Improve Opteron 6200's performance (and PPD) by using TurionPowerControl

quickz

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 30, 2012
Messages
256
Hi all, I don't know whether it was posted here before, recently I find that TurionPowerControl can improve Opteron 6200's performance significantly. All we need to do is running the cmd:

TurionPowerControl -psmax 1

I have made a test on a 4p Opteron 6272 box, and detailed results are shown as follows:
(DLB is enabled in all cases)

Before running TurionPowerControl:
p6901: TPF=06m44s, PPD=338k
p6903: TPF=14m56s, PPD=459k
p8101: TPF=14m12s, PPD=325k
p8102: TPF=10m55s, PPD=482k

After running TurionPowerControl:
p6901: TPF=06m18s, PPD=374k
p6903: TPF=13m56s, PPD=510k
p8101: TPF=12m48s, PPD=379k
p8102: TPF=09m58s, PPD=552k
 
Looks like pretty good find :) Congratulations!

By limiting P-state to 1 we're basically containing CPU to "all-core turbo" bin.
 
Soooooo..... 62xx chips good now? Or just on par now.
 
Nice find! Might make it worth grabbing 62xx chips now. Interesting.
 
I'd actually be interested in logging into 6200 system (don't have one) and checking few things out before the command is run...

Anyone? :)
 
Does seem to be helping I'm seeing about a 2 min decrease in TPF on an 8101 on my 2 x 6272 box.
 
Hmm so much for the lower TPF - this change seems to have created some instability as that box is now crashing. Should that change carry over through a reboot? What -psmax do I need to set to get it back to "default" settings.
 
It shouldn't cause instability per se...

I would expect -psmax 0 would revert it to normal
and no, it does not persist across reboots.

How is the box crashing? What are your temps? I'm assuming that Turbo is enabled in the BIOS, correct?
 
Temps seem ok but it's crashing almost immediately now after folding starts so it's hard to get any read on what they are like under the load. This box was working 100% completely fine till I did the -psmax change. Maybe just a coincidence?.
 
If you power-cycled the box and symptoms persist I'd call it a coincidence...

What are the symptoms of a crash? Freeze? FahCore crash? Something else?
 
The box is resetting on it's own. Except this last time - can't connect via ssh and no ipmi on this box. Will have to wait till I'm back in the office on Monday to check on it and figure out what's wrong with it.
 
I'd actually be interested in logging into 6200 system (don't have one) and checking few things out before the command is run...

Anyone? :)

I would be happy to let you experiment on my machine but I'm 2,000 miles away from it right now. :(
 
Acording to TurionPowerControl, the Opteron 6272 CPU has 7 pstates:
core 0 pstate 0 (pb0) - En:1 VID:19 FID:14 DID:0.00 Freq:3000 VCore:1.3125
core 0 pstate 1 (pb1) - En:1 VID:35 FID:8 DID:0.00 Freq:2400 VCore:1.1125
core 0 pstate 2 (p0) - En:1 VID:41 FID:5 DID:0.00 Freq:2100 VCore:1.0375
core 0 pstate 3 (p1) - En:0 VID:41 FID:5 DID:0.00 Freq:2100 VCore:1.0375
core 0 pstate 4 (p2) - En:0 VID:41 FID:5 DID:0.00 Freq:2100 VCore:1.0375
core 0 pstate 5 (p3) - En:0 VID:41 FID:5 DID:0.00 Freq:2100 VCore:1.0375
core 0 pstate 6 (p4) - En:1 VID:49 FID:12 DID:1.00 Freq:1400 VCore:0.9375

But it seems that '-psmax 0' is invalid, after such a setting I find following infomation in the result of 'TurionPowerControl -l':

Processor Maximum PState: unsupported feature
Processor Startup PState: 6
Processor Maximum Operating Frequency: 3000 MHz

Since the Processor Startup PState is shown as 6 (for my 6272), I think the default setting might be 'TurionPowerControl -psmax 6'.

