The Scalable Heterogeneous Computing (SHOC) benchmark suite

TLDR

Scalable heterogeneous computing systems combine multiple compute devices and are gaining attention for performance improvement while addressing energy efficiency. The authors aim to provide a fair, open benchmark suite to compare architectural designs and programming systems as such systems become more common. SHOC is a suite of microbenchmarks and application kernels implemented in OpenCL and CUDA that test performance, stability, and system‑wide features of GPU‑ and multi‑core‑based heterogeneous systems.

Abstract

Scalable heterogeneous computing systems, which are composed of a mix of compute devices, such as commodity multicore processors, graphics processors, reconfigurable processors, and others, are gaining attention as one approach to continuing performance improvement while managing the new challenge of energy efficiency. As these systems become more common, it is important to be able to compare and contrast architectural designs and programming systems in a fair and open forum. To this end, we have designed the Scalable HeterOgeneous Computing benchmark suite (SHOC). SHOC's initial focus is on systems containing graphics processing units (GPUs) and multi-core processors, and on the new OpenCL programming standard. SHOC is a spectrum of programs that test the performance and stability of these scalable heterogeneous computing systems. At the lowest level, SHOC uses microbenchmarks to assess architectural features of the system. At higher levels, SHOC uses application kernels to determine system-wide performance including many system features such as intranode and internode communication among devices. SHOC includes benchmark implementations in both OpenCL and CUDA in order to provide a comparison of these programming models.