Menu
I'm on Whiskey Lake i7-8565U and analyzing perf counters and time for copying 512 KiB of data (twice more than L2 cache size) and faced some misunderstanding regarding L2 HW prefetcher's work.
In the Intel Manual Vol.4 MSR there is MSR 0x1A4 the bit 0 of is for controlloing L2 HW prefetcher (1 to disable).
Consider the following benchmark:
memcopy.h:
void *avx_memcpy_forward_lsls(void *restrict, const void *restrict, size_t);
memcopy.S:
avx_memcpy_forward_lsls:
shr rdx, 0x3
xor rcx, rcx
avx_memcpy_forward_loop_lsls:
vmovdqa ymm0, [rsi + 8*rcx]
vmovdqa [rdi + rcx*8], ymm0
vmovdqa ymm1, [rsi + 8*rcx + 0x20]
vmovdqa [rdi + rcx*8 + 0x20], ymm1
add rcx, 0x08
cmp rdx, rcx
ja avx_memcpy_forward_loop_lsls
ret
main.c:
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <inttypes.h>
#include <x86intrin.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include "memcopy.h"
#define ITERATIONS 1000
#define BUF_SIZE 512 * 1024
_Alignas(64) char src[BUF_SIZE];
_Alignas(64) char dest[BUF_SIZE];
static void __run_benchmark(unsigned runs, unsigned run_iterations,
void *(*fn)(void *, const void*, size_t), void *dest, const void* src, size_t sz);
#define run_benchmark(runs, run_iterations, fn, dest, src, sz) \
do{\
printf("Benchmarking " #fn "\n");\
__run_benchmark(runs, run_iterations, fn, dest, src, sz);\
}while(0)
int main(void){
int fd = open("/dev/urandom", O_RDONLY);
read(fd, src, sizeof src);
run_benchmark(20, ITERATIONS, avx_memcpy_forward_lsls, dest, src, BUF_SIZE);
}
static inline void benchmark_copy_function(unsigned iterations, void *(*fn)(void *, const void *, size_t),
void *restrict dest, const void *restrict src, size_t sz){
while(iterations --> 0){
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
fn(dest, src, sz);
}
}
static void __run_benchmark(unsigned runs, unsigned run_iterations,
void *(*fn)(void *, const void*, size_t), void *dest, const void* src, size_t sz){
unsigned current_run = 1;
while(current_run <= runs){
benchmark_copy_function(run_iterations, fn, dest, src, sz);
printf("Run %d finished\n", current_run);
current_run++;
}
}
Consider 2 runs of the compiled main.c
I.
MSR:
$ sudo rdmsr -p 0 0x1A4
0
Run:
$ taskset -c 0 sudo ../profile.sh ./bin
Performance counter stats for './bin':
10 486 164 071 L1-dcache-loads (12,13%)
10 461 354 384 L1-dcache-load-misses # 99,76% of all L1-dcache hits (12,05%)
10 481 930 413 L1-dcache-stores (12,05%)
10 461 136 686 l1d.replacement (12,12%)
31 466 394 422 l1d_pend_miss.fb_full (12,11%)
211 853 643 294 l1d_pend_miss.pending (12,09%)
1 759 204 317 LLC-loads (12,16%)
31 007 LLC-load-misses # 0,00% of all LL-cache hits (12,16%)
3 154 901 630 LLC-stores (6,19%)
15 867 315 545 l2_rqsts.all_pf (9,22%)
0 sw_prefetch_access.t1_t2 (12,22%)
1 393 306 l2_lines_out.useless_hwpf (12,16%)
3 549 170 919 l2_rqsts.pf_hit (12,09%)
12 356 247 643 l2_rqsts.pf_miss (12,06%)
0 load_hit_pre.sw_pf (12,09%)
3 159 712 695 l2_rqsts.rfo_hit (12,06%)
1 207 642 335 l2_rqsts.rfo_miss (12,02%)
4 366 526 618 l2_rqsts.all_rfo (12,06%)
5 240 013 774 offcore_requests.all_data_rd (12,06%)
19 936 657 118 offcore_requests.all_requests (12,09%)
1 761 660 763 offcore_response.demand_data_rd.any_response (12,12%)
287 044 397 bus-cycles (12,15%)
36 816 767 779 resource_stalls.any (12,15%)
36 553 997 653 resource_stalls.sb (12,15%)
38 035 066 210 uops_retired.stall_cycles (12,12%)
24 766 225 119 uops_executed.stall_cycles (12,09%)
40 478 455 041 uops_issued.stall_cycles (12,05%)
24 497 256 548 cycle_activity.stalls_l1d_miss (12,02%)
12 611 038 018 cycle_activity.stalls_l2_miss (12,09%)
10 228 869 cycle_activity.stalls_l3_miss (12,12%)
24 707 614 483 cycle_activity.stalls_mem_any (12,22%)
24 776 110 104 cycle_activity.stalls_total (12,22%)
48 914 478 241 cycles (12,19%)
12,155774555 seconds time elapsed
11,984577000 seconds user
0,015984000 seconds sys
II.