It shouldn't cause instability per se...

I would expect -psmax 0 would revert it to normal
and no, it does not persist across reboots.

How is the box crashing? What are your temps? I'm assuming that Turbo is enabled in the BIOS, correct?
 
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Ahh, gotcha (opened docs just now). I made psmax=max performance connection (wrong).

You're right, -psmax 6 is the way to go.

So, the manipulation in question moves the lower (performance) limit up. Interesting.
Almost smells like a flaw in the CPU -- I wouldn't expect this to be settable beyond
2 (numbooststates). Great find indeed!

I created small script that measures frequency (incl. turbo) -- http://darkswarm.org/freqcheck.sh
I'm very curious to see what it reports (w/FAH load) fresh out of power-cycle
(psmax 6) and with psmax 1 (set via TPC).
 
I'm sorry to hear that. But on my 4p 6272 box I haven't met such a problem, it has been working fine for several days. It should be noted that I have measured the power consumption before and after '-psmax 1' setting and find it has been increased by ~100Watts. What is your PSU? Is it sufficient for such a change?

Default setting:
p6901: 660Watts
p6903: 670Watts
p8101: 670Watts
p8102: 670Watts

After '-psmax 1':
p6901: 740Watts
p6903: 750Watts
p8101: 780Watts
p8102: 770Watts

The box is resetting on it's own. Except this last time - can't connect via ssh and no ipmi on this box. Will have to wait till I'm back in the office on Monday to check on it and figure out what's wrong with it.
 
In my test, I have also made a frequency check by use of turbostat. Seems it works, but in some conditions it will report incorrect results. I will try your frequency-check script later, thank you!

The stock/all-core/one-core frequencies for Opteron 6272 are 2.1/2.4/3.0GHz, and the effective frequencies reported by turbostat during my test are:

Default setting:
p6901: Freq=2.26GHz
p6903: Freq=2.24GHz
p8101: Freq=2.18GHz
p8102: Freq=2.20GHz

After '-psmax 1':
p6901: Freq=2.40GHz
p6903: Freq=2.40GHz
p8101: Freq=2.40GHz
p8102: Freq=2.40GHz

Ahh, gotcha (opened docs just now). I made psmax=max performance connection (wrong).

You're right, -psmax 6 is the way to go.

So, the manipulation in question moves the lower (performance) limit up. Interesting.
Almost smells like a flaw in the CPU -- I wouldn't expect this to be settable beyond
2 (numbooststates). Great find indeed!

I created small script that measures frequency (incl. turbo) -- http://darkswarm.org/freqcheck.sh
I'm very curious to see what it reports (w/FAH load) fresh out of power-cycle
(psmax 6) and with psmax 1 (set via TPC).
 
Wow. Nice ppd there. This is interesting indeed.
 
NICE. Seems like you've already done all the homework.

It looks like testing w/my script may be redundant at this point -- I'll leave it for you to decide.

Cool. We can only hope that AMD carries this... er... feature... into future CPUs :eek:
 
6200s only.

If your PowerNow is already disabled (w/6100s) then you're already using optimal configuration.
 
cool. not using anything yet as I still don't have a motherboard :( Have to get my car up and running first, but I have a ton of parts lying around just waiting for that to happen.
 
I tried this on my IL 6272 4P rig, but got some error messages! The mobo is a Tyan 8812.
What have I done wrong?

The error messages says this:

vidar@G34Rigg1:~/fah$ TurionPowerControl -psmax 5
Turion Power States Optimization and Control - by blackshard - v0.43

ReadPciConfigDwordEx: pread: Success
Interlagos::getNumBoostStates unable to read boost control register
ReadPciConfigDwordEx: pread: Success
ReadPciConfigDwordEx: pread: Success
Warning: unable to detect multiprocessor machine
ReadPciConfigDwordEx: pread: Success
Interlagos.cpp::getMaximumPState - unable to read PCI register
ReadPciConfigDwordEx: pread: Success
Interlagos.cpp::setMaximumPState - unable to read PCI register

Done.
vidar@G34Rigg1:~/fah$
 
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sudo modprobe msr
sudo modprobe cpuid
sudo TurionPowerControl -psmax 1

should get you going...
 
