25112 Rev. 3.06 September 2005

Software Optimization Guide for AMD64 Processors

5.8Write-combining

Optimization

Operating-system, device-driver, and BIOS programmers should take advantage of the write- combining capabilities of the AMD Athlon 64 and AMD Opteron processors.

For details, see Appendix B, “Implementation of Write-Combining.”For more information on write- combining, see “Write-Combining” in Volume 2 of the AMD64 Architecture Programmer’s Manual

(order no. 24593).

Application

This optimization applies to:

32-bit software

64-bit software

Rationale

In order to improve system performance, the AMD Athlon 64 and AMD Opteron processors aggressively combine multiple memory-write cycles (of any data size) that address locations within a 64-byte cache-line-aligned write buffer.

Chapter 5

Cache and Memory Optimizations

113

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AMD 250 manual Write-combining, 113