Why is benchmarking complicated?

• anything has to be documented
• Reduce influences
• anything has to be controlled
• How to make your benchmark reproducable?

Benchmark Impact Factors

Hardware

• CPU: type, name, model, frequencies, CoD/SNCm…
• Memory
• Vendors
• IO subsystem
• pinning

Software

• OS
  • relevant OS settings (numa_balancing)
  • Environment Variables
• Compiler
• Version with all options specified
• Libraries
• Version / DL source (original, patched)
• Bios settings

How to obtain Information

• likwid-topology
• likwid-powermeter
• likwid-setFrequencies

Benchmark preparation

• Reliable timer/timing granularity
• if possible: Establish a (basic) performance model (roofline, ECM, …)
• get some reference numbers to decide if your results are reasonable
  • micro benchmarks: likwid-bench
  • documentation of the hardware vendor

Good Performance Metrics

• simple performance metric: time to solution, 1/walltime

Let’s do it!

…

Why does my runtime vary?

• no/wrong task placement (-> pinning)
  • eliminate performance variation
  • making use of architectural features
  • avoid resource contention
  • likwid-pin, numactl, sched.h, taskset, OPENMP/MPI-specific settings
• Did you set the correct thread count?
• Too short runtime
  • depends on the workingset size
  • should be atleast a second
  • timer granularity problems
  • too few repetition