Kevin Closson's Blog: Platforms, Databases and Storage

Not to be confused with the x86 ISA CPUID instruction (which serialized the CPU by the way), I found a nice little tool for in-depth CPU information called cpuid(1).I’ve snipped a bit of the manpage and pasted it below. The RPM for the cpuid(1) tool can be found here.

Let’s take a quick look at the contrast between what this tool reports and what is generically available if you can /proc/cpuinfo. Once again, I’ll go over to my favorite lab cluster of DL585s fit with Opteron 850s running the PolyServe Database Utility for Oracle. I’ll use more(1) to get one processor worth of information:

$ cat /proc/cpuinfo | more
processor : 0
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 15
model : 33
model name : AMD Opteron ™ Processor 850
stepping : 0
cpu MHz : 1800.005
cache size : 1024 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 0
cpu cores : 2
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse
sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext lm 3dnowext 3dnow pni
bogomips : 3599.35
TLB size : 1088 4K pages
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts fid vid ttp

On the other hand, the cpuid(1) command shows:

$ cpuid | more

CPU 0:
vendor_id = “AuthenticAMD”
version information (1/eax):
processor type = primary processor (0)
family = Intel Pentium 4/Pentium D/Pentium Extreme Edition/Celeron/Xeon/Xeon MP/Itanium2, AMD At
hlon 64/Athlon XP-M/Opteron/Sempron/Turion (15)
model = 0x1 (1)
stepping id = 0x0 (0)
extended family = 0x0 (0)
extended model = 0x2 (2)
(simple synth) = AMD Dual Core Opteron (Italy/Egypt JH-E1), 940-pin, 90nm
miscellaneous (1/ebx):
process local APIC physical ID = 0x0 (0)
cpu count = 0x2 (2)
CLFLUSH line size = 0x8 (8)
brand index = 0x0 (0)
brand id = 0x00 (0): unknown
feature information (1/edx):
x87 FPU on chip = true
virtual-8086 mode enhancement = true
debugging extensions = true
page size extensions = true
time stamp counter = true
RDMSR and WRMSR support = true
physical address extensions = true
machine check exception = true
CMPXCHG8B inst. = true
APIC on chip = true
SYSENTER and SYSEXIT = true
memory type range registers = true
PTE global bit = true
machine check architecture = true
conditional move/compare instruction = true
page attribute table = true
page size extension = true
processor serial number = false
CLFLUSH instruction = true
debug store = false
thermal monitor and clock ctrl = false
MMX Technology = true
FXSAVE/FXRSTOR = true
SSE extensions = true
SSE2 extensions = true
self snoop = false
hyper-threading / multi-core supported = true
therm. monitor = false
IA64 = false
pending break event = false
feature information (1/ecx):
PNI/SSE3: Prescott New Instructions = true
MONITOR/MWAIT = false
CPL-qualified debug store = false
VMX: virtual machine extensions = false
Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology = false
thermal monitor 2 = false
context ID: adaptive or shared L1 data = false
cmpxchg16b available = false
xTPR disable = false
extended processor signature (0x80000001/eax):
generation = AMD Athlon 64/Opteron/Sempron/Turion (15)
model = 0x1 (1)
stepping = 0x0 (0)
(simple synth) = AMD Dual Core Opteron (Italy/Egypt JH-E1), 940-pin, 90nm
extended feature flags (0x80000001/edx):
x87 FPU on chip = true
virtual-8086 mode enhancement = true
debugging extensions = true
page size extensions = true
time stamp counter = true
RDMSR and WRMSR support = true
physical address extensions = true
machine check exception = true
