A Generic Methodology to Derive Empirical Power Consumption Prediction Models for Multi-Core Processors

With the emergence of multi-core processors and their P-states, deriving power consumption models expressed in terms of easily extractable parameters becomes a necessity. In this paper, we introduce a generic methodology to devise power consumption estimation models for multi-core processors. The proposed approach takes into account three metrics: The number of active cores (i.e. executing instructions), frequency and utilization rate of the processor. Consequently, the derived models are expressed in terms of the above-mentioned parameters which can be extracted by any monitoring system. In order to assess the correctness as well as the accuracy of the proposed methodology, an experimental analysis is performed on Intel quad- and hexa-core processors. The results confirm the exactitude of the proposed methodology.