Home > Workload Solutions > Oracle > Best Practices > AMD-Based Oracle Best Practices on Dell PowerEdge R740 and PowerMax 2000 > CPU Best Practices > Day Three Best Practices > PowerEdge: System Profile set to Performance
The System Profile in BIOS enables the administrator to easily change a group of settings that define how the server is configured. In this best practice, we will explore changing the System Profile setting to optimize the server for database performance.
Category | Performance |
Product | PowerEdge R7525 |
Type of best practice | Performance Optimization |
Day and value | Day 3, Fine Tuning |
Overview
The System Profile setting will pre-set BIOS options according to the selected profile. By default, the System Profile is set to Performance per Watt (OS). The System Profile enables BIOS to balance energy consumption while still meeting performance demands of the server. While Performance per Watt profile is an ideal configuration for many workloads, databases will benefit from a profile that emphasizes greater performance.
The Performance System Profile setting sets CPU Power Management to Maximum Performance and allows the BIOS to program the processor for maximum performance. The table below contrasts the default profile of Performance per Watt and the Performance profile.
Table 1: System Profile Settings
Profile Settings | Performance Per Watt Optimized (OS) | Performance |
CPU Power Management | OS DBPM | Maximum Performance |
Memory Frequency | Maximum Performance | Maximum Performance |
Turbo Boost | Enabled | Enabled |
C States | Enabled | Disabled |
Monitor/Mwait | Enabled | Enabled |
Memory Patrol Scrub | Standard | Standard |
Memory Refresh Rate | 1x | 1x |
Memory Operating Voltage | Auto | Auto |
Collaborative CPU Performance Control | Disabled | Disabled |
Recommendation
Changing the System Profile to Performance slightly improved performance in these metrics:
The setting below remained the same:
The two TPC-C metrics of NOPM and TPM showed slight increases in performance. PowerMax IOPS also increased.
DB CPU time is a metric that indicates the amount of time the database used on non-idle wait events and server processes. As our tests run for a fixed amount of time any increase in DB CPU time indicates that the database was able to process more instructions thus, showing a performance improvement. In this best practice test DB CPU time did slightly increase.
Although the change in the System Profile setting to Performance only produced slight performance gains, this best practice will show value over time.
Implementation steps
Use the following steps to view/update the system profile.
Additional Resources
Dell Support has BIOS settings for the AMD based servers like the PowerEdge R7525