I recently bought a MinisForum UM450XT to be used as my homeserver. The version i bought has got a Ryzen 7 4800H as the cpu. This CPU is very powerfull but will use up-to 45watt of power. As this machine is 24/7/365 running, making it run as efficiently as possible makes sense. When nobody is at home or during the night the system can be throttled without anybody noticing. After i installed everything i measured around 19watt when running idle (with a few VMs and LXCs). Not too bad, but i wanted to see if i could reduce it anyway.
I started out with using the Proxmox VE CPU Scaling Governor script from TTeck to select the Powersave-profile. This did work, but kept the system running idle at 15watt.
In the BIOS i noticed an option with which the CPU TDP can be selected. The system came configured with a TDP of 45watt. I selected a TDP of 15watt which resulted in a lowering the idle usage to around 8watts. Selecting this TDP of course seriously capped the power/speed of the CPU.
I did try to run powertop a few times, but don´t seem to understand how to actually use it. I'll look into it at a later time.
I came across RyzenAdj which allowed for doing the same as the BIOS setting, but then on-the-fly.
I had to compile the application on my Proxmox host. The instructions were very clear. My preference would be not to install any additional packages on my Proxmox host. Thus i created a script to allow me to For which i used this script:
apt install build-essential cmake libpci-dev git
git clone https://github.com/FlyGoat/RyzenAdj.git
cd RyzenAdj
git fetch --prune
git pull
rm -r win32
rm -rf build
mkdir build && cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
make
if [ -d ~/.local/bin ]; then ln -s $PWD/ryzenadj ~/.local/bin/ryzenadj && echo "symlinked to ~/.local/bin/ryzenadj"; fi
if [ -d ~/.bin ]; then ln -s $PWD/ryzenadj ~/.bin/ryzenadj && echo "symlinked to ~/.bin/ryzenadj"; fi
if [ -d /usr/local/bin ]; then ln -s $PWD/ryzenadj /usr/local/bin/ryzenadj && echo "symlinked to /usr/local/bin/ryzenadj"; fi
Running this command would make the system run at a very low power usage CPU TDP of 1watt:
./ryzenadj --stapm-limit=1000 --fast-limit=1000 --slow-limit=1000 --tctl-temp=90 --info --power-saving
Running this command would make the system run at higher power usage with a CPU TDP of 45watt:
./ryzenadj --stapm-limit=45000 --fast-limit=45000 --slow-limit=45000 --tctl-temp=90 --info --max-performance
For comparing the various scenario's i used the built-in benchmark functionality of 7zip. Which i installed with:
apt install -y 7zip
To run a benchmark i used the following command on the Proxmox host via the Shell:
7zz b
The first result i got was:
root@pve:~# 7zz b
7-Zip (z) 22.01 (x64) : Copyright (c) 1999-2022 Igor Pavlov : 2022-07-15
64-bit locale=en_US.UTF-8 Threads:16
Compiler: 12.2.0 GCC 12.2.0
Linux : 6.5.11-4-pve : #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC PMX 6.5.11-4 (2023-11-20T10:19Z) : x86_64
PageSize:4KB THP:madvise hwcap:2 hwcap2:2
AMD Ryzen 7 4800H with Radeon Graphics (860F01)
1T CPU Freq (MHz): 386 388 391 392 391 389 391
8T CPU Freq (MHz): 788% 383 787% 383
RAM size: 15415 MB, # CPU hardware threads: 16
RAM usage: 3559 MB, # Benchmark threads: 16
Compressing | Decompressing
Dict Speed Usage R/U Rating | Speed Usage R/U Rating
KiB/s % MIPS MIPS | KiB/s % MIPS MIPS
22: 6310 1103 557 6139 | 54633 1272 366 4659
23: 5922 1104 546 6035 | 51009 1203 367 4413
24: 5686 1085 563 6114 | 51079 1220 367 4482
25: 5496 1077 582 6275 | 49455 1202 366 4400
---------------------------------- | ------------------------------
Avr: 5854 1092 562 6141 | 51544 1224 367 4488
Tot: 1158 464 5315
root@pve:~# ryzenadj/RyzenAdj/build/ryzenadj --info
CPU Family: Renoir
SMU BIOS Interface Version: 18
Version: v0.14.0
PM Table Version: 370005
| Name | Value | Parameter |
|---------------------|-----------|--------------------|
| STAPM LIMIT | 1.000 | stapm-limit |
| STAPM VALUE | 4.230 | |
| PPT LIMIT FAST | 1.000 | fast-limit |
| PPT VALUE FAST | 4.239 | |
| PPT LIMIT SLOW | 1.000 | slow-limit |
| PPT VALUE SLOW | 3.923 | |
| StapmTimeConst | 275.000 | stapm-time |
| SlowPPTTimeConst | 5.000 | slow-time |
| PPT LIMIT APU | 54.000 | apu-slow-limit |
| PPT VALUE APU | 3.923 | |
| TDC LIMIT VDD | 58.000 | vrm-current |
| TDC VALUE VDD | 0.780 | |
| TDC LIMIT SOC | 15.000 | vrmsoc-current |
| TDC VALUE SOC | 1.292 | |
| EDC LIMIT VDD | 96.000 | vrmmax-current |
| EDC VALUE VDD | 7.501 | |
| EDC LIMIT SOC | 20.000 | vrmsocmax-current |
| EDC VALUE SOC | 0.000 | |
| THM LIMIT CORE | 90.000 | tctl-temp |
| THM VALUE CORE | 29.657 | |
| STT LIMIT APU | 0.000 | apu-skin-temp |
| STT VALUE APU | 0.000 | |
| STT LIMIT dGPU | 0.000 | dgpu-skin-temp |
| STT VALUE dGPU | 0.000 | |
| CCLK Boost SETPOINT | 95.000 | power-saving / |
| CCLK BUSY VALUE | 99.615 | max-performance |
Retrieving the Scaling Governor with:
cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_governor
| Scaling governor | Idle watt | Benchmarking | stapm-limit | fast-limit | slow-limit | threads | 8T MHZ | AVG Compressing MIPS | AVG Decompressing MIPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ondemand | 9.3w | 10.5w | 45.000 | 45.000 | 100 | 16 | 379 | 6.056 | 4.401 |
| ondemand | 8.7w | 11.0w | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 16 | 380 | 6.001 | 4.380 |
| ondemand | 15.4w | 30.4w | 45.000 | 45.000 | 4.000 | 16 | 378 | 42.954 | 39.411 |
| ondemand | 15.6w | 30.4w | 45.000 | 45.000 | 15.000 | 16 | 3.793 | 42.954 | 39.411 |
| ondemand | 11.6w | 71.1w | 45.000 | 45.000 | 45.000 | 16 | 3.017 | 47.122 | 53.957 |
| powersave | 11.6w | 18.1w | 45.000 | 45.000 | 45.000 | 16 | 1.381 | 23.744 | 18.329 |
| performance | 13.1w | 73.4w | 45.000 | 45.000 | 45.000 | 16 | 4.207 | 49.404 | 55.004 |
With these results i'm not sure what the best settings are. A "slow-limit" below 4000 doesn't have any impact. I´m unable to notice any difference with the "stapm-limit" and "fast-limit" parameters. In the table of "Supported Models" my "Renoir" CPU-model is stated that "stapm-limit" does not do anything.