SPEC Updates PTDaemon Interface to Meet Evolving Industry Requirements

GAINESVILLE, Va., Feb. 22,2024 — The Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) , the trusted global leader in computing benchmarks, today announced it has released a new version of the PTDaemon interface, the software that allows power measurement devices to be incorporated into performance evaluation software. PTDaemon greatly simplifies power and temperature benchmarking with SPEC benchmarks, eliminating the need to understand and adapt to different power analyzer interface protocols and behaviors.

PTDaemon provides a common TCP/IP-based interface that can be integrated into different benchmark harnesses. It runs in the background to offload control of the power analyzer or temperature sensor to a system other than the one under test. Benchmarks using PTDaemon include the SPECpower_ssj 2008, SPECvirt_sc 2013 and SPEC CPU 2017 benchmarks. PTDaemon is also used in the Server Efficiency Rating Tool (SERT) Suite, Chauffeur WDK and benchmarks created by MLCommons and the Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC).

"Given the increasing importance of energy efficiency, achieving a low carbon footprint, and the rapid evolution of cooling technologies, SPEC is focused on continually updating the PTDaemon interface to meet the latest industry requirements for accurate power measurements," said Klaus-Dieter Lange, SPECpower Committee Chair. "We encourage anyone using benchmarks that rely on the PTDaemon Interface to update to the latest version, especially benchmarks with machine learning workloads, which are prone to causing high current crest factors."

The latest version of the PTDaemon Interface includes new support for the ZES LMG600 series of power analyzers. Linux support has also been added for TFA Dostmann and Cleware USB temperature sensors.

Additional enhancements in the PTDaemon interface include:

Multi-channel support for ZES LMG 450/500/600 families
Detection and invalidation of high crest factor current readings for multiple power analyzers
Minor bug fixes for Hioki and Newton's 4th devices
Enhanced handling of Yokogawa WT33x power analyzer accuracy

"An increasingly popular capability of our MLPerf Inference performance benchmark suite is the ability to measure power and energy costs at different levels of ML performance across workloads," said Tejus Raghunath Rajan, co-chair of the MLPerf Power working group at MLCommons, an open engineering consortium. "We built this power measurement capability in partnership with SPEC using the PTDaemon power measurement interface, and we are excited that SPEC is continuing to update the interface to keep pace with the evolving industry, which will enable the creation of more energy-efficient AI algorithms and machine learning systems."

The PTDaemon interface is developed and maintained by the SPECpower Committee, which includes representatives from AMD, Ampere, Dell, HPE, IBM, Intel, IEIT, Microsoft, the University of Würzburg, and veteran benchmark developers Greg Darnell and Hansfried Block.

Available for immediate download

Users of the SPECpower_ssj 2008 benchmark and the SERT suite are encouraged to apply the update using the SPEC updater tool.

About SPEC

SPEC is a non-profit organization that establishes, maintains and endorses standardized benchmarks and tools to evaluate performance for the newest generation of computing systems. Its membership comprises more than 120 leading computer hardware and software vendors, educational institutions, research organizations, and government agencies worldwide.

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Media contact:
Brigit Valencia
360.597.4516
[email protected]

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SPEC®, Chauffeur®, PTDaemon®, SERT®, SPEC CPU®, SPECpower® and SPECvirt_sc® are trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. MLCommons® and MLPerf® are trademarks of MLCommons. All other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners.