Performance and Power Analysis of ATI GPU: A Statistical Approach

Abstract

We present a comprehensive study on the performance and power consumption of a recent ATI GPU. By employing a rigorous statistical model to analyze execution behaviors of representative general-purpose GPU (GPGPU) applications, we conduct insightful investigations on the target GPU architecture. Our results demonstrate that the GPU execution throughput and the power dissipation are dependent on different architectural variables. Furthermore, we design a set of micro-benchmarks to study the power consumption features of different function units on the GPU. Based on those results, we derive instructive principles that can guide the design of power-efficient high performance computing systems.