Thanks tear!

I did the:

sudo modprobe msr
sudo modprobe cpuid
sudo TurionPowerControl -psmax 1

And it replayed with: Done

So far it seems correct, but the machine change in to be very slow, and when it did not progress with another % after 25 min. I stopped folding, and tried restarted the machine. I did not shut down all the way, so I have to push the button. It then came on again at TPF is back to normale.

It seems that there is some thing wrong in my way of doing this. Should the TurionPowerControl be started before I start fah6 or could it be done while the machine is folding?
 
It shouldn't matter, just make sure that PowerNow along with Turbo Core / CPB are enabled in the BIOS.

If it still isn't working for you, you could try and set "performance" scaling governor first thing after boot (before running TPC):
Code:
sudo -s
for i in /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu[0-9]* ; do echo performance > $i/cpufreq/scaling_governor ; done
exit

These are production CPUs we're talking about, right?
 
Yes it is production CPUs! I belive I have the PowerNow disablet, and will look in to it, and belive that is the problem why it did not respond.

Update:
Works great, PPD up from 305K to 366K for Project: 8101 (Run 23, Clone 1, Gen 21).:)
But it produces some more heat and are using 100W+ from the wall, and total consume is now 680W for this rig.

Thanks tear!
 
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Yes it is production CPUs! I belive I have the PowerNow disablet, and will look in to it, and belive that is the problem why it did not respond.

Update:
Works great, PPD up from 305K to 366K for Project: 8101 (Run 23, Clone 1, Gen 21).:)
But it produses some more heat and are using 100W+ from the wall, and total consume is now 680W for this rig.

Thanks tear!

61k ppd for 100 more watts, worth it.

just out of curiosity what are the 6100 series chips doing 8101's at?
 
I'm glad to see 4P 6272 now can produce more PPD than 4P 6176se when folding on P8101. What is the power consumption number of these two 4P 6100 rigs when folding?

Before the update the rig produced 305K with 580W, which was 52.6 K per. 100W, so it's probably worth it, yes.

My 6176se rig = 329K PPD
My 6172 rig = 295K PPD

The results may vary significantly from WU to WU. You can see more results here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aspl6-RkaxtFdHdTdUdmUjhWalpXWVZ2S2xvejBDcHc#gid=0
 
The 6176se rig uses 665W, and 6172 595W from the wall. On the 6172 I did change the PSU a while ago from a 80+ to a 80+ Silver, and the consumption drop from 635 to 595W for that reason. All Power consumption measured with P8101 in folding. Before the update with TurionPowerControl the 6272 rig use 575 - 580W from the wall. It may vary a little from WU to WU. Where I live we have 230V system
 
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thats not bad at all.. looks like the 6200 series finally became useful again. hope this works on the piledriver chips as well, those numbers should be pretty damn good with the improvements.
 
lets just say F@H is really really slow to changes. so even if AVX was added don't expect to see it in F@H for a few years.
 
As pointed by -alias-, looks like that Opteron 6100 would lose its performance when folding on P8101. I'm curious to see what made it happen.
By checking Opteron 6272's working frequencies for different BA WUs (listed int #18 of this thread), we can see that in fact Opteron 6200 (without the "-psmax 1" option) is not good at P8101 either (working at 2.26GHz on P6901 while only 2.18GHz on P8101), but obviously Opteron 6100 plays worse.
So, just a guess, would it be possible that Opteron 6100 also decrease its working frequency without being noticed when folding on P8101?
 
There has been speculation that 8101 favours the faster memory thats available with the 62xx chips but it was only talked about for a couple of days and i haven't seen any more on it for a while now.
 
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