Subject: Re: [PATCH net-next] tcp: try to defer / return acked skbs to originating CPU

From: Jakub Kicinski <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2026 09:10:10 -0800

On Sat, 17 Jan 2026 08:42:55 -0800 Jakub Kicinski wrote:
> Running a memcache-like workload under production(ish) load
> on a 300 thread AMD machine we see ~3% of CPU time spent
> in kmem_cache_free() via tcp_ack(), freeing skbs from rtx queue.
> This workloads pins workers away from softirq CPU so
> the Tx skbs are pretty much always allocated on a different
> CPU than where the ACKs arrive. Try to use the defer skb free
> queue to return the skbs back to where they came from.
> This results in a ~4% performance improvement for the workload.

In the interest of full transparency the performance testing was
done on a 6.13-ish kernel. But I don't see anything that'd make
the situation better upstream..