Independent clocking of Phenom cores w/o Windows

[calyth]

I know there's a big lot of you who think that I would be crazy to consider the Phenom, but I actually have a good reason for it. If you're going to tell me to get a C2Q, well you're not helpful.

Phenom currently is the only CPU that can independently clock the cores, and I may possibly need to tinker with it on Linux. By clocking the cores differently, I would be able to create a hetereogenous system - where the cores perform differently. I don't know any way to get a machine with a bunch of slow cores and a few complex cores, so this is the closest I can get.

However, I need to be able to set the clocks peed - so far I only know that AOD would work. But AOD would be Windows only, and Windows has no use for what I want to do. I don't have access to the source, and therefore I can't do the research that I would like to do. I want to be able to tinker with the scheduler. So unless AOD's settings persists after a reboot, then AOD's out.

So does anyone know if any of the 790FX or 770 boards out there that has independent clock speed adjustments in the BIOS. If you know it does, please let me know. Also, if you know that I could convince the cores to clock different using Cool'n'Quiet in Linux, please let me know.

Thanks in advance.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

sorry i dunno but i didn't even know that the phenom can individually change core clock speeds

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: calyth
I know there's a big lot of you who think that I would be crazy to consider the Phenom, but I actually have a good reason for it. If you're going to tell me to get a C2Q, well you're not helpful.

Phenom currently is the only CPU that can independently clock the cores, and I may possibly need to tinker with it on Linux. By clocking the cores differently, I would be able to create a hetereogenous system - where the cores perform differently. I don't know any way to get a machine with a bunch of slow cores and a few complex cores, so this is the closest I can get.

However, I need to be able to set the clocks peed - so far I only know that AOD would work. But AOD would be Windows only, and Windows has no use for what I want to do. I don't have access to the source, and therefore I can't do the research that I would like to do. I want to be able to tinker with the scheduler. So unless AOD's settings persists after a reboot, then AOD's out.

So does anyone know if any of the 790FX or 770 boards out there that has independent clock speed adjustments in the BIOS. If you know it does, please let me know. Also, if you know that I could convince the cores to clock different using Cool'n'Quiet in Linux, please let me know.

Thanks in advance.

1) If you can get your hands on a dual-socket motherboard (for AMD CPUs, not for Intel CPUs, so socket A or socket 1207), I believe you can mix CPU speeds.
2) Take a look at the Family 10h BIOS and Kernel Developer's Guide. It probably documents how to get the processor to do what you want. Section 2.4.2 looks promising. It's pretty easy to write a kernel module that writes to MSRs... you could disable the powernow-k8 driver so it doesn't interfere with your settings. edit: You could also hack up the powernow-k8 driver and change how it behaves.