Likwid-bench: An extensible microbenchmarking platform for x86 multicore compute nodes

Abstract

Microbenchmarking is an essential tool for characterizing modern compute nodes. Apart from determining raw performance capabilities microbenchmarking can be used to aquire input parameters for performance models or mimic the behavior of more complex applications. Many existing microbenchmarks are not extensible and implemented in C or Fortran. One problem with microbenchmarks in a high level language is that many performance issues are only apparent on the instruction level. The code quality of the compiler is an additional source of variation. likwid-bench is a framework enabling rapid prototyping of loop-based, threaded assembly kernels. It eases the process of implementing assembly kernels by providing a portable assembly language independent from any concrete assembler program. likwid-bench already includes many standard microbenchmarking testcases and can be used out of the box as a microbenchmarking tool. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012.