benchmarking R installations

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 It's quite outdated and doesn't work with the current R versions,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

   >>