DESCRIPTION
likwid-features
is a command line application to print the flags in the model
specific register (MSR) MSR_IA32_MISC_ENABLE on Intel x86 processors. On Core2 and later processors
it can be used to toggle the hardware prefetch flags. It does not work on AMD processors.
For a documentation what flags are supported on which processor refer to the Intel
Software Developer's Manual Volume 3B, Table B.2 and
https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/disclosure-of-hw-prefetcher-control-on-some-intel-processors. The MSR are set individually for every core.
The following hardware prefetchers can be toggled:
-
HW_PREFETCHER:
Hardware prefetcher.
-
CL_PREFETCHER:
Adjacent cache line prefetcher.
-
DCU_PREFETCHER:
When the DCU prefetcher detects multiple loads from the same line done within a
time limit, the DCU prefetcher assumes the next line will be required. The next
line is prefetched in to the L1 data cache from memory or L2.
-
IP_PREFETCHER:
The IP prefetcher is an L1 data cache prefetcher. The IP prefetcher looks for
sequential load history to determine whether to prefetch the next expected data
into the L1 cache from memory or L2.