Intel® Advisor Tutorial: Use the Automated Roofline Chart to Make Optimization Decisions

Tutorial

  • 2021.1
  • 12/04/2020
  • Public Content
Contents

Identify the Real Bottlenecks

This topic is part of a
tutorial
 that shows how to use the automated
Roofline
 chart to make prioritized optimization decisions.
Perform the following steps:
Key take-aways from these steps:
  • The first roofline above a dot position isn't always the bottleneck; any roofline above a dot position could be the culprit
  • Even a roofline below a dot position can be a bottleneck; however, the farther a dot is positioned above a roofline, the less likely that roofline is causing the bottleneck.
  • If the first roofline above a dot position does not make logical sense, investigate the next roofline, and just keep working your way up the
    Roofline
     chart, using common sense, other
    Intel Advisor
     features, and your familiarity with your application to inform your investigation.
  • The
    Roofline
     chart is not a Data-In-Answers-Out utility; however, it puts you in the ballpark and guides you in the right direction to optimize your code.

Open a Result Snapshot

Do one of the following:
  • If you prefer to work in the standalone GUI, from the
    File
     menu, choose
    Open
    Result
     and choose the
    Result3.advixeexpz
     result.
  • If you prefer to work in the Visual Studio* IDE, from the
    File
     menu, choose
    Open
    File
     and choose the
    Result3.advixeexpz
     result.

Focus the Roofline Chart on the Data of Most Interest

  1. Use the display toggles to show the
    Roofline
     chart and
    Survey Report
     side by side.
  2. On the
    Intel Advisor
     toolbar, click the
    Loops And Functions
     filter drop-down and choose
    Loops
    .
    Intel Advisor: Filters
  3. In the
    Roofline
     chart:
    • Select the
      Use Single-Threaded Loops
       checkbox.
    • Click the Intel Advisor: Roofline menu control, then deselect the
      Visibility
       checkbox for all
      SP...
       roofs. (All variables in this sample code are double-precision, so there is no need to clutter the chart with single-precision rooflines.)
      Intel Advisor: Roofline Menu
      In the
      Point Colorization
       section, choose
      Colors of Point Weight Ranges
       to differentiate dot colors by runtime (red, yellow, and green).
      Click Intel Advisor: Control to save your changes.
    • Click the Intel Advisor: Roofline numerical zoom control control. In the x-axis fields, backspace over the existing values and enter 0.05 and 0.7. In the y-axis fields, backspace over the existing values and enter 1.0 and 14.8. Click the Intel Advisor: Save control button to save your changes.

Interpret Roofline Chart Data

Intel Advisor: Roofline Chart
Notice the position of the dot representing the loop at
main
 in
roofline.cpp:138
 (the red dot).
One possible reason for the dot position: The loop is suffering from a memory bandwidth bottleneck, based on the dot position below the
L3 Bandwidth
 roofline.
However, based on our familiarity with the sample code, we know the dataset definitely fits into in L1 cache. So the next
L2 Bandwidth
 roofline does not seem to be the likely culprit either.
Another possible reason for the dot position: The next roofline up is the
Scalar Add Peak
 roofline, so perhaps the loop is suffering from a compute capacity bottleneck.
Using the
Survey Report
, we can quickly verify the loop is scalar (blue loop icon).
What happens if we vectorize the loop but add no memory optimizations? This is exactly what we did. The outcome is the loop in
main
 at
roofline.cpp:151
 (the yellow dot).
Notice the dot representing this loop is positioned above the
Scalar Add Peak
 roofline and closer to the
L1 Bandwidth
 roofline.
This proves the bottleneck was compute capacity, not memory bandwidth.

Product and Performance Information

1

Performance varies by use, configuration and other factors. Learn more at www.Intel.com/PerformanceIndex.