MSR:
$ sudo rdmsr -p 0 0x1A4
1
Run:
$ taskset -c 0 sudo ../profile.sh ./bin
Performance counter stats for './bin':
10 508 027 832 L1-dcache-loads (12,05%)
10 463 643 206 L1-dcache-load-misses # 99,58% of all L1-dcache hits (12,09%)
10 481 296 605 L1-dcache-stores (12,12%)
10 444 854 468 l1d.replacement (12,15%)
29 287 445 744 l1d_pend_miss.fb_full (12,17%)
205 569 630 707 l1d_pend_miss.pending (12,17%)
5 103 444 329 LLC-loads (12,17%)
33 406 LLC-load-misses # 0,00% of all LL-cache hits (12,17%)
9 567 917 742 LLC-stores (6,08%)
1 157 237 980 l2_rqsts.all_pf (9,12%)
0 sw_prefetch_access.t1_t2 (12,17%)
301 471 l2_lines_out.useless_hwpf (12,17%)
218 528 985 l2_rqsts.pf_hit (12,17%)
938 735 722 l2_rqsts.pf_miss (12,17%)
0 load_hit_pre.sw_pf (12,17%)
4 096 281 l2_rqsts.rfo_hit (12,17%)
4 972 640 931 l2_rqsts.rfo_miss (12,17%)
4 976 006 805 l2_rqsts.all_rfo (12,17%)
5 175 544 191 offcore_requests.all_data_rd (12,17%)
15 772 124 082 offcore_requests.all_requests (12,17%)
5 120 635 892 offcore_response.demand_data_rd.any_response (12,17%)
292 980 395 bus-cycles (12,17%)
37 592 020 151 resource_stalls.any (12,14%)
37 317 091 982 resource_stalls.sb (12,11%)
38 121 826 730 uops_retired.stall_cycles (12,08%)
25 430 699 605 uops_executed.stall_cycles (12,04%)
41 416 190 037 uops_issued.stall_cycles (12,04%)
25 326 579 070 cycle_activity.stalls_l1d_miss (12,04%)
25 019 148 253 cycle_activity.stalls_l2_miss (12,03%)
7 384 770 cycle_activity.stalls_l3_miss (12,03%)
25 442 709 033 cycle_activity.stalls_mem_any (12,03%)
25 406 897 956 cycle_activity.stalls_total (12,03%)
49 877 044 086 cycles (12,03%)
12,231406658 seconds time elapsed
12,226386000 seconds user
0,004000000 seconds sys
I noticed the counter:
12 611 038 018 cycle_activity.stalls_l2_miss v/s25 019 148 253 cycle_activity.stalls_l2_miss
suggesting that the MSR disabling L2 HW prefetcher is being applied. Also other l2/LLC related stuff differs significantly. The difference is reproducible across different runs. The problem is there is almost no difference in total time and cycles:
48 914 478 241 cycles v/s49 877 044 086 cycles
12,155774555 seconds time elapsed v/s12,231406658 seconds time elapsed
QUESTION:
Is L2 misses hidden by other performance limiters?
If so, can you suggest what counters to look at to understand it?
404
Yes, the L2 streamer is really helpful a lot of the time.
memcpy doesn't have any computational latency to hide, so I guess it can afford to let OoO exec resources (ROB size) handle the extra load latency you get from more L2 misses, at least in this case where you get all L3 hits from using a medium-size working set (1MiB) that fits in L3, no prefetching needed to make L3 hits happen.
And the only instructions are load/store (and loop overhead), so the OoO window includes demand loads for pretty far ahead.
IDK if the L2 spatial prefetcher and L1d prefetcher are helping any here.
Prediction to test this hypothesis: make your array bigger so you get L3 misses and you'll probably see a difference in overall time once OoO exec isn't enough to hide the load latency of going all the way to DRAM. HW prefetch triggering farther ahead can help some.
The other big benefits of HW prefetching come when it can keep up with your computation, so you get L2 hits. (In a loop that has computation with a medium-length but not loop-carried dependency chain.)
Demand loads and OoO exec can do a lot as far as using the available (single threaded) memory bandwidth, when there isn't other pressure on ROB capacity.
Also note that on Intel CPUs, every cache miss can cost a back-end replay (from the RS/scheduler) of dependent uops, one each for L1d and L2 misses when the data is expected to arrive. And after that, apparently the core optimistically spams uops while waiting for data to arrive from L3.
(See https://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/206639/discussion-on-question-by-beeonrope-are-load-ops-deallocated-from-the-rs-when-th and Are load ops deallocated from the RS when they dispatch, complete or some other time?)
Not the cache-miss load itself; in this case it would be the store instructions. More specifically, the store-data uop for port 4. That doesn't matter here; using 32-byte stores and bottlenecking on L3 bandwidth means we're not close to 1 port 4 uop per clock.
104
If you love us? You can donate to us via Paypal or buy me a coffee so we can maintain and grow! Thank you!
Donate Us With
