Add a chapter about common performance recommendations by Vika-F · Pull Request #40 · intel/optimization-zone

Vika-F · 2026-06-30T11:48:08Z

Add information about system configurations that can provide better performance.

CC @napetrov @david-cortes-intel @avolkov-intel @Alexandr-Solovev

david-cortes-intel

Some comments:

Could make it clear that OMP settings related to affinity will not have an effect.
Could provide commands to do all of this programmatically instead of manually listing the core IDs after looking at output.
This advise is not really specific to sklearnex. Maybe could be put as an additional section and then linked from all the relevant articles, like NumPy and scikit-learn.

david-cortes-intel · 2026-06-30T12:14:48Z

+
+To set EPB to Performance mode:
+```
+sudo cpupower set -b 0


It doesn't explain the longevity of the effect from this command. Same for the other CPU settings.

@Vika-F Bumping up comment.

Vika-F · 2026-06-30T15:03:02Z

Could make it clear that OMP settings related to affinity will not have an effect.

Ok, will do.

Could provide commands to do all of this programmatically instead of manually listing the core IDs after looking at output.

You mean, python commands doing the same things like affinity modification?

This advise is not really specific to sklearnex. Maybe could be put as an additional section and then linked from all the relevant articles, like NumPy and scikit-learn.

Yes, I thought about it as well, but was not sure. I will restructure the pages accordingly.

david-cortes-intel · 2026-06-30T15:07:28Z

You mean, python commands doing the same things like affinity modification?

I guess they'd have to be shell commands, otherwise they wouldn't have an effect on an already-launched python process.

Vika-F · 2026-07-01T08:16:33Z

I guess they'd have to be shell commands, otherwise they wouldn't have an effect on an already-launched python process.

I understand the idea, but it will be a multi-line script for sure. Not a single sed .... Will it be Ok? I mean, I do not see similar code in the other chapters.

david-cortes-intel · 2026-07-01T08:20:46Z

I guess they'd have to be shell commands, otherwise they wouldn't have an effect on an already-launched python process.

I understand the idea, but it will be a multi-line script for sure. Not a single sed .... Will it be Ok? I mean, I do not see similar code in the other chapters.

@Vika-F isn't there any built-in numactl command do something like "run only physical cores"?

Vika-F · 2026-07-01T11:36:14Z

@Vika-F isn't there any built-in numactl command do something like "run only physical cores"?

No, there is no such option.

Vika-F · 2026-07-01T11:38:51Z

@david-cortes-intel An example of a script that runs a process only on physical nodes:
run_no_ht.sh

For me it looks too heavy for the page like this. What do you think?

david-cortes-intel · 2026-07-01T11:42:49Z

@david-cortes-intel An example of a script that runs a process only on physical nodes: run_no_ht.sh

For me it looks too heavy for the page like this. What do you think?

@Vika-F How about something in a pipeline (perhaps with awk?) getting the result from lscpu with arguments, filtering, and selecting a column?

david-cortes-intel · 2026-07-02T13:40:15Z

+
+```bash
+export MIN_MHZ=3000
+cpus=$(lscpu -e=cpu,core,maxmhz | tail -n +2 | awk -v min="$MIN_MHZ" '$3 >= min && !seen[$2]++ {printf sep $1; sep=","}')


I think this MIN_MHZ could also be obtained with awk from lscpu -e=cpu,core,maxmhz.

The problem is that there are various SKUs available, i.e. with P-cores only; with P-cores and E-cores; with E-cores and LP E-cores, etc.

Without MIN_MHZ the solution can exclude not LPE, but another type of cores with the lowest frequency.
That's why I decided just to provide the MHz threshold.

david-cortes-intel · 2026-07-03T09:48:38Z

@@ -0,0 +1,133 @@
+This chapter contains information about the practices that lead to better performance of scikit-learn-intelex on Intel CPUs.


Needs title and table of contents.

Copilot

Pull request overview

Adds new documentation aimed at improving scikit-learn-intelex workload performance on Intel CPUs by describing recommended system/CPU configuration and process pinning practices, and links the new chapter from the repo’s main README.

Changes:

Add a new scikit-learn-intelex chapter covering hyper-threading and LPE-core affinity recommendations (Windows/Linux).
Add a shared “common” chapter with OS-level recommendations (EPB/EPP and CPU frequency scaling).
Link the new scikit-learn-intelex chapter from the top-level README.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 3 out of 9 changed files in this pull request and generated 6 comments.

File	Description
`software/scikit-learn-intelex/README.md`	New chapter with HT/LPE detection and affinity guidance for Windows and Linux.
`software/common/README.md`	New common system tuning guidance (EPB/EPP and CPU frequency scaling).
`README.md`	Adds the scikit-learn-intelex chapter to the main table of contents.

