also appears in the list of compilation flags.
This option instructs compiler to align branches and fused branches on 32 byte boundaries
Option standard-realloc-lhs (the default), tells the compiler that when the left-hand side of an assignment is an allocatable object, it should be reallocated to the shape of the right-hand side of the assignment before the assignment occurs. This is the current Fortran Standard definition. This feature may cause extra overhead at run time. This option has the same effect as option assume realloc_lhs.
If you specify nostandard-realloc-lhs, the compiler uses the old Fortran 2003 rules when interpreting assignment statements. The left-hand side is assumed to be allocated with the correct shape to hold the right-hand side. If it is not, incorrect behavior will occur. This option has the same effect as option assume norealloc_lhs.
Specify build time link path for jemalloc 64bit built to support the CPU 2017 build. See jemalloc.net for more information.
Linker toggle to specify jemalloc linker library. See jemalloc.net for more information.
This section contains descriptions of flags that were included implicitly by other flags, but which do not have a permanent home at SPEC.
Enable optimizations for speed. This is the generally recommended
optimization level. This option also enables:
- Inlining of intrinsics
- Intra-file interprocedural optimizations, which include:
- inlining
- constant propagation
- forward substitution
- routine attribute propagation
- variable address-taken analysis
- dead static function elimination
- removal of unreferenced variables
- The following capabilities for performance gain:
- constant propagation
- copy propagation
- dead-code elimination
- global register allocation
- global instruction scheduling and control speculation
- loop unrolling
- optimized code selection
- partial redundancy elimination
- strength reduction/induction variable simplification
- variable renaming
- exception handling optimizations
- tail recursions
- peephole optimizations
- structure assignment lowering and optimizations
- dead store elimination
Enable optimizations for speed and disables some optimizations that increase code size and affect speed.
To limit code size, this option:
The O1 option may improve performance for applications with very large code size, many branches, and execution time not dominated by code within loops.
-O1 sets the following options:Tells the compiler the maximum number of times to unroll loops. For example -funroll-loops0 would disable unrolling of loops.
-fno-builtin disables inline expansion for all intrinsic functions.
This option trades off floating-point precision for speed by removing the restriction to conform to the IEEE standard.
EBP is used as a general-purpose register in optimizations.
Places each function in its own COMDAT section.
Flushes denormal results to zero.
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:
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.
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.
Other options beside a generic performance governor can be set, such as the Performance governor and Powersave governor:
--governor , -g
The governor defines the power characteristics of the system CPU, which in turn affects CPU performance. Each governor has its own unique behavior, purpose, and suitability in terms of workload.
On many Linux systems one can set the governor for all CPUs through the cpupower utility with following commands:
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 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.
Hyper-Threading [ALL](Default = Enable):
Enables Hyper Threading (Software Method to Enable/Disable Logical Processor threads.)
SNC (Sub NUMA) (Default = Disabled):
SNC breaks up the LLC into disjointed 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 LLCSNC disable will support 1-cluster (XPT/KTI Prefetch enable) 4-IMC way interleave. SNC2 Enable supports 2-clusters SNC and 2-way IMC interleave. Enable SNC2 will gray out iMC_Interleave knob and UmaBasedClustering knob.
LLC dead line alloc (Default = Enabled):
In the Skylake cache scheme, mid-level cache (MLC) evictions are filled into the last level cache (LLC). If a line is evicted from the MLC to the LLC, the Skylake core can flag the evicted MLC lines as "dead". This means that the lines are not likely to be read again. This option allows dead lines to be dropped and never fill the LLC if the option is disabled. Values for this BIOS option can be:
Patrol Scrub (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:
Xtended Prediciton Table (XPT) Prefetch (Default = Enabled):
This option configures the processor Xtended Prediciton Table (XPT) prefetch feature. The XPT prefetcher exists on top of other prefetchers that that can prefetch data in the core DCU, MLC, and LLC. The XPT prefetcher will issue a speculative DRAM read request in parallel to an LLC lookup. This prefetch bypasses the LLC, saving latency. In some cases, setting this option to disabled can improve performance. In some cases, setting this option to disabled can improve performance. Typically, setting this option to enable provides better performance. This option must be enabled when Sub-NUMA Clustering is enabled. Values for this BIOS option can be:
Energy/Performance Bias (Default = Balanced Performance):
Use input from ENERGY_PERF_BIAS_CONFIG mode selection. PERF/Balanced Perf/Balanced Power/Power
Intel VT for Directed I/O (Default = Enable):
Enable/Disable Intel Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d) by reporting the I/O device assignment to VMM through DMAR ACPI Tables.
Last updated March 18, 2021.
Flag description origin markings:
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Indicates that the flag description came from the user flags file. |
|
Indicates that the flag description came from the suite-wide flags file. |
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Indicates that the flag description came from a per-benchmark flags file. |
For questions about the meanings of these flags, please contact the tester.
For other inquiries, please contact info@spec.org
Copyright 2017-2021 Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation
Tested with SPEC CPU2017 v1.1.5.
Report generated on 2021-06-22 17:07:35 by SPEC CPU2017 flags formatter v5178.