Specifications

April 2012 v1 AMD Opteron™ 6200 Linux Tuning Guide
3
Contents
1.0 Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 4
1.1 Intended Audience ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 4
1.2 AMD’s New Core Architecture Overview ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 4
1.3 Shared Resources ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………6
1.4 Dedicated Resources …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 6
1.5 Floating Point Capabilities …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 7
2.0 Getting Started …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………8
2.1 Physical Memory Configuration Check …………………………………………………………………………………………………………8
2.2 BIOS Configuration Summary ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………8
2.3 Check NUMA Configuration …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………9
2.4 STREAM to Verify Configuration ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 10
2.5 Easy STREAM Using GCC Compiler ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 10
2.6 High Performance STREAM Using AMD Open64 Compiler ……………………………………………………………… 12
2.7 Run High Performance Linpack ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 14
3.0 Operating System and Software Choices ………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 15
3.1 HPC Example OS & Compiler Configurations …………………………………………………………………………………………… 15
3.2 Linux Kernel Versions and Distributions ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 16
3.3 Check Configuration After Installing Linux ………………………………………………………………………………………………… 17
3.4 Compiler Choices ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 17
3.5 Compiling for AMD’s New Core Architecture Instructions ………………………………………………………………… 18
3.6 Libraries ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 19
3.7 Other Libraries and Tools …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 19
4.0 Configure a Performant Production System ……………………………………………………………………………………………………20
4.1 BIOS Configuration Options ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………20
4.2 HPC P-state Mode …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………20
4.3 Power Management and Boost ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………20
4.3.1 Check OS Power Management Default ………………………………………………………………………………………… 21
4.3.2 Tradeoffs and Consequences …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 21
4.4 Thread to Core Assignment Considerations …………………………………………………………………………………………… 22
5.0 Known Issues ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 24
5.1 Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) ……………………………………………………………………………………… 24
6.0 Useful Tools ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 25
7.0 AMD Reference Material ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………26