Intel VTune Tutorial: CPU Architectures

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Intel VTune Tutorial/CPU Architecture
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Tutorial
Title: Intel VTune Tutorial
Provider: HPC.NRW

Contact: tutorials@hpc.nrw
Type: Multi-part video
Topic Area: Performance analysis
License: CC-BY-SA
Syllabus

1. Introduction
2. CPU Architecture
3. Analysis Types
4. Useful Tips

The second tutorial of the Intel VTune series serves as a small interlude, providing some context about CPU architecture concepts. It covers a brief description of the front-end and back-end of a CPU core. These concepts are a necessary basis to understand the language of VTune profiles.

Video

(Slides as pdf)

Quiz

1. How does knowing CPU architecture concepts help with using VTune?

VTunes analysis results are often expressed in these terms
VTune measurements are always presented in a CPU diagram
It is impossible to use VTune without a thorough understanding of CPUs!

2. What part of the CPU is executing instructions?

The Front-end
The Back-end
The Cache

3. What part of the CPU is preparing instructions for the execution?

The Back-end
The Cache
The Front-end

4. How are profile metrics related to the CPU architecture?

All metrics describe how efficiently data is moved from memory to the CPU
Bad results always highlight inefficiencies in computation
Each metric focuses on a different aspect of the architecture

5. What is a "port" in CPU architectures?

A source of data from network connections
A channel to read/write data from memory or use co-processors
CPUs have only a single port, connecting the front-end to the back-end