From maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch  Wed Jun  4 01:04:26 2008
From: maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch (Martin Maechler)
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2008 01:04:26 +0200
Subject: [Rd] benchmarking R installations
In-Reply-To: <339D6E60-D926-4351-93DB-1E7C7D366800@r-project.org>
References: <6b93d1830806022056o274e97c3i8d954748e17f6a81@mail.gmail.com>
	<20080603095219.G53049@xs7.xs4all.nl>
	<339D6E60-D926-4351-93DB-1E7C7D366800@r-project.org>
Message-ID: <18501.52730.350059.509071@cmath-5.math.ethz.ch>

>>>>> "SU" == Simon Urbanek <simon.urbanek at r-project.org>
>>>>>     on Tue, 3 Jun 2008 11:52:14 -0400 writes:

    SU> On Jun 3, 2008, at 3:58 AM, Ludo Pagie wrote:

    >> recently there was a post on R-help/Rd ?? with this link
    >> on benchmarking different 'number crunching
    >> packages'. They used a series of tests, although I didn't
    >> check they used all the types you mentioned. I couldn't
    >> find test code at first glance but myyebe it is available
    >> on request???
    >> 
    >> http://www.sciviews.org/benchmark/
    >> 

    SU> It's quite outdated and doesn't work with the current R versions, 

Yes, that was the topic of the recent R-help post mentioned
above.  And because of that I did post an updated version back to the
list.
Here's the posting, as found on http://search.r-project.org :
    http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/R/Rhelp02a/archive/130270.html
and the R script here
   https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/attachments/20080514/0ccea72b/attachment.pl

    SU> but I have an updated version that works. I have put some
    SU> benchmarks I'm aware of at

    SU> http://r.research.att.com/benchmarks/

That's cool!  Thanks, Simon!
Martin

    >> On Mon, 2 Jun 2008, Mark Kimpel wrote:
    >> 
    >>> Recently I posted to this list with a question about
    >>> using the Intel 10.1 compilers in building R and one
    >>> response was basically, "why in the heck would you want
    >>> to do that?" The answer is that my sysadmin believes
    >>> that there will be a performance boost with the Intel
    >>> vs. Gnu compilers on our Linux cluster, of which I am
    >>> one of many users. Wanting to be a good citizen and use
    >>> my machine time wisely, I'd of course like to use right
    >>> tool to build the most efficient installation of R and
    >>> associated packages.  BTW, we got R to compile nicely
    >>> using the settings at the end of this post.
    >>> 
    >>> Looking back on previous posts, however, it seems that
    >>> there is no consensus as to how to benchmark R. I
    >>> realize such a task is not trivial, nor controversial,
    >>> but does anyone have a set of time-consuming tasks that
    >>> can be used to compare R installations? It would seem
    >>> logical that such a benchmark would include
    >>> sub-benchmarks on file access, interpreted intensive
    >>> tasks, C intensive tasks, BLAS intensive tasks, etc. You
    >>> developers know more about this than I do, but I know
    >>> enough to realize that there won't be one simple
    >>> answer. Nevertheless, I'd like to make my usage
    >>> decisions on something rather than anedotal claims.
    >>> 
    >>> So, does anyone know of a good benchmarking script or
    >>> would be willing to contribute one?
    >>> 
    >>> And here are the settings we used to compile R with
    >>> Intel 10.1 compilers:
    >>> 
    >>> ../configure
    >>> --prefix=/N/u/mkimpel/R_HOME/R-patched/R-build \
    >>> --with-system-zlib=/usr/lib64
    >>> --with-system-bzlib=/usr/lib64 \
    >>> --with-mpi=/N/soft/linux-rhel4-x86_64/openmpi/1.2.5/intel-64
    >>> --with- tcltk \
    >>> --with-tcl-config=/N/soft/linux-rhel4-x86_64/tcl8.4.16/lib64/
    >>> tclConfig.sh \
    >>> --with-tk-config=/N/soft/linux-rhel4-x86_64/tk8.4.16/lib64/
    >>> tkConfig.sh \ --without-x --without-readline
    >>> --without-iconv \
    >>> CC="/N/soft/linux-rhel4-x86_64/intel/cce/10.1.013/bin/icc"
    >>> \ CFLAGS="-O3 -no-prec-div -unroll" \
    >>> F77="/N/soft/linux-rhel4-x86_64/intel/fce/10.1.013/bin/ifort"
    >>> \ FFLAGS="-O3 -no-prec-div -unroll" \
    >>> CXX="/N/soft/linux-rhel4-x86_64/intel/cce/10.1.013/bin/icpc"
    >>> \ CXXFLAGS="-O3 -no-prec-div -unroll" \
    >>> FC="/N/soft/linux-rhel4-x86_64/intel/fce/10.1.013/bin/ifort"
    >>> \ FCFLAGS="-O3 -no-prec-div -unroll" \
    >>> OBJC="/N/soft/linux-rhel4-x86_64/intel/cce/10.1.013/bin/icc"
    >>> \ OBJCFLAGS="-O3 -no-prec-div -unroll" \
    >>> --disable-R-profiling --disable-memory-profiling
    >>> ##
    >>> make all make install
    >>> 
    >>> Mark
    >>> 
    >>> -- 
    >>> Mark W. Kimpel MD ** Neuroinformatics ** Dept. of
    >>> Psychiatry Indiana University School of Medicine
    >>> 
    >>> 15032 Hunter Court, Westfield, IN 46074
    >>> 
    >>> (317) 490-5129 Work, & Mobile & VoiceMail (317) 663-0513
    >>> Home (no voice mail please)
    >>> 
    >>> ******************************************************************
    >>> 
    >>> [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
    >>> 
    >>> ______________________________________________
    >>> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
    >>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
    >>> 
    >> 
> ______________________________________________
    >> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
    >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
    >> 
    >> 

______________________________________________
    SU> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
    SU> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel



[Rd] benchmarking R installations
Martin Maechler