The POWER4 Processor Introduction and Tuning Guide
An IBM Redbooks publication
Note: This is publication is now archived. For reference only.
Abstract
This IBM Redbooks publication is designed to familiarize you with the IBM eServer pSeries POWER4 microarchitecture and to provide you with the information necessary to exploit the new high-end servers based on this architecture.
The eight to 32-way symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) pSeries 690 Model 681 will be the first POWER4 system to be available. Thus, most analysis presented in this publication refers to this system.
Specifically, this publication will address the following issues:
POWER4 features and capabilities
Processor and memory optimization techniques, especially for Fortran programming
AIX XL Fortran Version 7.1.1 compiler capabilities and which options to use
Parallel processing techniques and performance
Available libraries and programming interfaces
Performance examples of commonly used kernels
While this publication is decidedly technical in nature, the fundamental concepts are presented from a user point of view and numerous examples are provided to reinforce these concepts.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1. Processor evolution
Chapter 2. The POWER4 system
Chapter 3. POWER4 system performance and tuning
Chapter 4. Optimizing with the compilers
Chapter 5. General tuning guidelines
Chapter 6. Performance libraries
Chapter 7. Parallel programming techniques and performance
Chapter 8. Application performance and throughput