Measure memory transfer rates to/from global device memory on GPUs. This benchmark is similar in spirit, and based on, the STREAM benchmark [1] for CPUs.

Unlike other GPU memory bandwidth benchmarks this does not include the PCIe transfer time.

There are multiple implementations of this benchmark in a variety of programming models. Currently implemented are:

• OpenCL
• CUDA
• OpenACC
• OpenMP 3 and 4.5
• Kokkos
• RAJA
• SYCL

This code was previously called GPU-STREAM.

uob-hpc.github.io/BabelStream/

Drivers, compiler and software applicable to whichever implementation you would like to build against is required.

We have supplied a series of Makefiles, one for each programming model, to assist with building. The Makefiles contain common build options, and should be simple to customise for your needs too.

General usage is make -f <Model>.make Common compiler flags and names can be set by passing a COMPILER option to Make, e.g. make COMPILER=GNU. Some models allow specifying a CPU or GPU style target, and this can be set by passing a TARGET option to Make, e.g. make TARGET=GPU.

Pass in extra flags via the EXTRA_FLAGS option.

The binaries are named in the form <model>-stream.

We use the following command to build Kokkos using the Intel Compiler, specifying the arch appropriately, e.g. KNL.

../generate_makefile.bash --prefix=<prefix> --with-openmp --with-pthread --arch=<arch> --compiler=icpc --cxxflags=-DKOKKOS_MEMORY_ALIGNMENT=2097152

For building with CUDA support, we use the following command, specifying the arch appropriately, e.g. Kepler35.

../generate_makefile.bash --prefix=<prefix> --with-cuda --with-openmp --with-pthread --arch=<arch> --with-cuda-options=enable_lambda --compiler=<path_to_kokkos_src>/bin/nvcc_wrapper

We use the following command to build RAJA using the Intel Compiler.

cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<prefix> -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=icc -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=icpc -DRAJA_PTR="RAJA_USE_RESTRICT_ALIGNED_PTR" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=ICCBuild -DRAJA_ENABLE_TESTS=Off

For building with CUDA support, we use the following command.

cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<prefix> -DRAJA_PTR="RAJA_USE_RESTRICT_ALIGNED_PTR" -DRAJA_ENABLE_CUDA=1 -DRAJA_ENABLE_TESTS=Off

Sample results can be found in the results subdirectory. If you would like to submit updated results, please submit a Pull Request.

Please cite BabelStream via this reference:

Deakin T, Price J, Martineau M, McIntosh-Smith S. GPU-STREAM v2.0: Benchmarking the achievable memory bandwidth of many-core processors across diverse parallel programming models. 2016. Paper presented at P^3MA Workshop at ISC High Performance, Frankfurt, Germany.

Other BabelStream publications:

Deakin T, McIntosh-Smith S. GPU-STREAM: Benchmarking the achievable memory bandwidth of Graphics Processing Units. 2015. Poster session presented at IEEE/ACM SuperComputing, Austin, United States. You can view the Poster and Extended Abstract.

Deakin T, Price J, Martineau M, McIntosh-Smith S. GPU-STREAM: Now in 2D!. 2016. Poster session presented at IEEE/ACM SuperComputing, Salt Lake City, United States. You can view the Poster and Extended Abstract.

Raman K, Deakin T, Price J, McIntosh-Smith S. Improving achieved memory bandwidth from C++ codes on Intel Xeon Phi Processor (Knights Landing). IXPUG Spring Meeting, Cambridge, UK, 2017.

Deakin T, Price J, Martineau M, McIntosh-Smith S. Evaluating attainable memory bandwidth of parallel programming models via BabelStream. International Journal of Computational Science and Engineering. Special issue (in press). 2017.

Deakin T, Price J, McIntosh-Smith S. Portable methods for measuring cache hierarchy performance. 2017. Poster sessions presented at IEEE/ACM SuperComputing, Denver, United States. You can view the Poster and Extended Abstract

[1]: McCalpin, John D., 1995: "Memory Bandwidth and Machine Balance in Current High Performance Computers", IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Computer Architecture (TCCA) Newsletter, December 1995.