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+From the output we can see that 4 logical processors (0, 1, 2, 3) are running on two physical cores (0, 1).
+To run the process on physical cores only, use one of the following commands:
+
+```
+numactl -C 0,2,4-13 python <workload.py>
+```
+or
+```
+taskset -c 0,2,4-13 python <workload.py>
+```


+Run the following command to disable HT and LPE cores on Linux:
+
+```
+numactl -C 0,2,4-11 python <workload.py>
+```


+## Energy Performance Bias (EPB)
+
+Energy Performance Bias (EPB) is an Intel Xeon hardware setting that controls the trade-off between power consumption and processing performance. For the best performance, it is recommended to set it to `0` (Performance mode).
+
+### On Windows
+
+Run the following command in `cmd`:
+
+```
+powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PERFEPP 0
+```
+
+[More info about `powercfg`](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/customize/power-settings/options-for-perf-state-engine-perfenergypreference).
+
+### On Linux
+
+To check the current value of EPB, run:
+```
+sudo cpupower info
+```
+
+To set EPB to Performance mode:
+```
+sudo cpupower set -b 0
+```


adgubrud · 2026-07-10T20:02:29Z

    - [Redis](software/similarity-search/redis/README.md)
  - [Spark](software/spark/README.md)
  - [scikit-learn](software/scikit-learn/README.md)
+  - [scikit-learn-intelex](software/scikit-learn-intelex/README.md)


I propose that this PR is changed to live completely in the Software->Common directory

adgubrud · 2026-07-10T20:04:26Z

@@ -0,0 +1,140 @@
+# Introduction


The contents for the scikit-learn-intelex README don't seem specific to scikit-learn-intelex. I recommend merging this README with the one you created in the "common" directory.

Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 1 out of 7 changed files in this pull request and generated 7 comments.

+# Introduction
+
+Here are the common recommendations about your system configuration that are beneficial for getting maximum performance from the workloads.
+


+
+## Hyper-threading (HT)
+
+Hyper-threading (HT) is Intel's simultaneous multithreading implementation that can improve the parallelization of computations. When HT is enabled, for each processor core that is physically present, the operating system addresses two logical cores and shares the workload between them when possible. In this case, the logical cores located on a single physical core share the same resources. For resource-demanding workloads it is recommended to disable HT either in BIOS settings or by modifying the affinity settings of the process.


+
+The number of physical and logical cores is listed in the bottom right corner of the tab. In case the number of logical cores is greater, HT is enabled:
+
+![alt text](images/cpu-ht.png)


+<img src="images/cpu-cores-indices-ht.png" alt="drawing" style="width:600px;"/>
+
+To disable hyper-threading for a process, the affinity mask in binary format should look like:
+
+<img src="images/cpu-affinity-ht.png" alt="drawing" style="width:600px;"/>


+
+Check the CPU specification on the Intel [products page](https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/overview.html). Here is an example for the Intel® Core™ Ultra 7 165U processor:
+
+![alt text](images/cpu-specifications.png)


+<img src="images/cpu-lpe-cores-indices.png" alt="drawing" style="width:600px;"/>
+
+For the example system above, the recommended affinity mask that disables both hyper-threading and LPE cores is `2BFC`:
+
+<img src="images/cpu-affinity-lpe-cores.png" alt="drawing" style="width:600px;"/>


Co-authored-by: Copilot Autofix powered by AI <175728472+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>

…nto sklex

Vika-F added 4 commits June 26, 2026 04:40

Initial commit

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Vika-F added 3 commits July 1, 2026 05:12

Add common recommendations about system configuration

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Add the commands to switch off the HT programmatically in bash

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Add command sequence for LPE cores

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Vika-F added 2 commits July 22, 2026 03:15

Move the contents of scikit-learn-intelex chapter into software->common

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Vika-F changed the title ~~Add a chapter about scikit-learn-intelex~~ Add a chapter about common performance recommendations Jul 22, 2026

Vika-F and others added 4 commits July 22, 2026 12:46

"mask" -> "CPU list" in Linux HT chapter

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Update the uppermost README.md

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Merge branch 'sklex' of https://github.com/Vika-F/optimization-zone i…

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…nto sklex

Add info about the longevity of EPB/EPP effects

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		@@ -0,0 +1,133 @@
		This chapter contains information about the practices that lead to better performance of scikit-learn-intelex on Intel CPUs.

		# Introduction

		Here are the common recommendations about your system configuration that are beneficial for getting maximum performance from the workloads.


		## Hyper-threading (HT)

		Hyper-threading (HT) is Intel's simultaneous multithreading implementation that can improve the parallelization of computations. When HT is enabled, for each processor core that is physically present, the operating system addresses two logical cores and shares the workload between them when possible. In this case, the logical cores located on a single physical core share the same resources. For resource-demanding workloads it is recommended to disable HT either in BIOS settings or by modifying the affinity settings of the process.


		The number of physical and logical cores is listed in the bottom right corner of the tab. In case the number of logical cores is greater, HT is enabled:

		![alt text](images/cpu-ht.png)


		Check the CPU specification on the Intel [products page](https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/overview.html). Here is an example for the Intel® Core™ Ultra 7 165U processor:

		![alt text](images/cpu-specifications.png)

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