Performance vs. Power and Energy Consumption

Abstract

Reaching a balance between performance and energy consumption has always been a difficult objective to achieve for energy and power-aware applications. The work presented in this paper investigates the impact of using different coding styles to achieve a balance between performance and energy efficiency. The research also studies how different compilers may affect not only the performance of the code but also the energy consumption. The research demonstrates and concludes the process of choosing the right combination of the coding style and compiler, the combination which works best with the nature of the application and the target hardware, is necessary if the balance between performance and energy is a software design goal. The study addresses some experimental aspects of the impact of coding style and choice of the compiler on energy and performance efficiency. It also shows how different coding practices for the same problem could produce different performance and energy consumption rates.