Roofline Performance Model Analysis

Interactive exploration of the Roofline Performance Model for understanding computational performance bounds and the relationship between memory bandwidth and computational throughput across different architectures.

How to Use This Simulator

Understanding the Roofline:

  • Diagonal Lines (Dashed): Memory bandwidth limits - performance scales with operational intensity
  • Horizontal Lines (Solid): Peak compute limits - performance ceiling regardless of operational intensity
  • Ridge Point: Intersection where memory and compute bounds meet
  • Application Points: Real application performance plotted against theoretical bounds

Instructions:

  1. Load predefined architecture configurations (Apple Silicon, Intel Xeon, NVIDIA GPU)
  2. Add custom memory bandwidth specifications
  3. Define peak compute capabilities for different processing units
  4. Plot application performance points by clicking on the chart
  5. Analyze whether applications are memory-bound or compute-bound
  6. Develop optimization strategies based on bottleneck identification

Quick Architecture Configurations

Roofline Performance Chart

Click on the chart to add application performance points

Chart Controls

Min OI

Max OI

Min Performance

Max Performance

Memory Bandwidth

Peak Compute

Application Points

Performance Analysis

Ridge Point Analysis

Add memory bandwidth and compute capability lines to see ridge point analysis.

Application Analysis

Add application points to see bottleneck analysis.

Legend:

Memory-bound applications: Performance limited by memory bandwidth (left region of chart)

Compute-bound applications: Performance limited by peak compute capability (right region of chart)

Ridge point: Transition point between memory and compute bounds