Performance and Energy Assessment of a Lattice Boltzmann Method Based Application on the Skylake Processor

• Main Authors: Ivan Girotto, Sebastiano Fabio Schifano, Enrico Calore, Gianluca Di Staso, Federico Toschi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-05-01
• Series: Computation
• Subjects: lattice boltzmann method; KNL; skylake; flat mode; energy efficiency; computational performances
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-3197/8/2/44

This paper presents the performance analysis for both the computing performance and the energy efficiency of a Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) based application, used to simulate three-dimensional multicomponent turbulent systems on massively parallel architectures for high-performance computing. Extending results reported in previous works, the analysis is meant to demonstrate the impact of using optimized data layouts designed for LBM based applications on high-end computer platforms. A particular focus is given to the Intel Skylake processor and to compare the target architecture with other models of the Intel processor family. We introduce the main motivations of the presented work as well as the relevance of its scientific application. We analyse the measured performances of the implemented data layouts on the Skylake processor while scaling the number of threads per socket. We compare the results obtained on several CPU generations of the Intel processor family and we make an analysis of energy efficiency on the Skylake processor compared with the Intel Xeon Phi processor, finally adding our interpretation of the presented results.