Code modernization means ensuring that an application makes full use of the performance potential of the underlying processors. And that means implementing vectorization, threading, memory caching, and fast algorithms wherever possible. But where do you begin? How do you take your complex, industrial-strength application code to the next performance level?
Performance Insights Using the Intel Advisor Python API
March 1, 2018 by
Tuning a complex application for today’s heterogeneous platforms requires an understanding of the application itself as well as familiarity with tools that are available for assisting with analyzing where in the code itself to look for bottlenecks. The process for optimizing the performance of an application, in general, requires the following steps that are most likely applicable for a wide range of applications.
Vectorization Now More Important Than Ever
February 8, 2018 by
Vectorization, the hardware optimization technique synonymous with early vector supercomputers like the Cray-1 (1975), has reappeared with even greater importance than before. Today, 40+ years later, the AVX-512 vector instructions in the most recent many-core Intel Xeon and Intel® Xeon PhiTM processors can increase application performance by 16x for single-precision codes.
A New Way to Visualize Performance Optimization Tradeoffs
November 30, 2017 by
A valuable feature of Intel Advisor is its Roofline Analysis Chart, which provides an intuitive and powerful visualization of actual performance measured against hardware-imposed performance ceilings. Intel Advisor’s vector parallelism optimization analysis and memory-versus-compute roofline analysis, working together, offer a powerful tool for visualizing an application’s complete current and potential performance profile on a given platform.
Intel Parallel Studio XE 2018 Released
September 14, 2017 by
Intel has announced the release of Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2018, with updated compilers and developer tools. It is now available for downloading on a 30-day trial basis. ” This week’s formal release of the fully supported product is notable with new features that further enhance the toolset for accelerating HPC applications.”
More Than Ever, Vectorization and Multithreading are Essential for Performance
August 17, 2017 by
Employing a hybrid of MPI across nodes in a cluster, multithreading with OpenMP* on each node, and vectorization of loops within each thread results in multiple performance gains. In fact, most application codes will run slower on the latest supercomputers if they run purely sequentially. This means that adding multithreading and vectorization to applications is now essential for running efficiently on the latest architectures.
Intel Advisor Roofline Analysis Finds New Opportunities for Optimizing Application Performance
April 27, 2017 by
Intel Advisor, an integral part of Intel Parallel Studio XE 2017, can help identify portions of code that could be good candidates for parallelization (both vectorization and threading). It can also help determine when it might not be appropriate to parallelize a section of code, depending on the platform, processor, and configuration it’s running on. Intel Advisor Roofline Analysis reveals the gap between an application’s performance and its expected performance.