CMPXCHG8B inst. = true
APIC on chip = true
SYSCALL and SYSRET instructions = true
memory type range registers = true
global paging extension = true
machine check architecture = true
conditional move/compare instruction = true
page attribute table = true
page size extension = true
multiprocessing capable = false
no-execute page protection = true
AMD multimedia instruction extensions = true
MMX Technology = true
FXSAVE/FXRSTOR = true
SSE extensions = true
RDTSCP = false
long mode (AA-64) = true
3DNow! instruction extensions = true
3DNow! instructions = true
extended brand id = 0xe86 (3718):
MSB = reserved (0b111010)
NN = 0x6 (6)
AMD feature flags (0x80000001/ecx):
LAHF/SAHF supported in 64-bit mode = false
CMP Legacy = true
SVM: secure virtual machine = false
AltMovCr8 = false
brand = “AMD Opteron ™ Processor 850”
L1 TLB/cache information: 2M/4M pages & L1 TLB (0x80000005/eax):
instruction # entries = 0x8 (8)
instruction associativity = 0xff (255)
data # entries = 0x8 (8)
data associativity = 0xff (255)
L1 TLB/cache information: 4K pages & L1 TLB (0x80000005/ebx):
instruction # entries = 0x20 (32)
instruction associativity = 0xff (255)
data # entries = 0x20 (32)
data associativity = 0xff (255)
L1 data cache information (0x80000005/ecx):
line size (bytes) = 0x40 (64)
lines per tag = 0x1 (1)
associativity = 0x2 (2)
size (Kb) = 0x40 (64)
L1 instruction cache information (0x80000005/ecx):
line size (bytes) = 0x40 (64)
lines per tag = 0x1 (1)
associativity = 0x2 (2)
size (Kb) = 0x40 (64)
L2 TLB/cache information: 2M/4M pages & L2 TLB (0x80000006/eax):
instruction # entries = 0x0 (0)
instruction associativity = L2 off (0)
data # entries = 0x0 (0)
data associativity = L2 off (0)
L2 TLB/cache information: 4K pages & L2 TLB (0x80000006/ebx):
instruction # entries = 0x200 (512)
instruction associativity = 4-way (4)
data # entries = 0x200 (512)
data associativity = 4-way (4)
L2 unified cache information (0x80000006/ecx):
line size (bytes) = 0x40 (64)
lines per tag = 0x1 (1)
associativity = 16-way (8)
size (Kb) = 0x400 (1024)
Advanced Power Management Features (0x80000007/edx):
temperature sensing diode = 0x1 (1)
frequency ID (FID) control = 0x1 (1)
voltage ID (VID) control = 0x1 (1)
thermal trip (TTP) = 0x1 (1)
thermal monitor (TM) = 0x0 (0)
software thermal control (STC) = 0x0 (0)
TscInvariant = 0x0 (0)
Physical Address and Linear Address Size (0x80000008/eax):
maximum physical address = 0x28 (40)
maximum linear address = 0x30 (48)
Logical CPU cores (0x80000008/ecx):
number of logical CPU cores – 1 = 0x1 (1)
ApicIdCoreIdSize = 0x0 (0)
SVM Secure Virtual Machine (0x8000000a/eax):
SvmRev: SVM revision = 0x0 (0)
SVM Secure Virtual Machine (0x8000000a/edx):
LBR virtualization = false
NASID: number of address space identifiers = 0x0 (0):
(multi-processing synth): multi-core (c=2)
(synth) = AMD Dual Core Opteron (Italy/Egypt JH-E1), 940-pin, 90nm Processor 875

And the manpage:

CPUID(1)
NAME

cpuid – Dump CPUID information for each CPU

SYNOPSIS

cpuid [options…]

DESCRIPTION

cpuiddumpsdetailedinformationabouttheCPU(s) gathered from the CPUID instruction, and also determines the exact model of CPU(s) from that information.

It dumps all information available from the CPUID instruction.The exact collectionofinformation availablevariesbetweenmanufacturers and even between different CPUs from a single manufacturer.

The following information is available consistently on all modern CPUs:

vendor_id

version information (1/eax)

miscellaneous (1/ebx)

feature information (1/ecx)