Linux 5.8 Prepped To Make Use Of TPAUSE Instruction With New Intel CPUs

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux 5.8 Prepped To Make Use Of TPAUSE Instruction With New Intel CPUs

TPAUSE is the new instruction supported by Intel's Tremont microarchitecture and beyond. TPAUSE allows for an optimized state that can provide low wake-up latency compared to existing delay mechanisms. With Linux 5.8, the kernel will begin making use of TPAUSE where supported...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-5.8-Intel-TPAUSE

[tildearrow]

Tyypo:

TPAUSE supports modes of low-latency but with less power savings or aanother state for greater power savings

[dwagner]

Can somebody briefly explain why introducing TPAUSE was deemed necessary over just improving the implementation of the PAUSE instruction?

[Viki Ai]

I pause the fool!

[discordian]

Can somebody briefly explain why introducing TPAUSE was deemed necessary over just improving the implementation of the PAUSE instruction?

T-pause is more of an alternative way to control the various C-States (I think there are now atleast 8 of them).
Usually you would need to configure bios to configure max c-state, and somehow need to mess with the cpu/OS to take effect.