The effect of compiler optimizations on Pentium 4 power consumption

This paper examines the effect of compiler optimizations on the energy usage and power consumption of the Intel Pentium 4 processor. We measure the effects of different levels of general optimization and specific optimization. We classify general optimizations as those compiler flags which enable a set of compiler optimizations. Specific optimizations are those which can be enabled and disabled individually. The three specific optimizations we study are loop unrolling, loop vectorization, and function inlining. The binaries used in this study are generated using the Intel C++ compiler, which allows fine-grained control over each of these specific optimizations.