Organizational Unit:
School of Computational Science and Engineering
School of Computational Science and Engineering
2012-08-24
,
Vuduc, Richard
When designing an algorithm or performance-tuning code, is time-efficiency (e.g., operations per second) the same as energy-efficiency (e.g., operations per Joule)? Why or why not? To answer these questions, we posit a simple strawman model of the energy to execute an algorithm. Our model is the energy-based analogue of the time-based "roofline" model of Williams, Patterson, and Waterman (Comm. ACM, 2009). What do these models imply for algorithm design? What might computer architects tell algorithm designers to help them better understand whether and how algorithm design should change in an energy-constrained computing environment?