Relating Application Memory Activity to Processor Power

In this work we investigate the effects of a workload\´s memory activity and its relation to the application\´s power requirements. We use the term "memory transitions" to refer the number of bits altered when a write occurs as compared to the previous value of the target memory cell(s). Memory transitions require a definite energy and this has been confirmed in this study which shows that there exists a correlation between processor power and the amount of memory transitions. Using real power readings from running benchmarks on an Intel i7-3770 processor and comparing the results to the memory transition footprint shows that for certain applications the correlation between power and memory transitions is more pronounced than the correlation between power and the number of writes.