Multi‐communication layered HPL model and its application to GPU clusters
Young Woo Kim, Myeong‐Hoon Oh, Chan-Yeol Park · ETRI Journal · 2021
High-performance Linpack (HPL) is among the most popular benchmarks for evaluating the capabilities of computing systems and has been used as a standard to compare the performance of computing systems since the early 1980s. In the initial system-design stage, it is critical to estimate the capabilities of a system quickly and accurately. However, the original HPL mathematical model based on a single core and single communication layer yields varying accuracy for modern processors and accelerators comprising large numbers of cores. To reduce the performance-estimation gap between the HPL model and an actual system, we propose a mathematical model for multi-communication layered HPL. The effectiveness of the proposed model is evaluated by applying it to a GPU cluster and well-known systems. The results reveal performance differences of 1.1% on a single GPU. The GPU cluster and well-known large system show 5.5% and 4.1% differences on average, respectively. Compared to the original HPL model, the proposed multi-communication layered HPL model provides performance estimates within a few seconds and a smaller error range from the processor/accelerator level to the large system level.