Predicting Performance Impact of DVFS for Realistic Memory Systems
Rustam Miftakhutdinov, Eiman Ebrahimi, Yale N. Patt · 2012
Dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) can make modern processors more power and energy efficient if we can accurately predict the effect of frequency scaling on processor performance. State-of-the-art DVFS performance predictors, however, fail to accurately predict performance when confronted with realistic memory systems. We propose CRIT+BW, the first DVFS performance predictor designed for realistic memory systems. In particular, CRIT+BW takes into account both variable memory access latency and performance effects of prefetching. When evaluated with a realistic memory system, DVFS realizes 65% of potential energy savings when using CRIT+BW, compared to less than 34% when using previously proposed DVFS performance predictors.