News: 0001589862

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Intel's Rewrite Of Linux MM CID Code Showing Some Nice Gains For AMD

([Software] 95 Minutes Ago 3 Comments)


Posted last month were new Linux kernel scheduler-related patches rewriting the MM CID management code. The main takeaway for end-users from this set of 19 Linux kernel patches from an Intel engineer was [1]seeing 14~18% improvement in a PostgreSQL database benchmark but that more benchmarks were needed. Curiosity got the best of me and I recently tested these patches on an AMD EPYC server to seeing some very enticing results for this in-development code.

[2]

Those interested in all the low-level technical details of this MM CID management rewrite can see [3]this patch series from mid-October by Intel Fellow Thomas Gleixner. With the call-out for additional benchmarks from that patch series, I ran some benchmarks on an AMD EPYC test server for seeing the performance impact in some common server workloads.

For my testing I was running against Gleixner's [4]tglx/devel.git rseq/cid Git branch that contains his rseq/perf patches plus the MM CID code rewrite patches. He did post a new revision of the patches this week to that branch but my testing was done in October against his original patch series.

I compared the "rseq/cid" Git branch with these patches against a mainline Linux 6.19-rc1 Git kernel for which that branch was originally based. The same kernel configuration and compiler were used for both kernel builds.

Using a dual AMD EPYC 9965 server (combined 384 cores / 768 threads) and running Ubuntu 25.10 with these custom kernel builds tested, I ran dozens of different benchmarks to see the impact of the rseq/cid kernel patches compared to the upstream Linux 6.18 state. Benchmarks on additional hardware and of this week's very newest rseq/cid patches may come if there is sufficient Phoronix reader interest to justify the testing time needed.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-MM-CID-Faster-DBs

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=rseq-cid-benchmarks&image=intel_amd_rseq_cid_lrg

[3] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20251015164952.694882104@linutronix.de/

[4] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tglx/devel.git/log/?h=rseq/cid



Real World, The, n.:
1. In programming, those institutions at which programming may
be used in the same sentence as FORTRAN, COBOL, RPG, IBM, etc. 2. To
programmers, the location of non-programmers and activities not related
to programming. 3. A universe in which the standard dress is shirt and
tie and in which a person's working hours are defined as 9 to 5. 4.
The location of the status quo. 5. Anywhere outside a university.
"Poor fellow, he's left MIT and gone into the real world." Used
pejoratively by those not in residence there. In conversation, talking
of someone who has entered the real world is not unlike talking about a
deceased person.