Intel 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developers Manual Volume 3B, System Programming Guide Part 2

Table Of Contents
A-32 Vol. 3
PERFORMANCE-MONITORING EVENTS
E6H 01H BACLEAR.CLEAR Counts the number of times the
front end is resteered, mainly when
the Branch Prediction Unit cannot
provide a correct prediction and this
is corrected by the Branch Address
Calculator at the front end. This can
occur if the code has many
branches such that they cannot be
consumed by the BPU. Each
BACLEAR asserted by the BAC
generates approximately an 8 cycle
bubble in the instruction fetch
pipeline. The effect on total
execution time depends on the
surrounding code.
E6H 02H BACLEAR.BAD_TARG
ET
Counts number of Branch Address
Calculator clears (BACLEAR)
asserted due to conditional branch
instructions in which there was a
target hit but the direction was
wrong. Each BACLEAR asserted by
the BAC generates approximately
an 8 cycle bubble in the instruction
fetch pipeline.
E8H 01H BPU_CLEARS.EARLY Counts early (normal) Branch
Prediction Unit clears: BPU
predicted a taken branch after
incorrectly assuming that it was not
taken.
The BPU clear
leads to 2 cycle
bubble in the
Front End.
E8H 02H BPU_CLEARS.LATE Counts late Branch Prediction Unit
clears due to Most Recently Used
conflicts. The PBU clear leads to a
3 cycle bubble in the Front End.
E8H 03H BPU_CLEARS.ANY Counts all BPU clears.
F0H 01H L2_TRANSACTIONS.L
OAD
Counts L2 load operations due to
HW prefetch or demand loads.
F0H 02H L2_TRANSACTIONS.
RFO
Counts L2 RFO operations due to
HW prefetch or demand RFOs.
Table A-2. Non-Architectural Performance Events In the Processor Core for Intel Core
i7 Processors
Event
Num.
Umask
Value
Event Mask
Mnemonic Description Comment