eva2000
08-14-2003, 04:36 PM
Interesting http://www.cs.virginia.edu/stream/ref.html and http://www.streambench.org/
The STREAM Benchmark is the de facto industry standard benchmark for the measurement of computer memory bandwidth.
The STREAM benchmark measures "real world" bandwidth sustainable from ordinary user programs -- not the theoretical "peak bandwidth" provided by most vendors.
What is STREAM?
The STREAM benchmark is a simple synthetic benchmark program that measures sustainable memory bandwidth (in MB/s) and the corresponding computation rate for simple vector kernels.
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Why should I care?
Computer cpus are getting faster much more quickly than computer memory systems. As this progresses, more and more programs will be limited in performance by the memory bandwidth of the system, rather than by the computational performance of the cpu.
As an extreme example, several current high-end machines run simple arithmetic kernels for out-of-cache operands at 4-5% of their rated peak speeds --- that means that they are spending 95-96% of their time idle and waiting for cache misses to be satisfied.
The STREAM benchmark is specifically designed to work with datasets much larger than the available cache on any given system, so that the results are (presumably) more indicative of the performance of very large, vector style applications.
How Do I Run STREAM?
STREAM is relatively easy to run, though there are bazillions of variations in operating systems and hardware, so it is hard to be comprehensive.
There are a couple of systems with precompiled binaries:
PC's running DOS - zipped binary package (ftp://ftp.cs.virginia.edu/pub/stream/Contrib/streamd2.zip)
PC's running Windows95/98/NT - use this binary (ftp://ftp.cs.virginia.edu/pub/stream/Contrib/MasonCabot/win32/wstream.exe)
PC's running Linux - use this binary (ftp://ftp.cs.virginia.edu/pub/stream/Contrib/MasonCabot/linux/stream_l)
Power Mac systems - grab this set of binaries (ftp://ftp.cs.virginia.edu/pub/stream/Contrib/STREAM.sea.hqx)
If there is not a precompiled binary, then you have to compile the code
Seems no WinXP ?
PC Results table
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/stream/peecee/Bandwidth.html
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/stream/peecee/Balance.html
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/stream/peecee/MFLOPS.html
Haven't tried running it yet.. worth a shot ?
More on Stream http://www.freebench.org/me/hacks/bandwidth.html
The STREAM Benchmark is the de facto industry standard benchmark for the measurement of computer memory bandwidth.
The STREAM benchmark measures "real world" bandwidth sustainable from ordinary user programs -- not the theoretical "peak bandwidth" provided by most vendors.
What is STREAM?
The STREAM benchmark is a simple synthetic benchmark program that measures sustainable memory bandwidth (in MB/s) and the corresponding computation rate for simple vector kernels.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why should I care?
Computer cpus are getting faster much more quickly than computer memory systems. As this progresses, more and more programs will be limited in performance by the memory bandwidth of the system, rather than by the computational performance of the cpu.
As an extreme example, several current high-end machines run simple arithmetic kernels for out-of-cache operands at 4-5% of their rated peak speeds --- that means that they are spending 95-96% of their time idle and waiting for cache misses to be satisfied.
The STREAM benchmark is specifically designed to work with datasets much larger than the available cache on any given system, so that the results are (presumably) more indicative of the performance of very large, vector style applications.
How Do I Run STREAM?
STREAM is relatively easy to run, though there are bazillions of variations in operating systems and hardware, so it is hard to be comprehensive.
There are a couple of systems with precompiled binaries:
PC's running DOS - zipped binary package (ftp://ftp.cs.virginia.edu/pub/stream/Contrib/streamd2.zip)
PC's running Windows95/98/NT - use this binary (ftp://ftp.cs.virginia.edu/pub/stream/Contrib/MasonCabot/win32/wstream.exe)
PC's running Linux - use this binary (ftp://ftp.cs.virginia.edu/pub/stream/Contrib/MasonCabot/linux/stream_l)
Power Mac systems - grab this set of binaries (ftp://ftp.cs.virginia.edu/pub/stream/Contrib/STREAM.sea.hqx)
If there is not a precompiled binary, then you have to compile the code
Seems no WinXP ?
PC Results table
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/stream/peecee/Bandwidth.html
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/stream/peecee/Balance.html
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/stream/peecee/MFLOPS.html
Haven't tried running it yet.. worth a shot ?
More on Stream http://www.freebench.org/me/hacks/bandwidth.html