Linux is becoming even more compatible with Intel Alder Lake CPU architecture that a set of patches that will further enhance Linux performance running hybrid CPUs. These RFC (request for comment) patches were submitted by Intel Linux engineer Ricardo Neri.
The aim of the patches is to further enhance how Linux performs on systems running Intel hybrid CPUs like Alder Lake, Raptor Lake, and the soon-to-launch Meteor Lake.
In the release are IPC classes to help balance workloads. Furthermore, there are also enhancements to the Intel Threat Director. This is important because users should see noticeable performance improvements.
Neri explains:
“On hybrid processors, the microarchitectural properties of the different types of CPUs cause them to have different instruction-per-cycle (IPC) capabilities. IPC can be higher on some CPUs for advanced instructions
The load balancer can discover the use of advanced instructions and prefer CPUs with higher IPC for tasks running those instructions.
This patchset introduces the concept of classes of tasks, proposes the interfaces that hardware needs to implement and proposes changes to the load balancer to leverage this extra information in combination with asymmetric packing.”
If you want the patch, you can get it here.
Windows 11
While Linux is enjoying major gains on Intel hybrid architectures, Windows is having the same progression. Intel has been clear that Windows 11 is optimized to provide the best performance for Alder Lake.
However, while benchmarking was showing this to be true, Windows 11 2022 Update issues have been allowing Linux to outperform Windows in benchmarks. While Microsoft says it is fixing these issues, it means Windows 11 is not currently getting peak performance from Intel hybrid CPUs.
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