POWER9

Architecture specific notes for IBM® POWER9

Performance groups

IBM® POWER9 Performance groups

Events

The input file for the events on IBM® POWER9 can be found here.

Counters

• Core-local counters
  • General-purpose counters
• Socket-wide counters
  • Memory controller general-purpose counters
  • Xlink interface counters
  • PowerBus interface counters
  • Memory controller synchronous counters

Core-local counters

General-purpose counters

The IBM® POWER9 microarchitecture provides 4 general-purpose counters consisting of a config and a counter register. Additionally, there are two registers marked as general-purpose but they are fixed to specific events (like the fixed-purpose counters of Intel® systems). Be aware that IBM names the counters PMC1-PMC6 while LIKWID uses PMC0-PMC5. Events like PM_PMCx_OVERFLOW are adapted accordingly.

Counters

Counter name	Event name
PMC0	*
PMC1	*
PMC2	*
PMC3	*
PMC4	PM_RUN_INST_CMPL
PMC5	PM_RUN_CYC

Available Options

No options provided for IBM® POWER9 core-local general-purpose counters

Socket-wide counters

Memory controller general-purpose counters

The IBM® POWER9 microarchitecture provides 4 counters per memory channel.

Counters

Counter name	Event name
MBOX<0-7>C0	*
MBOX<0-7>C1	*
MBOX<0-7>C2	*
MBOX<0-7>C3	*

Available Options

No options provided for IBM® POWER9 memory controller general-purpose counters.

Xlink interface counters

The IBM® POWER9 microarchitecture provides 32 counters for all three Xlink interfaces. LIKWID reduced it to 3 per interface. The names QBOX originates from Intel®'s QPI.

Counters

Counter name	Event name
QBOX<0-2>C0	*
QBOX<0-2>C1	*
QBOX<0-2>C2	*

Available Options

No options provided for IBM® POWER9 Xlink interface counters.

PowerBus interface counters

The IBM® POWER9 microarchitecture provides 32 counters for the PowerBus (SMP Interconnect). LIKWID reduces it to 3 counters. The names SBOX originates from Intel® architectures.

Counters

Counter name	Event name
SBOX0C0	*
SBOX0C1	*
SBOX0C2	*

Available Options

No options provided for IBM® POWER9 Xlink interface counters.

Memory controller synchronous counters

The IBM® POWER9 microarchitecture provides some counters for the Memory controller synchronous. LIKWID reduces it to 3 counters per port pair (0+1 and 2+3).

Counters

Counter name	Event name
BBOX<0-1>C0	*
BBOX<0-1>C1	*
BBOX<0-1>C2	*

Available Options

No options provided for IBM® POWER9 Memory controller synchronous counters.