Determining Alder Lake N100 performance

[ThomasKaiser]

(Continuing from https://github.com/Googulator/linux-rk3588-midstream/issues/3#issuecomment-1499862807 )

@n2qcn Thanks for providing the test result over at http://ix.io/4sQP

There are a few things I want to ask though:

• the AZW MINI S is limited to DDR4 (SO-)DIMMs right? Is there one or two such sockets?
• Have you looked into dealing with powercap? powercap-info -p intel-rapl should tell the limits

Single-threaded the Gracemont core outperforms an A76 in e.g. RK3588 easily due to 3.4 GHz vs. ~2.4 GHz CPU clock (30% more with stuff like 7-ZIP, similar picture with Geekbench 6 but multi-threaded the N100 is bottlenecked by powercapping. The thermal values suggest that increasing powercap limits isn't enough since then throttling might become an issue.

But I would still love to hear whether with a few tweaks performance can be further improved (with this in mind the obvious move to (LP)DDR5 at 4800 MT/s won't be possible though, right?)

[n2qcn]

the power limit started at 20w, 25w & 78w. Maxing the fan and setting

enabled: 1
Zone 0
  name: package-0
  enabled: 1
  max_energy_range_uj: 262143328850
  energy_uj: 4377656395
  Constraint 0
    name: long_term
    power_limit_uw: 78000000
    time_window_us: 27983872
    max_power_uw: 6000000
  Constraint 1
    name: short_term
    power_limit_uw: 78000000
    time_window_us: 2440
    max_power_uw: 0
  Constraint 2
    name: peak_power
    power_limit_uw: 78000000
    time_window_us: 0
    max_power_uw: 0
  Zone 0:0
    name: core
    enabled: 0
    max_energy_range_uj: 262143328850
    energy_uj: 4191830638
    Constraint 0
      name: long_term
      power_limit_uw: 0
      time_window_us: 976
  Zone 0:1
    name: uncore
    enabled: 0
    max_energy_range_uj: 262143328850
    energy_uj: 375670
    Constraint 0
      name: long_term
      power_limit_uw: 0
      time_window_us: 976

make it cooler http://ix.io/4sUs but not faster

Device / details	Clockspeed	Kernel	Distro	7-zip multi	7-zip single	AES	memcpy	memset	kH/s
Stock MINI S / N100	3400 MHz	6.1	Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS x86_64	14010	4020	1224220	9900	8900	-
Loud MINI S / N100	3400 MHz	6.1	Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS x86_64	14080	4025	1232700	9980	8930	-

Some Alder Lake-N use DDR5, all single channel. Source: https://liliputing.com/intel-introduces-alder-lake-n-series-chips-for-laptops-priced-below-400/

[ThomasKaiser]

Thank you! So we'll have to wait for another N100 thingy with LPDDR5 where adjusting power limits actually works :)

[n2qcn]

N100 with DDR5 http://ix.io/4vxM

Device / details	Clockspeed	Kernel	Distro	7-zip multi	7-zip single	AES	memcpy	memset	kH/s
Stock MINI S / N100	3400 MHz	6.1	Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS x86_64	14010	4020	1224220	9900	8900	-
Loud MINI S / N100	3400 MHz	6.1	Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS x86_64	14080	4025	1232700	9980	8930	-
DDR5 EQ / N100	3400 MHz	6.1	Ubuntu 23.04 x86_64	14150	4073	1232790	11600	12270	36.24