Measuring cache and TLB performance and their effect on benchmark runtimes

Author

Saavedra, Rafael H. ; Smith, Alan Jay

Author_Institution

Dept. of Comput. Sci., Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Volume

44

Issue

10

fYear

1995

fDate

10/1/1995 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1223

Lastpage

1235

Abstract

In previous research, we have developed and presented a model for measuring machines and analyzing programs, and for accurately predicting the running time of any analyzed program on any measured machine. That work is extended here by: (1) developing a high level program to measure the design and performance of the cache and TLB units; (2) using those measurements, along with published miss ratio data, to improve the accuracy of our runtime predictions; (3) using our analysis tools and measurements to study and compare the design of several machines, with particular reference to their cache and TLB performance. As part of this work, we describe the design and performance of the cache and TLB for ten machines. The work presented, in this paper extends a powerful technique for the evaluation and analysis of both computer systems and their workloads; this methodology is valuable both to computer users and computer system designers

Keywords

buffer storage; cache storage; program testing; software performance evaluation; TLB performance; benchmark runtimes; cache performance; computer system designers; computer users; high level program; miss ratio data; runtime predictions; table lookaside buffers; Cache memory; Computer science; Helium; High performance computing; Particle measurements; Performance analysis; Predictive models; Program processors; Runtime; Time measurement;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Computers, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9340

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/12.467697

Filename

467697