Re: [PATCH] KVM: VMX: Nop emulation of MSR_IA32_POWER_CTL

Sean Christopherson
2019-05-10T17:17:35Z

On Fri, May 10, 2019 at 11:34:41AM +0100, Joao Martins wrote:
> On 5/10/19 10:54 AM, Wanpeng Li wrote:
> > It is weird that we can observe intel_idle driver in the guest
> > executes mwait eax=0x20, and the corresponding pCPU enters C3 on HSW
> > server, however, we can't observe this on SKX/CLX server, it just
> > enters maximal C1.
>
> I assume you refer to the case where you pass the host mwait substates to the
> guests as is, right? Or are you zeroing/filtering out the mwait cpuid leaf EDX
> like my patch (attached in the previous message) suggests?
>
> Interestingly, hints set to 0x20 actually corresponds to C6 on HSW (based on
> intel_idle driver). IIUC From the SDM (see Vol 2B, "MWAIT for Power Management"
> in instruction set reference M-U) the hints register, doesn't necessarily
> guarantee the specified C-state depicted in the hints will be used. The manual
> makes it sound like it is tentative, and implementation-specific condition may
> either ignore it or enter a different one. It appears to be only guaranteed that
> it won't enter a C-{sub,}state deeper than the one depicted.

Yep, section "MWAIT EXTENSIONS FOR ADVANCED POWER MANAGEMENT" is more
explicit on this point:

At CPL=0, system software can specify desired C-state and sub C-state by
using the MWAIT hints register (EAX). Processors will not go to C-state
and sub C-state deeper than what is specified by the hint register.

As for why SKX/CLX only enters C1, AFAICT SKX isn't configured to support
C3, e.g. skx_cstates in drivers/idle/intel_idle.c shows C1, C1E and C6.
A quick search brings up a variety of docs that confirm this. My guess is
that C1E provides better power/performance than C3 for the majority of
server workloads, e.g. C3 doesn't provide enough power savings to justify
its higher latency and TLB flush.