Paper

Instruction Level Parallelism (ILP)
The EPIC philosophy in general and Intel Itanium are specically designed to
optimize the location of the interface between software and hardware. In addi-
tion to the ne-grained control compilers have, the new Intel Itanium processor
9500 series architecture provides hint instructions to communicate additional
information from software to hardware. Branch prediction instructions are
used to control branch prediction hardware and instruction prefetching. Data
prefetch instructions are used to generate explicit prefetches of data prior to
use. Data instructions can encode hint completers to indicate speculation and
locality information.
Further, the Intel Itanium processor architecture denes a rich set of resources
for performance monitoring. This is a powerful framework to allow detailed
measurement and proling of hardware behavior. In essence, this forms a
mechanism to “close the loop” by allowing hardware to communicate back to
the compilers and application developers.
Conclusion
Intel Itanium 9500 Processor’s advanced EPIC architecture increases paral-
lelism at all levels, and provides a robust hardware platform with a rich set
of architectural extension to support an unprecedented level in instruction
throughput. Given the mission-critical space of the systems that Intel Itanium
processors are targeted for, performance gains also cannot be made at the
expense of reliability, availability and serviceability. In fact, many of the same
microarchitecture features that allow better performance and power efcien-
cy also lead to better error recoverability. With Intel Itanium processor 9500
series, customers can realize a higher level of performance and utilization for
their most demanding business workloads, while maintaining the world-class
mission critical capabilities that is the signature of the Intel Itanium product
line.
For more information on
Intel® Itanium® processor 9500 series,
visit www.intel.com/Itanium
INTEL® ITANIUM® PROCESSOR 9500
SERIES
Intel Itanium processor 9500 series
contains 8 redesigned cores, 32MB
of last-level cache, 4 full-width and
2 half-width Quick Path Interconnect
(QPI) links, 2 directory caches and 2
on-die memory controllers connecting to
external memory modules using 4 SMI
links. Containing 3.1 billion transistors
fabricated in a 32 nm process, it runs at
a maximum thermal power of 170W and
supports the construction of 8 socket
“glueless” systems as well as much
larger congurations.
Intel Itanium processor 9500 series
provides greater than 2-fold increase
of performance over the previous Intel
Itanium processor, and offer new key
performance and reliability features:
• Intel Itanium processor New-Instructions
2
• Intel Hyper-Threading Technology
1
, en-
hanced with Dual-domain multithreading
• Intel Instruction Replay Technology
2
Intel® Itanium® 9500 Processor Series: Advanced EPIC Architecture
1
Hyper-Threading Technology requires a computer system with an Intel
®
processor supporting HT Technology and a HT Technology enabled chipset, BIOS and operating system. Performance will vary depending on the specic hardware and
software you use. See http://developer.intel.com/products/ht/Hyperthreading_more.htm for additional information.
2
Some features are supported fully in silicon and are performed automatically and transparently. Others require additional support from the rmware, platform or OS and may not be supported in all systems.
3
Intel processor numbers are not a measure of performance. Processor numbers differentiate features within each processor family, not across different processor families. See http://www.intel.com/products/processor_ number for details.
Performance tests and ratings are measured using specic computer systems and/or components and reect the approximate performance of Intel products as measured by those tests. Any difference in system hardware or software design or
conguration may affect actual performance. Buyers should consult other sources of information to evaluate the performance of systems or components they are considering purchasing. For more information on performance tests and on the
performance of Intel products, visit Intel Performance Benchmark Limitations at http://www.intel.com/performance/resources/limits.htm
INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH INTEL
®
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