Because cpuidle assumes worst-case C-state parameters, PC6 parameters
are used for describing C6, which is worst-case for requesting CC6.
When PC6 is enabled, this is appropriate. But if PC6 is disabled
in the BIOS, the exit latency and target residency should be adjusted
accordingly.
Exit latency:
Previously the C6 exit latency was measured as the PC6 exit latency.
With PC6 disabled, the C6 exit latency should be the one of CC6.
Target residency:
With PC6 disabled, the idle duration within [CC6, PC6) would make the
idle governor choose C1E over C6. This would cause low energy-efficiency.
We should lower the bar to request C6 when PC6 is disabled.
To fill this gap, check if PC6 is disabled in the BIOS in the
MSR_PKG_CST_CONFIG_CONTROL(0xe2) register. If so, use the CC6 exit latency
for C6 and set target_residency to 3 times of the new exit latency. [This
is consistent with how intel_idle driver uses _CST to calculate the
target_residency.] As a result, the OS would be more likely to choose C6
over C1E when PC6 is disabled, which is reasonable, because if C6 is
enabled, it implies that the user cares about energy, so choosing C6 more
frequently makes sense.
The new CC6 exit latency of 92us was measured with wult[1] on SKX via NIC
wakeup as the 99.99th percentile. Also CLX and CPX both have the same CPU
model number as SkX, but their CC6 exit latencies are similar to the SKX
one, 96us and 89us respectively, so reuse the SKX value for them.
There is a concern that it might be better to use a more generic approach
instead of optimizing every platform. However, if the required code
complexity and different PC6 bit interpretation on different platforms
are taken into account, tuning the code per platform seems to be an
acceptable tradeoff.
Link: https://intel.github.io/wult/ # [1]
Suggested-by: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Chen Yu <yu.c.chen@intel.com>
Reviewed-by: Artem Bityutskiy <artem.bityutskiy@linux.intel.com>
[ rjw: Subject and changelog edits ]
Signed-off-by: Rafael J. Wysocki <rafael.j.wysocki@intel.com>
6423333849