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Vol. 3B 18-29

PERFORMANCE MONITORING

Table 18-18.  Core PMU Comparison Between the Goldmont and Silvermont Microarchitectures

Box

The Goldmont microarchitecture 

The Silvermont microarchitecture  Comment

# of Fixed counters per core 3

3

Use CPUID to enumerate 

# of counters.

# of general-purpose 

counters per core

4

2

Counter width (R,W)

R:48, W: 32/48

R:40, W:32

See Section 18.2.2.

Architectural Performance 

Monitoring version ID

3

Use CPUID to enumerate 

# of counters.

PMI Overhead Mitigation

• Freeze_Perfmon_on_PMI with 

streamlined semantics.

• Freeze_on_LBR  with  legacy 

semantics for branch profiling.

• Freeze_while_SMM.

• Freeze_Perfmon_on_PMI  with 

legacy semantics.

• Freeze_on_LBR  with  legacy 

semantics for branch profiling.

• Freeze_while_SMM.

See Section 17.4.7.
Legacy semantics not 

supported with version 4 

or higher.

Counter and Buffer 

Overflow Status 

Management

• Query via 

IA32_PERF_GLOBAL_STATUS

• Reset  via 

IA32_PERF_GLOBAL_STATUS_R

ESET

• Set  via 

IA32_PERF_GLOBAL_STATUS_S

ET

• Query via 

IA32_PERF_GLOBAL_STATUS

• Reset  via 

IA32_PERF_GLOBAL_OVF_CTRL

See Section 18.2.4.

IA32_PERF_GLOBAL_STATU

S Indicators of 

Overflow/Overhead/Interfer

ence

• Individual counter overflow

• PEBS buffer overflow

• ToPA buffer overflow

• CTR_Frz, LBR_Frz

• Individual counter overflow

• PEBS  buffer  overflow

See Section 18.2.4.

Enable control in 

IA32_PERF_GLOBAL_STATU

• CTR_Frz, 

• LBR_Frz

No

See Section 18.2.4.1.

Perfmon Counter In-Use 

Indicator

Query IA32_PERF_GLOBAL_INUSE

No

See Section 18.2.4.3.

Processor Event Based 

Sampling (PEBS) Events

General-Purpose Counter 0 only. 

Supports all events (precise and 

non-precise). Precise events are 

listed in Table 18-19.

See Section 18.6.1.1. General-

Purpose Counter 0 only. Only 

supports precise events (see 

Table 18-12).

IA32_PMC0 only.

PEBS record format 

encoding

0011b

0010b

Reduce skid PEBS 

IA32_PMC0 only

No

Data Address Profiling

Yes

No

PEBS record layout

Table 18-20; enhanced fields at 

offsets 90H- 98H; and TSC record 

field at C0H.

Table 18-13.

PEBS EventingIP

Yes

Yes

Off-core Response Event

MSR 1A6H and 1A7H, each core 

has its own register.

MSR 1A6H and 1A7H, shared by a 

pair of cores.

Nehalem supports 1A6H 

only.